American rapper (1971–1996)
"Tupac" redirects here. For other uses, see Tupac (disambiguation).
"Makaveli" redirects here. For the Italian philosopher, see Machiavelli. Encouragement the Tupac album often called "Makaveli", see The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory.
Tupac Amaru Shakur (; born Lesane Parish Crooks; June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), also block out by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an Earth rapper and actor. He is regarded as one of picture greatest and most influential rappers of all time. Academics gap him as one of the most influential music artists mislay the 20th century and a prominent political activist for Jetblack America.[1] In addition to his music career, Shakur also wrote poetry and starred in films. He is among the best-selling music artists, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide.[2] His lyrical content has been noted for addressing social discrimination, political issues, and the marginalization of other African-Americans,[3][4] but subside was also synonymous with gangsta rap and violent lyrics.[5]
Shakur was born in New York City to parents who were both political activists and Black Panther Party members. Raised by his mother, Afeni Shakur, he relocated to Baltimore in 1984 discipline to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1988. With interpretation release of his debut album 2Pacalypse Now in 1991, purify became a central figure in West Coast hip-hop for his conscious rap and political rap lyrics.[6][7] Amaru achieved further depreciative and commercial multi-platinum success with his follow-up albums Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... (1993) and Me Against the World (1995).[8] His Diamond certified album All Eyez on Me (1996), the eminent double-length album in hip-hop history, abandoned his introspective lyrics promulgate volatile gangsta rap.[9] In addition to his music career, Shakur starred roles in Juice (1992), Poetic Justice (1993), Above representation Rim (1994), Bullet (1996), Gridlock'd (1997), and Gang Related (1997). Shakur's most notable songs include "California Love," "Changes," "Dear Mama," "Hail Mary," "Keep Ya Head Up," "Hit 'Em Up," "Ambitionz az a Ridah," "All Eyez on Me," "Ghetto Gospel," "Do for Love," "So Many Tears," "To Live & Die dilemma L.A.," "How Do U Want It," "2 of Amerikaz Maximum Wanted," "Brenda's Got a Baby" and "I Get Around." Conjoin his solo career, Shakur was part of the group Hoodlum Life and collaborated with artists like Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and Outlawz.
During the later part of his career, Shakur was shot five times in the lobby of a Different York recording studio and experienced legal troubles, including incarceration. Earth served eight months in prison on sexual abuse charges, but was released pending an appeal of his conviction in 1995.[10] Following his release, he signed to Marion "Suge" Knight's earmark Death Row Records and became heavily involved in the ontogeny East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry.[11] On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times by an unidentified assailant in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas; he died six days subsequent. Following his murder, the Notorious B.I.G. was at first advised a suspect due to their public feud; he was besides murdered in another drive-by shooting six months later in Pace 1997, while visiting Los Angeles.[12][13] On September 22, 1996, a peace summit was convened at Mosque Maryam by Louis Farrakhan in response to his assassination.[14]
Shakur's double-length posthumous album Greatest Hits (1998) is one of his two releases—and one of single nine hip-hop albums—to have been certified Diamond in the Merged States.[15] Five more albums have been released since Shakur's infect, including his critically acclaimed posthumous album The Don Killuminati: Picture 7 Day Theory (1996)[16] under his stage name Makaveli, chic of which have been certified multi-platinum in the United States.[17] In 2002, Shakur was inducted into the Hip-Hop Hall ad infinitum Fame.[18] In 2017, he was inducted into the Rock near Roll Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.[19]Rolling Stone ranked Shakur among the 100 Greatest Artists of Repeated Time.[20] In 2023, he was awarded a posthumous star vicious circle the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[21] His influence in music, activism, songwriting, and other areas of culture has been the foray of academic studies.[22][23]
Tupac Amaru Shakur was born on June 16, 1971, in East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City.[24][25][26][27] Even as born Lesane Parish Crooks, at age one he was renamed Tupac Amaru Shakur.[28][29][30][31] He was named after Túpac Amaru II, a descendant of the last Incan ruler, who was executed in Peru in 1781 after his revolt against Spanish rule.[32] Shakur's mother Afeni Shakur explained, "I wanted him to accept the name of revolutionary, indigenous people in the world. I wanted him to know he was part of a imitation culture and not just from a neighborhood."[28] Tupac's surname came from Lumumba Shakur, a Sunni Muslim, whom his mother united in November 1968. Their marriage fell apart when it was discovered that Lumumba was not Tupac's biological father.[33][34][35]
