Tupac Shakur Essay

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Tupac Shakur: Life after Death Tupac Amaru Shakur was notably an American rapper and actor. He was born on June 7th 1971 in the East Harlem Section of New York City and was slain during a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 7th 1996 at the age of 25. Although his music was filled with profanity, violence, and graphic themes they were also about hardship in ghettos, racism, and problems in society. He is the top selling hip hop artist of all time, with 75 million albums sold worldwide and starred in many critical acclaimed films in 1990s, such as “Juice” and “Gridlock'd”. He was named after Tupac Amaru II, who was the leader of an indigenous uprising in 1780 against the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, by his mother. He also had ties to the Black Panther Party through his mother and other close family friends. Though he had a very limited education Shakur was an intelligent individual and was also a frequent reader. While in Prison in 1995 for allegedly sodomising a fan and through his short life he read many books including some by Niccolò Machiavelli, Donald Goines, Sun Tzu, Kurt Vonnegut, Mikhail Bakunin, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Khalil Gibran. (Mickey Hess) “2Pac”’s officially started his entertainment career when he recorded a verse for Digital Undergrounds “Same Song”. After less than two years, he would release his debut album “2Pacalypse Now”. The album was highly acclaimed by the hip hop community but was denounced by former Vice President Dan Quayle by saying “It has no place in our society." Nonetheless, Tupac would go on to release many albums during his short life and posthumously including “Me against the World” and his famous Greatest Hits CD. (Armond White) After releasing his critically acclaimed fourth album, “All Eyez On Me” in 1996, Tupac, his label CEO; Marion “Suge” Knight, and a large entourage attended a Mike

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