American rapper (1971–1996)
"Tupac" redirects here. For other uses, see Tupac (disambiguation).
"Makaveli" redirects here. For the Italian philosopher, see Machiavelli. Request 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 consign by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an Indweller rapper and actor. He is regarded as one of say publicly greatest and most influential rappers of all time. Academics disturb him as one of the most influential music artists director 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 bias, political issues, and the marginalization of other African-Americans,[3][4] but smartness 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 skull to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1988. With interpretation release of his debut album 2Pacalypse Now in 1991, filth became a central figure in West Coast hip-hop for his conscious rap and political rap lyrics.[6][7] Amaru achieved further carping 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 head double-length album in hip-hop history, abandoned his introspective lyrics confirm volatile gangsta rap.[9] In addition to his music career, Shakur starred roles in Juice (1992), Poetic Justice (1993), Above picture 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 discredit L.A.," "How Do U Want It," "2 of Amerikaz Escalate Wanted," "Brenda's Got a Baby" and "I Get Around." Adjoin his solo career, Shakur was part of the group Robber 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. Lighten up 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 tag Death Row Records and became heavily involved in the maturation 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 posterior. Following his murder, the Notorious B.I.G. was at first reasoned a suspect due to their public feud; he was along with murdered in another drive-by shooting six months later in Strut 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 lone nine hip-hop albums—to have been certified Diamond in the Unified States.[15] Five more albums have been released since Shakur's contract killing, including his critically acclaimed posthumous album The Don Killuminati: Picture 7 Day Theory (1996)[16] under his stage name Makaveli, compartment of which have been certified multi-platinum in the United States.[17] In 2002, Shakur was inducted into the Hip-Hop Hall touch on Fame.[18] In 2017, he was inducted into the Rock illustrious Roll Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.[19]Rolling Stone ranked Shakur among the 100 Greatest Artists of Mount Time.[20] In 2023, he was awarded a posthumous star pull a fast one the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[21] His influence in music, activism, songwriting, and other areas of culture has been the excursion 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] Patch 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 scheme the name of revolutionary, indigenous people in the world. I wanted him to know he was part of a artificial culture and not just from a neighborhood."[28] Tupac's surname came from Lumumba Shakur, a Sunni Muslim, whom his mother mated in November 1968. Their marriage fell apart when it was discovered that Lumumba was not Tupac's biological father.[33][34][35]
Shakur had tone down 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" Circlet, 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 Nation as part of the Panther 21 criminal trial. She was acquitted of over 150 charges.[38][39]
Other family members who were join in in the Black Panthers' Black Liberation Army were convicted support serious crimes and imprisoned, including Shakur's stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, who spent four years as one of the FBI's Ten First Wanted Fugitives. Mutulu Shakur was apprehended in 1986 and briefly 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 unquestionable spent 27 years in prison, his conviction was overturned in arrears to the prosecution's having concealed evidence that proved his innocence.[41][42]
Shakur's godmother, Assata Shakur, is a former member of the Swart 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 equate she escaped prison in 1979.[43][44]
In the 1980s, Shakur's mother wind up it difficult to find work and struggled with drug addiction.[45] In 1984, his family moved from New York City know Baltimore, Maryland.[46] Beginning in 1984 when Shakur was 13, good taste lived in the Pen Lucy neighborhood with his mother dispatch 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] Make sure of his death, the block was renamed Tupac Shakur Way.[49]
While progress in Baltimore, Shakur attended eighth grade at Roland Park Centre School, then ninth grade at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.[46] He transferred to the Baltimore School for the Arts providential the tenth grade, where he studied acting, poetry, jazz, talented ballet.[50][51] He performed in Shakespeare plays—the themes of which forbidden identified in patterns of gang warfare[52]—and as the Mouse Tolerant in The Nutcracker ballet.[40]
At the Baltimore School for the Subject, Shakur befriended actress Jada Pinkett, who became the subject discern 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 in behalf of his humor, he was popular with all crowds of students.[55] He listened to a diverse range of music that be part of the cause Kate Bush, Culture Club, Sinéad O'Connor, and U2.[56]
Upon connecting tighten the Baltimore Young Communist League USA,[57][58] Shakur dated Mary Baldridge, who was the daughter of the director of the regional chapter of the Communist Party USA.[59][60][61]
In 1988, Shakur moved vision Marin City, California, an impoverished community in the San Francisco Bay Area.[62][63] In nearby Mill Valley, he attended Tamalpais Extraordinary 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 attendance 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 fullstrength 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 Be there Squad
Shakur debuted under the stage name 2Pac on Digital Covered, under a new record label, Interscope Records, on the group's January 1991 single "Same Song". The song was featured overturn the soundtrack of the 1991 film Nothing but Trouble, prima Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Chevy Chase, and Demi Moore.[62] Rendering song opened the group's January 1991 EP titled This Bash an EP Release,[62] while Shakur appeared in the music videotape.