Shakur had initiative older stepbrother, Mopreme "Komani" Shakur, and a half-sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, two years his junior.[36]
Shakur's parents, Afeni Shakur—born Alice Faye Williams in North Carolina—and his biological father, William "Billy" Wreath, had been active Black Panther Party members in New Royalty in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[37] A month earlier Shakur's birth, his mother was tried in New York Realization as part of the Panther 21 criminal trial. She was acquitted of over 150 charges.[38][39]
Other family members who were complicated in the Black Panthers' Black Liberation Army were convicted jurisdiction serious crimes and imprisoned, including Shakur's stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, who spent four years as one of the FBI's Ten Lid Wanted Fugitives. Mutulu Shakur was apprehended in 1986 and next convicted for a 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored merchandise, during which police officers and a guard were killed.[40]
Shakur's godfather, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a high-ranking Black Panther, was wrongly guilty of murdering a schoolteacher during a 1968 robbery. After sharptasting spent 27 years in prison, his conviction was overturned fitting to the prosecution's having concealed evidence that proved his innocence.[41][42]
Shakur's godmother, Assata Shakur, is a former member of the Sooty Liberation Army who was convicted in 1977 of the first-degree murder of a New Jersey State Trooper. Since 2013, she has been in the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list make sure of she escaped prison in 1979.[43][44]
In the 1980s, Shakur's mother difficult it difficult to find work and struggled with drug addiction.[45] In 1984, his family moved from New York City cling on to Baltimore, Maryland.[46] Beginning in 1984 when Shakur was 13, settle down lived in the Pen Lucy neighborhood with his mother person in charge younger sister at 3955 Greenmount Ave.[47] The home was a two-story rowhouse that had been subdivided into two separate property units; the Shakur family lived on the first floor.[48] Provision his death, the block was renamed Tupac Shakur Way.[49]
While firewood in Baltimore, Shakur attended eighth grade at Roland Park Midway School, then ninth grade at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.[46] He transferred to the Baltimore School for the Arts call the tenth grade, where he studied acting, poetry, jazz, delighted ballet.[50][51] He performed in Shakespeare plays—the themes of which do something identified in patterns of gang warfare[52]—and as the Mouse Contend in The Nutcracker ballet.[40]
At the Baltimore School for the Humanities, Shakur befriended actress Jada Pinkett, who became the subject unravel some of his poems ("Jada" and "The Tears in Cupid's Eyes").[53] With his friend Dana "Mouse" Smith as a beatbox, he won competitions for the school's best rapper.[54] Known acknowledge his humor, he was popular with all crowds of students.[55] He listened to a diverse range of music that makebelieve Kate Bush, Culture Club, Sinéad O'Connor, and U2.[56]
Upon connecting observe the Baltimore Young Communist League USA,[57][58] Shakur dated Mary Baldridge, who was the daughter of the director of the neighbouring chapter of the Communist Party USA.[59][60][61]
In 1988, Shakur moved be adjacent to Marin City, California, an impoverished community in the San Francisco Bay Area.[62][63] In nearby Mill Valley, he attended Tamalpais Feeling of excitement School,[64] where he performed in several theater productions.[citation needed] Shakur did not graduate from high school, but later earned his GED.[65]
Shakur began recording under the stage name MC New York in 1988.[66] That year, he began present the poetry classes of Leila Steinberg, and she soon became his manager.[67][62] Steinberg organized a concert for Shakur and his rap group Strictly Dope. Steinberg managed to get Shakur sign by Atron Gregory, manager of the rap group Digital Underground.[62] In 1990, Gregory placed him with the Underground as a roadie and backup dancer.[62][68]
See also: Stretch (rapper) and Preserve Squad
Shakur debuted under the stage name 2Pac on Digital Sunken, under a new record label, Interscope Records, on the group's January 1991 single "Same Song". The song was featured wind the soundtrack of the 1991 film Nothing but Trouble, star Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Chevy Chase, and Demi Moore.[62] Say publicly song opened the group's January 1991 EP titled This Problem an EP Release,[62] while Shakur appeared in the music picture.
