Tupac Shakur

Tupac Shakur (born June 16, 1971, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died September 13, 1996, Las Vegas, Nevada) was an influential American rapper and actor who was one of the leading names in 1990s gangsta rap. With his raw talent and thoughtful lyrics, he frequently addressed social issues in his songs and became an enduring symbol of artistic expression in hip-hop culture. In 1996 Shakur was fatally shot at age 25, and his murder became one of the most high-profile unsolved cases in the United States. In 2023, however, an arrest was made in connection with his death. The trial began in August 2026, and a jury found Duane Keith (“Keffe D”) Davis, a former leader of the Southside Crips, guilty of first-degree murder.

Early life and career

Lesane Crooks was born to Afeni Shakur (née Alice Faye Williams), a member of the Black Panther Party, and she renamed him Tupac Amaru Shakur—after Peruvian revolutionary Túpac Amaru II—when he was a year old. His biological father, Billy Garland, was also a Black Panther, although Shakur had little contact with him until he was an adult. In 1975 Afeni married Mutulu Shakur, an acupuncturist and activist with the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Both Afeni and Mutulu Shakur would have experiences with incarceration related to their activism. Before she gave birth to her son, Afeni was jailed while facing bombing charges in New York City; she was acquitted and released when she was eight months pregnant with her son. Mutulu was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List after an armed robbery by the BLA in New York in 1981. He was arrested in 1986, convicted of racketeering in 1988, and sentenced to 60 years in prison; he died in 2023.

Tupac spent much of his childhood on the move with his family. The ideals of Black nationalism and revolution were deeply ingrained in him at a young age, but his mother became addicted to crack cocaine, and at times the family struggled with homelessness. Shakur found an outlet in acting, appearing in a Harlem production of A Raisin in the Sun when he was about 12. He later told Rolling Stone magazine, “I didn’t like my life, but through acting, I could become somebody else.”

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In 1986 the family settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where Shakur attended the elite Baltimore School for the Arts. He distinguished himself as a student, both creatively and academically, but his family relocated to Marin City, California, before he could graduate. There Shakur took to the streets, selling drugs and becoming involved in the gang culture that would one day provide material for his rap lyrics.

In 1990 he joined Digital Underground, an Oakland-based rap group that had scored a Billboard Top 40 hit with the novelty single “The Humpty Dance.” Shakur performed on two Digital Underground albums in 1991, This Is an EP Release and Sons of the P, before his solo debut, 2Pacalypse Now, later that year.

2Pacalypse Now, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., and first film roles

2Pacalypse Now was a radical break from the dance party sound of Digital Underground, and its tone and content were much closer to the works of Public Enemy and West Coast gangsta rappers N.W.A. Among the social issues addressed in Shakur’s lyrics were teen pregnancy (“Brenda’s Got a Baby”), inner-city solidarity and Black brotherhood (“If My Homie Calls”), and police brutality (“Trapped”). The lack of a clear single on the album limited its radio appeal, but it sold well, especially after U.S. Vice Pres. Dan Quayle criticized the song “Soulja’s Story” (the lyrics for which describe the killing of a police officer) during the 1992 presidential campaign.

That same year Shakur joined the ranks of other rappers-turned-actors, such as Ice Cube and Ice-T, when he was cast in the motion picture Juice, an urban crime drama. The following year he appeared in John Singleton’s Poetic Justice, opposite Janet Jackson, and he released his second album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. The album did not stray far from the activist lyricism of his debut, but singles such as “Holler If Ya Hear Me” and “Keep Ya Head Up” made it much more radio-friendly. The latter song, a slow-tempo track that samples the chorus from the Five Stairsteps’ 1970 single “O-o-h Child,” departed from the often misogynistic views in gangsta rap to feature lyrics that uplift Black women.

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Incarceration, Me Against the World, and All Eyez on Me

Shakur quickly emerged as a spokesperson for his generation—Generation X—alongside Kurt Cobain of the grunge band Nirvana. Whereas Cobain wrote about the hopelessness and alienation of white youth, Shakur spoke to the experiences of Black youth. In interviews, he passionately raised the issues affecting Black communities, discussing poverty, racism, and oppression. In 1994 he told Black Entertainment Television, “I feel like I’m doing God’s work.”

With increased fame and success came greater scrutiny of Shakur’s gangsta lifestyle. He also became embroiled in an ongoing rivalry between the East Coast and West Coast rap communities. In November 1994 Shakur was shot five times, and he was convinced that East Coast rappers Sean “Puffy” Combs and The Notorious B.I.G. were involved (which they denied). A string of arrests culminated with Shakur’s conviction for sexual abuse in 1994; he was incarcerated when his third album, Me Against the World, was released in 1995.

Shakur was paroled after serving eight months in prison, and he signed with Suge Knight’s Death Row Records for his next release. That album, All Eyez on Me (1996), was a two-disc paean to the “thug life” that Shakur embodied. It debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and sold more than five million copies within its first year of release. Quick to capitalize on his most recent success, Shakur returned to Hollywood, where he starred in Bullet (1996) and Gridlock’d (1997). The rivalry with the East Coast rap scene intensified as Shakur interpreted “Who Shot Ya,” released in 1995 by The Notorious B.I.G., as a provocation. In the summer of 1996 he retaliated with the vicious diss track “Hit ’Em Up.”

Death and murder trial

On the evening of September 7, 1996, Shakur was leaving a Las Vegas casino, where he had just attended a prizefight featuring heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, when he was shot by an unknown assailant in a white Cadillac at a stoplight. The incident, believed by many to be the result of the East Coast and West Coast rap rivalry, shocked the entertainment world. Shakur died six days later.

Decades would pass without significant developments in the investigation of Shakur’s murder, and two of the parties of interest—Crips street gang member Orlando Anderson and The Notorious B.I.G.—were themselves shot and killed. In September 2023 Anderson’s uncle Duane Keith Davis was arrested and charged as the ringleader of the group that carried out the shooting.

In August 2026 Davis was found guilty of first-degree murder. During his trial, prosecutors cited several interviews and a memoir in which Davis said that he was in the white Cadillac when the shooting occurred. Davis was convicted of orchestrating the hit and ordering another person in the vehicle, possibly Anderson, to shoot Shakur. The rapper’s family stated that they were “elated and relieved” by the verdict. Davis was later sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.

Legacy and honors

In spite of his relatively short recording career, Shakur left an enduring legacy within the hip-hop community. His popularity was undiminished after his death, and a long succession of posthumous releases (many of them were simply repackaged or remixed existing material, and most were of middling quality) ensured that “new” 2Pac albums continued to appear well into the 21st century.

Shakur received six Grammy Award nominations, including two for best rap album, for Me Against the World and All Eyez on Me. His 1995 single “Dear Mama,” a tribute to his mother that was nominated for a Grammy for best rap solo performance, was added to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the U.S. Library of Congress, in 2009. Shakur was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.

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