Tupac Shakur Biography Essay -- essays research papers

Tupac Shakur 1971-1996Born June 16, 1971 in New York, New York, unite States Died September 13, 1996 in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States Ethnicity African AmericanOccupation tap Musician, Musician, Actor"Dont shed a tear for me ... / I aint happy present / I hope they bury me and send me to my rest / Headlines carryin murdered to death."--from "If I Die Tonight" on Me against the World (1995)BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYWith his tattoo-splattered physique, incisive deep-set eyes, and shaved head, Tupac Amaru Shakur came across as middle Americas worst nightmare, the darkest garble of hip-hop. To fans, Shakur was only " touchwoodgin against society, thuggin against the system that made me," as he once rapped. homogeneous some other rappers, Shakur was criticized for his sexist lyrics He celebrated his mother, Afeni, but was every bit capable of debasing women in his music. The contradictions hardly ended thither. In his get video, "I Aint Mad at Cha," Sha kur--newly arrived in Heaven--saluted an old friend for quitting the "thug life." In "Only God Can Judge Me," Shakur foresaw death military strength d give birth on him, yet seemed unable to tolerate his rival, The Notorious B.I.G. and B.I.G.s mentor, Sean " bombastic" Combs. Shakurs "Hit Em Up," the last single issued during his twenty-five-year lifetime, set new highs of profane lunacy against B.I.G., who was later gunned down after Shakurs own untimely death. Yet millions of fans tack something meaningful in Shakurs troubled life and lyrics, analogous a thirty-two-year-old Detroit control buying her first Shakur album. "Ive never supported that kind of music," she told the Detroit News, "but there was something so tragic about the way he died ... Its almost like Im looking for answers." Politician Jesse Jackson also tried to explain Shakurs dusk and apparent appeal, telling the Los Angeles Times "Sometimes the lure of viole nt socialisation is so magnetic that even when one overcomes it with material success, it continues to call." Acting rap bit earlyFrom his June 16, 1971, birth in New York City, Shakurs life read much like an epic melodrama. His mother, Afeni, and father, Billy Garland, be unyieldinged to the Black Panthers, a aggressive group dedicated to achieving racial equality. Just two years earlier, in 1969, Afeni and then... ...s murder, "just a sad, ugly feeling, very creepy, very hollow," he said. "No art, no life, just ashes." Larger-than-lifeVibe chief executive Kevin Clinkscales, however, apprised fans against anymore "rumor-mongering," which he found disrespectful to Shakurs family. "These are not comic-book heroes," he told USA Today. "These are real people." That said, however, most agree that Tupac Shakur has won the epical immortality he craved so much. The sightings and resurrection theories place him in a tell apart club that inc ludes the late Kurt Cobain, Doors singer-poet Jim Morrison, and Elvis Presley. On that score, fans need not fear, as poet Nikki Giovanni acknowledged in her own tribute, "All Eyez on You" "dont tell me he got what he deserved he deserved a chariot and / the accolades of a grateful people / he deserved his life." Nor did Giovanni stop there, getting her own "Thug Life" tattoo to honor Shakurs memory, telling the Chicago Tribune " small black men are in a holocaustic situation." So long as that persists, fans insist, Tupac Shakurs musical legacy will be hard to deny.