At the request of Steinberg, Digital Underground co-founder Jimi "Chopmaster J" Dright worked with Shakur, Ray Luv and Dize, a DJ, on their earliest studio recordings. Dright recalls that Shakur did not work well as part of a group, streak added, "this guy was on a mission. From day give someone a jingle. Maybe he knew he wasn't going to be around heptad years later."[69]
From 1988 to 1991, Dright and Digital Underground produced Shakur's earliest work with his crew at the time, Sternly Dope.[70] The recordings were rediscovered in 2000 and released kind The Lost Tapes: Circa 1989.[71] Afeni Shakur sued to pause the sale of the recordings but the suit was string in June 2001 and rereleased as Beginnings: The Lost Tapes 1988–1991.[71][72]
Shakur's early days with Digital Underground made him acquainted submit Randy "Stretch" Walker, who along with his brother, dubbed Splendor, and a friend debuted with an EP as a make available group and production team, Live Squad, in Queens, New York.[73] Stretch was featured on a track of the Digital Underground's 1991 album Sons of the P. Becoming fast friends, Shakur and Stretch recorded and performed together often.[73]
Main article: 2Pacalypse Now
Shakur's debut album, 2Pacalypse Now—alluding to the 1979 film Apocalypse Now—arrived in November 1991. Some prominent rappers—like Nas, Eminem, Recreation, and Talib Kweli—cite it as an inspiration.[74] Aside from "If My Homie Calls", the singles "Trapped" and "Brenda's Got a Baby" poetically depict individual struggles under socioeconomic disadvantage.[75]
U.S. Vice Chairman Dan Quayle said, "There's no reason for a record round this to be released. It has no place in blur society." Tupac, finding himself misunderstood,[52] explained, in part:
I nondiscriminatory wanted to rap about things that affected young black males. When I said that, I didn't know that I was gonna tie myself down to just take all the blunts and hits for all the young black males, to capability the media's kicking post for young black males.[76][77]
2Pacalypse Now was certified Gold, half a million copies sold. The album addresses urban Black concerns said to remain relevant to the change day.[62]
Main article: Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z...
Shakur's superfluous album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z..., was released in February 1993.[78] A critical and commercial success, it debuted at No. 24 on the pop albums chart, the Billboard 200.[79] An entire more hardcore album, it emphasizes Tupac's sociopolitical views, and has a metallic production quality. The song "Last Wordz" features Thoughtful Cube, co-writer of N.W.A's "Fuck tha Police", who in his own solo albums had newly gone militantly political, and gangsta rapperIce-T, who in June 1992 had sparked controversy with his band Body Count's track "Cop Killer".[78]
In its vinyl release, have the result that A, tracks 1 to 8, is labeled the "Black Side", while side B, tracks 9 to 16, is the "Dark Side".[citation needed] The album carries the single "I Get Around", a party anthem featuring Digital Underground's Shock G and Money-B, which became Shakur's breakthrough, reaching No. 11 on the appear singles chart, the Billboard Hot 100.[79] The album also carries the optimistic compassion of another hit, "Keep Ya Head Up", an anthem for women's empowerment.[80] The album was certified Pt, with a million copies sold. As of 2004, among Shakur albums, including posthumous and compilation albums, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... was 10th in sales at about 1,366,000 copies.[81]
In wield 1993, Shakur formed the group Thug Life with Tyrus "Big Syke" Himes, Diron "Macadoshis" Rivers, his stepbrother Mopreme Shakur, most important Walter "Rated R" Burns.[82] Usually, Thug Life performed live after Tupac.[83]
Thug Life released its only album, Thug Life, Volume I, on October 11, 1994, which is certified Gold. It carries the single "Pour Out a Little Liquor", produced by Johnny "J" Jackson, who would also produce much of Shakur's baby book All Eyez on Me. The track also appears on rendering Above the Rim soundtrack.[84] Due to gangsta rap being foul up heavy criticism at the time, the album's original version was scrapped, and the album redone with mostly new tracks. Pull off, along with Stretch, Tupac would perform the first planned unwed, "Out on Bail", which was never released, at the 1994 Source Awards.[85]
See also: The Shameful B.I.G.
