Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971 -- September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names: 2Pac, Makaveli, or simply Pac, was an American artist renowned for his rap music, movie roles, poetry, and his social activism. He is recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the best selling hip-hop artist, with over seventy-five million albums sold worldwide[1] including over fifty million in the United States alone. Most of Shakur's songs are about growing up around violence and hardship in ghettos, racism, problems in society, and sometimes qualms with other fellow rappers. Shakur's work is known for advocating political, economic, social, and racial equality as well as his raw descriptions of violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and conflicts with the law. Many fans, critics, and industry insiders rank him as the greatest rapper ever.

In 1990, Shakur was a roadie and backup dancer for the alternative rap group Digital Underground. Shakur's debut album, 2Pacalypse Now, gained critical recognition and backlash for its controversial lyrics. Shakur became the target of lawsuits and experienced other legal problems. Later, Shakur was shot five times in a recording studio lobby in Manhattan and was robbed. Following the incident, Shakur grew suspicious that other figures in the rap industry had prior knowledge of the shooting and did not warn him; the controversy would help spark the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry. After serving eleven months of his sentence, Shakur was released from prison on an appeal financed by Marion "Suge" Knight, the CEO of Death Row Records. In exchange for Suge's assistance, Shakur agreed to release three records under the Death Row label. Shakur's fifth album, the first double-disc release in hip hop history All Eyez on Me, counted as two albums. On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, and died six days later of respiratory failure and cardiac arrest at University Medical Center, Las Vegas
Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City.[4] He was named after Túpac Amaru II, an Incan revolutionary who led a Peruvian uprising against Spain and was subsequently sentenced to death. "Shakur" comes from the Arabic word thankful (to God). His mother, Afeni Shakur, was an active member of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s; Shakur was born just one month after her acquittal on more than 100 charges of "Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks" in the New York Panther 21 court case.[5] Although officially unconfirmed by the Shakur family,[6] several sources list his birth name as either "Parish Lesane Crooks"[7][8] or "Lesane Parish Crooks".[9] Afeni supposedly feared her enemies would attack her son, and disguised their relation using a different last name, only to change it three months[7] or a year later, following her marriage to Mutulu Shakur.

Struggle and incarceration surrounded Tupac from an early age. Shakur's godfather, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a high ranking Black Panther, was convicted of murdering a school teacher during a 1968 robbery, although his sentence was later overturned. His stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, spent four years at large on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list beginning in 1982, when Tupac was a pre-teen. Mutulu was wanted in part for having helped his sister Assata Shakur (also known as Joanne Chesimard), Tupac's godmother, to escape from prison in New Jersey, where she had been incarcerated for allegedly shooting a state trooper to death in 1973. Mutulu was caught in 1986 and imprisoned for an attempted robbery of a Brinks armored car in which two police officers and a guard were killed.[10] Tupac had a half-sister, Sekyiwa, two years his junior, and an older step-brother, Mopreme "Komani" Shakur, who appeared on many of his recordings.