By Ricky Hicks, 17, Loyola HS

“From reading articles in Rolling Stone, Vibe and Source, I’ve learned a lot about Tupac’s life. Before you decide what you think about him, you should read what he’s been through.
He was born June 16, 1971, son of Afeni Shakur, a member of the Black Panthers party. His mom had recently been acquitted of conspiring to bomb certain areas of New York. She named her son Tupac Amaru Shakur. Tupac Amaru means shiny serpent in Inca. Shakur is Arabic for “Thankful to God.”
His early years were sad and hard. Through his twelfth birthday, Tupac was shuttled between Harlem and the Bronx. His mom was so poor, he often had to sleep in shelters. His mom started using crack cocaine when he was 12. Lucky for Tupac, a Harlem theater group offered him a creative outlet. At the age of 15, Tupac and his mom went to Baltimore where he studied at the Baltimore School for the Arts. There Tupac wrote poetry and his first rap. Two years later in 1988, he moved to Marin, California, where Tupac admits he began to get off track. He moved in with a neighbor of his and started selling drugs to support his family. In August of that year, his stepfather Mululu Shakure got sentenced to 60 years in prison for his participation in the robbery of an armored car.
Tupac finally got his big break in 1990 when Digital Underground took him on as a roadie and dancer.
• In ’91 Tupac’s career took off with the album 2Pacalypse Now which included such hit songs as “Trapped” and “Soulja’s Song.” He also appeared in the movie Juice. He later appeared in movies such as Above the Rim and Poetic Justice, and two unreleased films, Gang-Related and Gridlock.
• In ’92 a Texas teen killed a state trooper. His lawyer argued that the boy was influenced by 2Pacalypse Now. Shakur also got in a scuffle with an old acquaintance in Marin City that resulted in the fatal shooting of a six-year-old boy. No criminal charges were filed, but a civil lawsuit against Shakur and Interscope, his label at the time, resulted in an out-of-court settlement.
• In ’93 he fought a limo driver who accused him of using drugs in the back of the vehicle. He also spent 10 days in jail for swinging at a rapper with a baseball bat. He was charged with raping a 19-year-old Brooklyn woman. He was arrested for shooting two off-duty police officers in Atlanta. Charges were later dropped for a lack of evidence. The same year, he released Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.
• In ’94, his music was said to be the inspiration for two Milwaukee teens to kill a police officer. In November of 94, he was shot 5 times and robbed of $40,000 worth of jewelry.
• In February of ’95, he was sentenced to up to four years of prison at Rykers Island at New York for the rape of the 19-year-old. He served 8 months time. Suge Knight of Death Row Records posted $1.4 million bail for him, then signed him to his label. The same year he released Me Against the World, which sold two million copies
• His ’96 release, All Eyez on Me, debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 chart. It has since sold more than four million copies.
• On Sept. 7, 1996 Tupac got shot four times while sitting in the passenger seat of Suge’s car in an intersection in Vegas. He died four days later. “Don Killuminati,” the album released since his death, has had huge sales.#”