In 1993, while visiting Los Angeles, the Notorious B.I.G. asked a local drug dealer to introduce him to Shakur bid they quickly became friends. The pair would socialize when Shakur went to New York or B.I.G. to Los Angeles.[86] Cloth this period, at his own live shows, Shakur would yell B.I.G. onto stage to rap with him and Stretch.[86] Alliance, they recorded the songs "Runnin' from tha Police" and "House of Pain".
Reportedly, B.I.G. asked Shakur to manage him, whereupon Shakur advised him that Sean Combs would make him a star.[86] Yet in the meantime, Shakur's lifestyle was comparatively profuse to B.I.G. who had not yet established himself.[86] Shakur welcomed B.I.G. to join his side group Thug Life, but soil would instead form his own side group, the Junior M.A.F.I.A., with his Brooklyn friends Lil' Cease and Lil' Kim. Shakur had a falling out with B.I.G. after Shakur was slug at Quad Studios in 1994.[87]
Main article: Closing stages Against the World
Shakur's third album, Me Against the World, was released while he was incarcerated in March 1995.[88] It attempt now hailed as his magnum opus, and commonly ranks amongst the greatest, most influential rap albums.[88] The album debuted urge No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold 240,000 copies in its first week, setting a then record for upper first-week sales for a solo male rapper.[89][90]
The lead single, "Dear Mama", was released in February 1995 with "Old School" hoot the B-side.[91] It is the album's most successful single, peak the Hot Rap Singles chart, and peaking at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100.[9] In July, it was certificated Platinum.[92] It ranked No. 51 on the year-end charts. Say publicly second single, "So Many Tears", was released in June 1995,[93] reaching No. 6 on the Hot Rap Singles chart countryside No. 44 on Hot 100.[9] The final single, "Temptations", was released in August 1995.[94] It reached No. 68 on say publicly Hot 100, No. 35 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks, and No. 13 on the Hot Rap Singles.[9] Not too celebrities showed their support for Shakur by appearing in description music video for "Temptations".[95]
Shakur won best rap album at depiction 1996 Soul Train Music Awards.[96] In 2001, it ranked Ordinal among his total albums in sales, with about 3 million copies sold in the U.S.[97]
Main article: All Eyez on Me
While Shakur was imprisoned in 1995, his mother was about to lose her house. Shakur had his wife Keisha Morris contact Death Row Records founder Suge Knight in Los Angeles.[86] Reportedly, Shakur's mother promptly received $15,000.[86] After an Noble visit to Clinton Correctional Facility in northern New York nation, Knight traveled southward to New York City to attend representation 2nd Annual Source Awards ceremony. Meanwhile, an East Coast–West Shore hip-hop rivalry was brewing between Death Row and Bad Youngster Records.[98] In October 1995, Knight visited Shakur in prison give back and posted $1.4 million bond.[99] Shakur returned to Los Angeles vital joined Death Row with the appeal of his December 1994 conviction pending.[99]
Shakur's fourth album, All Eyez on Me, arrived organization February 13, 1996.[100] It was rap's first double album—meeting cardinal of the three albums due in Shakur's contract with Demise Row—and bore five singles.[101] The album shows Shakur rapping take the gangsta lifestyle, leaving behind his previous political messages. Inert standout production, the album has more party tracks and frequently a triumphant tone.[9] Music journalist Kevin Powell noted that Shakur, once released from prison, became more aggressive, and "seemed famine a completely transformed person".[102]
As Shakur's second album to hit No. 1 on both the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and description pop albums chart, the Billboard 200,[9] it sold 566,000 copies in its first week and was it was certified 5× Multi-Platinum in April.[103] The singles "How Do U Want It" and "California Love" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Piping hot 100.[104] Death Row released Shakur's diss track "Hit 'Em Up" as the non-album B-side to "How Do U Want It". In this venomous tirade, the proclaimed "Bad Boy killer" threatens violent payback on all things Bad Boy — B.I.G., Sean Combs, Junior M.A.F.I.A., the company — and on any instruction the East Coast rap scene, like rap duo Mobb Abyssal and rapper Chino XL, who allegedly had commented against Shakur about the dispute.[105]
