Tupac Shakur

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in East Harlem, New York, in 1971 to Afeni Shakur, a member of the Black Panther Party. He studied acting, poetry, and ballet at the Baltimore School for the Arts before his family moved to California. After joining the Oakland group Digital Underground as a dancer and roadie, he released his solo debut 2Pacalypse Now in 1991, announcing a fierce new voice in hip hop.

Across albums such as Me Against the World and the sprawling double record All Eyez on Me, Shakur combined unflinching social commentary with raw introspection, addressing poverty, police violence, and motherhood with equal conviction. Songs like Dear Mama and Keep Ya Head Up revealed a tenderness that set him apart. He was also a compelling screen actor, earning praise for performances in Juice and Poetic Justice.

Shakur died in Las Vegas in September 1996, at the age of 25, several days after being shot in a drive-by attack. His posthumous output, including poetry collected in The Rose That Grew from Concrete, cemented a body of work of remarkable depth for so short a life. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017, he remains hip hop's most studied and most quoted poet.