1. Tupac Shakur
AKA Lesane Parish Crooks
Born: 16-Jun-1971
Birthplace: Brooklyn, NY
Died: 13-Sep-1996
Location of death: Las Vegas, NV [1]
Cause of death: Murder
Remains: Cremated (ashes smoked by bandmasters from Outlawz)
Gender: Male
Occupation: Rapper, Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: All Eyes on Me
Born in Brooklyn under the name Lesane Parish Crooks, Tupac Shakur
received the name with which he came to be known to the world from his
mother (Black Panther activist Afeni Shakur) in tribute to Incan
revolutionary Tupac Amaru. His biological father had separated from his
mother before his birth, and his stepfather was imprisoned for armored
car robbery when he was two years old, leaving his family to struggle
frequently under conditions of extreme poverty. While a teenager in
Baltimore, Tupac developed an interest in performance; eventually he
managed to gain entrance to The Baltimore School for the Performing

2. Arts, where he studied acting and ballet. Before he could complete his
education, however, he was forced to relocate to California.
While on the streets of Oakland, Shakur drifted into the gang life,
accumulating a criminal record with eight arrests by the beginning of his
twenties. In a more constructive vein, he began to developing the skills as
a rapper he had first started to explore during his years in Baltimore. By
1991 he had landed a job as a dancer and roadie for the group Digital
Underground, later making his recording debut on their This Is An EP
Release; but by the end of the year a successful solo career was already
underway with the release of 2Pacalypse Now. The following year his
acting ambitions were realized through a prominent role in the hip-hop
film Juice.
Both of his careers were to significant strides forward in the next couple
of years: his second release, Strictly for my N.I.G.G.A.Z., reached #4 on
the R&B charts and would eventually become his first platinum record,
while a starring role opposite Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice (1993)
extended his popularity further into the mainstream. His criminal record
also made some strides forward: a assault charge brought by director
Allen Hughes in 1993 resulted in a 15 day jail term in 1994, followed by a
four-and-a-half year prison sentence for sexual assault later that same
year. Around the time of the latter conviction, Shakur was robbed and
shot in the lobby of a recording studio.
At start of 1995, while his release Me Against The World was dominating
the pop and R&B charts, the rapper was busy serving the first eight
months of his sentence. A $1.4M bond secured his parole, and work was
started on his first album for Death Row Records, All Eyez on Me (1996).
This double-record set brought his popularity to a new peak, again topping
both the pop and R&B charts and quickly earning multi-platinum status.
His acting profile was also being expanded by work in the feature
films Bullet (1996), Gridlock'd (1997), and Gang Related (1997). Shakur
would not live to see the results of the last two films, however: in what is
suspected to be the culmination of a feud with rapper Notorious B.I.G., he

3. was shot four times while in a car outside a Las Vegashotel, eventually
dying in the hospital after spending 6 days in a coma. Various other
theories have also been put forward as to the motive behind his killing.