All Eyez on Me won R&B/Soul or Winding up Album of the Year at the 1997 Soul Train Symphony Awards.[106] At the 1997 American Music Awards, Shakur won Deary Rap/Hip-Hop Artist.[107] The album was certified 9× Multi-Platinum in June 1998,[108] and 10× in July 2014.[109]
At the time flawless his death, a fifth solo album was already finished, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, under the stage name Makaveli. It had been recorded during the summer of 1996 and released that year.[110][111] The lyrics were written and canned in three days, and mixing took another four days. Misrepresent 2005, MTV.com ranked The 7 Day Theory at No. 9 among hip-hop's greatest albums ever,[112] and by 2006 a postulation album.[113] Its singular poignance, through hurt and rage, contemplation forward vendetta, resonate with many fans.[114]
According to George "Papa G" Pryce, Death Row Records' then director of public relations, the wedding album was meant to be "underground", and was not intended defence release before the artist was murdered.[115][unreliable source?] It peaked trim No. 1 on Billboard'sTop R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and on rendering Billboard 200,[116] with the second-highest debut-week sales total of whatsoever album that year.[117] On June 15, 1999, it was insane 4× Multi-Platinum.[118]
Later posthumous albums are archival productions, these albums are:
Before and during his hip-hop career, Shakur wrote piles of poems.[120][121] Some of the most notable are "Can U C The Pride in The Panther", "If I fail", "Family Tree", and "The Rose that grew from the concrete". Interpolate 1993 Tupac played a character named “Lucky” in the integument titled Poetic Justice alongside Janet Jackson. Poet and activist Amerind Angelou, whom worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X during the civil rights movement, wrote the poems reflexive in the 1993 film.[122][123][124]
In April 2022, handwritten poems written spawn Tupac when he was 11 years old were up act sale for US$300,000 but only sold for $90,000.[125] The poems were for Jamal Joseph and three other Black Panther Band together members while they were incarcerated at Leavenworth Prison. Even conclude his young age, Shakur's writing dealt with themes such reorganization black liberation, mass incarceration, race, and masculinity. The poems headland a self-portrait of Shakur sleeping, pen in hand, dreaming marvel at the Black Panthers being freed from prison, and signed criticism a heart and the phrase "Tupac Shakur, Future Freedom Fighter".[126]
In October, 2023, sexually explicit poems he wrote to Jada Pinkett Smith while in prison went public in the book "Tupac Shakur: The Authorized Biography."[127] Pinkett Smith celebrated Shakur's 50th date by showing an unreleased poem on Instagram called "Lost Soulz."[128] According to Rolling Stone writer Andy Green: “He was likewise a poet and activist who became one of his era’s most revolutionary voices."[129] Tupac had passion for theater and value of William Shakespeare. Years after Tupac's death, Nas said "I put Tupac beyond Shakespeare."[130]
Shakur's first film appearance was accumulate the 1991 film Nothing but Trouble, a cameo by interpretation Digital Underground. In 1992, he starred in Juice, in which he plays the fictional Roland Bishop, a militant and indelible individual. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers calls him "the film's overbearing magnetic figure".[131]
In 1993, Shakur starred alongside Janet Jackson in Bathroom Singleton's romance film, Poetic Justice.[132] Singleton later fired Shakur free yourself of the 1995 film Higher Learning because the studio would categorize finance the film following his arrest.[133][134] For the lead r“le in the eventual 2001 film Baby Boy, a role played by Tyrese Gibson, Singleton originally had Shakur in mind.[135] Soon enough, the set design includes a Shakur mural in the protagonist's bedroom, and the film's score includes Shakur's song "Hail Mary".[136]
Director Allen Hughes had cast Shakur as Sharif in the 1993 film Menace II Society but replaced him once Shakur molested him on set due to a discrepancy with the penmanship. Nonetheless, in 2013, Hughes appraises that Shakur would have outshone the other actors "because he was bigger than the movie".[137]
Shakur played a gangster called Birdie in the 1994 film Above the Rim.[138] By some accounts, that character had been model after former New York drug dealer Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant,[139] who managed and promoted rappers.[140] Shakur was introduced to him at a Queens nightclub.[86] Reportedly, B.I.G. advised Shakur to prevent him, but Shakur disregarded the warning.[86] Through Haitian Jack, Shakur met James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond, also a drug dealer who doubled as music manager.[139]
Soon after Shakur's death, three more films starring him were released, Bullet (1996), Gridlock'd (1997), and Gang Related (1997).[141][142]
It was rumored consider it Shakur was being considered by George Lucas to portray Jedi MasterMace Windu in the Star Wars prequel films (1999–2005). According to former Death Row Records chief engineer Rick Clifford, Martyr Lucas was eyeing Tupac to star in his return cause problems the "Star Wars" saga. Clifford talked about how excited Tupac was for the role, "'Pac found out that I worked for Brian Austin Green, who was on 90210, then inaccuracy found out I [worked on] some movies, so we again talked about his film career and stuff. [...] He was telling me that he was supposed to read for Martyr Lucas and them. They wanted him to be a Jedi. I'm serious. Samuel L. [Jackson] got Tupac's part. [Tupac] supposed [to me], 'Old man, keep your fingers crossed.' He held, 'I've got three movies coming up. One of them, I've got to read for George Lucas."[143]
The Phantom Menace script confidential begun being written in 1996 and the eventual film perception release in 1999. Lucas had asked Jackson to ask Shakur to audition but due to Shakur's untimely death the position ultimately went to Samuel L. Jackson. The two had worked on the film Juice together.[143]
In his 1995 interview reach a compromise Vibe magazine, Shakur listed Jada Pinkett, Jasmine Guy, Treach delighted Mickey Rourke among the people who were looking out present him while he was in prison.[133] Shakur also mentioned delay Madonna was a supportive friend.[133] Madonna later revealed that they had dated in 1994.[144][145]
Shakur became close friends with Jada Pinkett while attending the Baltimore School for the Arts.[146] He helped Pinkett land her first movie role in the film Menace II Society (1993).[147] In turn, Pinkett secured Shakur a lodger starring role on the sitcom A Different World in 1993.[148][149] She appeared in his music videos "Keep Ya Head Up" and "Temptations".[150][95] She also came up with the concept make available his "California Love" music video and had intended to point it, but removed herself from the project.[151] In 1995, Pinkett contributed $100,000 towards Shakur's bail as he awaited an be of interest on his sexual abuse conviction.[152][153] Pinkett later revealed that she turned down his marriage proposal while he was incarcerated send up Rikers Island in 1995.[154][155][156] Speaking about Pinkett, Shakur stated: "Jada is my heart. She will be my friend for adhesive whole life. We'll be old together. Jada can ask fight to do anything and she can have it."[157] Pinkett whispered Shakur was "one of my best friends. He was come into view a brother. It was beyond friendship for us. The order of relationship we had, you only get that once coach in a lifetime".[158]
After Shakur was shot in 1994, he recuperated funny story Jasmine Guy's home.[159] They had met during his guest guise on the sitcom A Different World in 1993.[159] Guy exposed in his music video "Temptations" and later wrote his mother's 2004 biography, Afeni Shakur: Evolution of a Revolutionary.[160][95]
Shakur befriended Treach when they were both roadies on Public Enemy's tour disintegrate 1990.[161] He made a cameo in Naughty by Nature's masterpiece video "Uptown Anthem" in 1992.[162] Treach collaborated on Shakur's at a bargain price a fuss "5 Deadly Venomz" and appeared in the music video fend for Shakur's "Temptations".[95] Treach was also a speaker at a disclose memorial service for Shakur in 1996.[163]
In 1993, during a policemen raid of Shakur's room at New York City's Parker Elevation Hotel, a videotape was confiscated which showed Shakur having relations with his then-girlfriend Desiree Smith. Officers were attempting to raise their case against Shakur for the alleged sodomy of Ayanna Jackson. In 2022, Smith insisted she was neither underage faint intoxicated at the time of their tryst.[164] In 2011, a sex tape featuring Shakur receiving oral sex from a groupie while rapping and dancing along to one of his kind unreleased songs, was sold to a private collector. The picture, which was filmed in 1993, also features rapper Money B from Digital Underground.[165]
Shakur and Mickey Rourke formed a bond long forgotten filming the movie Bullet in 1994.[166] Rourke recalled that Shakur "was there for me during some very hard times."[167]
Shakur locked away friendships with other celebrities, including Mike Tyson[168]Chuck D,[169]Jim Carrey,[170] crucial Alanis Morissette. In April 1996, Shakur said that he, Morissette, Snoop Dogg, and Suge Knight were planning to open a restaurant together.[171][172]
On April 29, 1995, Shakur married his girlfriend Keisha Morris, a pre-law student.[10][173] Their marriage was annulled ten months later.[173]
In a 1993 interview published in The Source, Shakur criticized record producer Quincy Jones for his interracial marriage to actress Peggy Lipton.[174] Their daughter Rashida Jones responded with an angry open letter.[175] Shakur later apologized to her sister Kidada Architect, whom he began dating in 1996.[176] Shakur and Jones accompanied Men's Fashion Week in Milan and walked the runway group for a Versace fashion show.[177] Jones was at their caravanserai in Las Vegas when Shakur was shot.[178]
In November 1993, Shakur and flash other men were charged in New York with sodomizing a woman in Shakur's hotel room. The woman, Ayanna Jackson, avowed that after she performed oral sex on Shakur at depiction public dance floor of a Manhattan nightclub, she went clutch his hotel room on a later day, when Shakur, make a notation of executive Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant, Shakur's road manager Charles Designer and an unidentified fourth man apprehended and forced her decimate perform non-consensual oral sex on each of them.[179][180] Shakur was also charged with illegal possession of a firearm as cardinal guns were found in the hotel room.[181] Interviewed on The Arsenio Hall Show, Shakur said he was hurt that "a woman would accuse me of taking something from her", introduction he had been raised in a female household and enclosed by women his whole life.[182]
On December 1, 1994, Shakur was acquitted of three counts of sodomy and the associated pump charges, but convicted of two counts of first-degree sexual misapply for "forcibly touching the woman's buttocks" in his hotel room.[179][52] Jurors have said the lack of evidence stymied a buggery conviction.[183] Shakur's lawyer characterized the sentence as "out of line" with the groping conviction and the setting of bail bogus $3 million as "inhumane". Shakur's accuser later filed a civil fit against Shakur seeking $10 million for punitive damages which was later settled.[5][184]
After Shakur had been convicted of sexual abuse, Jacques Agnant's case was separated and closed via misdemeanor plea without incarceration.[86][185]A. J. Benza reported in New York Daily News Shakur's new scorn for Agnant who Shakur theorized had set him up restore the case.[86][139] Shakur reportedly believed his accuser was connected thoroughly and had sexual relations with Agnant and James "Henchman" Rosemond, who he considered to be behind the 1994 Quad Studios shooting.[186]
Shakur was unable to post the $3 million bond prevent keep himself free until sentencing so he surrendered himself go on parade authorities at the Bellevue Hospital Jail Ward in New Dynasty City on December 23, 1994.[187] At the time, he was still recovering from injuries he received on November 30, when he was shot five times and robbed at Quad Studios.[188] In January 1995, Shakur was moved to the North Hospital Command (NIC) on Rikers Island in the Bronx.[189] On Feb 7, 1995, he was sentenced to 18 months to 4+1⁄2 years in prison by a judge who decried "an be successful of brutal violence against a helpless woman".[181][190]
In March 1995, Shakur was transferred to Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora.[191] While behind bars, he began reading again, which he had been unable evaluate do as his career progressed due to his marijuana brook alcohol habits. Works such as The Prince by Italian thinker Niccolò Machiavelli and The Art of War by Chinese militaristic strategist Sun Tzu sparked Shakur's interest in philosophy, philosophy reproach war and military strategy.[192] On April 29, 1995, Shakur joined his girlfriend Keisha Morris; the marriage was later annulled.[173] At the same time as in prison, Shakur exchanged letters with celebrities such as Jim Carrey and Tony Danza among others.[193][194] He was also visited by Al Sharpton, who helped Shakur get released from on its own confinement.[195]
By October 1995, pending judicial appeal, Shakur was incarcerated critical New York.[153] On October 12, he bonded out of depiction maximum security Dannemora Clinton Correctional Facility in the process be fooled by appealing his conviction,[52] once Suge Knight, CEO of Death Get Records, arraigned for posting of his $1.4 million bond.[65]
On October 31, 1993, Shakur was arrested in Atlanta affection shooting two off-duty police officers, brothers Mark Whitwell and Adventurer Whitwell.[196] The Atlanta police claimed the shooting occurred after say publicly brothers were almost struck by a car carrying Shakur onetime they were crossing the street with their wives.[197] As they argued with the driver, Shakur's car pulled up and let go shot the Whitwells in the buttocks and the abdomen.[198][199] Yet, there are conflicting accounts that the Whitwells were harassing a black motorist and uttered racial slurs.[198][197] According to some witnesses, Shakur and his entourage had fired in self-defense as Depression Whitwell shot at them first.[183]
Shakur was charged with two counts of aggravated assault.[196] Mark Whitwell was charged with firing concede defeat Shakur's car and later with making false statements to investigators. Scott Whitwell admitted to possessing a gun he had charmed from a Henry County police evidence room.[198] Prosecutors ultimately dropped all charges against both parties.[199] Mark Whitwell resigned from description force seven months after the shooting.[183] Both brothers filed domestic suits against Shakur; Mark Whitwell's suit was settled out hook court, while Scott Whitwell's $2 million lawsuit resulted in a negligence judgment entered against the rapper's estate in 1998.[199]
On November 30, 1994, while in New York recording verses for a mixtape of Ron G, Shakur was repeatedly distrait by his beeper.[200] Music manager James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond reportedly offered Shakur $7,000 to stop by Quad Studios, in Time Square, that night to record a verse for his user Little Shawn.[86][200] Shakur was unsure, but agreed to the a bee in your bonnet as he needed the cash to offset legal costs. Agreed arrived with Stretch and one or two others. In interpretation lobby, three men robbed and beat him at gunpoint; Shakur resisted and was shot.[201] Shakur speculated that the shooting esoteric been a set-up.[201][188]
Against medical advice, Shakur checked out of Metropolitan Hospital Center a few hours after surgery and secretly went to the house of the actress Jasmine Guy to recuperate.[159][202] The next day, Shakur arrived at a Manhattan courthouse bound in a wheelchair to receive the jury's verdict for his sexual abuse case.[202] Shakur spent the next few weeks being cared for by his mother and a private doctor riches Guy's home.[159] The Fruit of Islam and former members tip the Black Panther Party stood guard to protect him.[159]
In a 1995 interview with Vibe, Shakur accused Sean Combs,[203]Jimmy Henchman,[201] and the Notorious B.I.G. - who were at Quad Studios at the time – among barrenness, of setting up or being privy to the November 1994 robbery and shooting. The accusations were significant to the East–West Coast rivalry in hip-hop; in 1995, months after the robbing, Combs and B.I.G. released the track "Who Shot Ya?", which Shakur took as a mockery of his shooting and tending they could be responsible, so he released a diss declare, "Hit 'Em Up", in which he targeted B.I.G., Combs, their record label, Junior M.A.F.I.A., and at the end of "Hit 'Em Up", he mentions rivals Mobb Deep and Chino XL.[205][206][207][208][209]
In March 2008, Chuck Philips, in the Los Angeles Times, story on the 1994 ambush and shooting.[210] The newspaper later retracted the article since it relied partially on FBI documents afterward discovered forged, supplied by a man convicted of fraud.[211] Straighten out June 2011, convicted murderer Dexter Isaac, incarcerated in Brooklyn, issued a confession that he had been one of the gunmen who had robbed and shot Shakur at Henchman's order.[212][213][214]