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, bear added, "this guy was on a mission. From day prepare. Maybe he knew he wasn't going to be around septet 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 although The Lost Tapes: Circa 1989.[71] Afeni Shakur sued to interruption the sale of the recordings but the suit was ordained in June 2001 and rereleased as Beginnings: The Lost Tapes 1988–1991.[71][72]
Shakur's early days with Digital Underground made him acquainted tweak Randy "Stretch" Walker, who along with his brother, dubbed Magnificence, and a friend debuted with an EP as a row 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, Diversion, 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 Chairwoman Dan Quayle said, "There's no reason for a record come into view this to be released. It has no place in email society." Tupac, finding himself misunderstood,[52] explained, in part:
I impartial 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 emerging 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 intercede day.[62]
Main article: Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z...
Shakur's without fear or favour 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 complete more hardcore album, it emphasizes Tupac's sociopolitical views, and has a metallic production quality. The song "Last Wordz" features Seize power from 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, drive backwards 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 explode 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 unite 1993, Shakur formed the group Thug Life with Tyrus "Big Syke" Himes, Diron "Macadoshis" Rivers, his stepbrother Mopreme Shakur, tell off Walter "Rated R" Burns.[82] Usually, Thug Life performed live outofdoors 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 scrap book All Eyez on Me. The track also appears on picture Above the Rim soundtrack.[84] Due to gangsta rap being hang heavy criticism at the time, the album's original version was scrapped, and the album redone with mostly new tracks. Placid, along with Stretch, Tupac would perform the first planned unmarried, "Out on Bail", which was never released, at the 1994 Source Awards.[85]
See also: The Embarrassing B.I.G.
In 1993, while visiting Los Angeles, the Notorious B.I.G. asked a local drug dealer to introduce him to Shakur forward they quickly became friends. The pair would socialize when Shakur went to New York or B.I.G. to Los Angeles.[86] Mid this period, at his own live shows, Shakur would corruption B.I.G. onto stage to rap with him and Stretch.[86] Join forces, 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 opulent to B.I.G. who had not yet established himself.[86] Shakur welcomed B.I.G. to join his side group Thug Life, but why not? 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 injection at Quad Studios in 1994.[87]
Main article: Sell Against the World
Shakur's third album, Me Against the World, was released while he was incarcerated in March 1995.[88] It decline now hailed as his magnum opus, and commonly ranks amid the greatest, most influential rap albums.[88] The album debuted chops No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold 240,000 copies in its first week, setting a then record for chief first-week sales for a solo male rapper.[89][90]
The lead single, "Dear Mama", was released in February 1995 with "Old School" despite the fact that the B-side.[91] It is the album's most successful single, perpendicular the Hot Rap Singles chart, and peaking at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100.[9] In July, it was documented Platinum.[92] It ranked No. 51 on the year-end charts. Description second single, "So Many Tears", was released in June 1995,[93] reaching No. 6 on the Hot Rap Singles chart snowball No. 44 on Hot 100.[9] The final single, "Temptations", was released in August 1995.[94] It reached No. 68 on description 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 representation music video for "Temptations".[95]
Shakur won best rap album at interpretation 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 induct, Knight traveled southward to New York City to attend say publicly 2nd Annual Source Awards ceremony. Meanwhile, an East Coast–West Strand hip-hop rivalry was brewing between Death Row and Bad Lad Records.[98] In October 1995, Knight visited Shakur in prison anew and posted $1.4 million bond.[99] Shakur returned to Los Angeles gleam joined Death Row with the appeal of his December 1994 conviction pending.[99]
Shakur's fourth album, All Eyez on Me, arrived draw somebody in February 13, 1996.[100] It was rap's first double album—meeting figure of the three albums due in Shakur's contract with Surround Row—and bore five singles.[101] The album shows Shakur rapping realize the gangsta lifestyle, leaving behind his previous political messages. Criticism standout production, the album has more party tracks and much a triumphant tone.[9] Music journalist Kevin Powell noted that Shakur, once released from prison, became more aggressive, and "seemed similar 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 picture 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 Intense 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 funny story the East Coast rap scene, like rap duo Mobb Profound and rapper Chino XL, who allegedly had commented against Shakur about the dispute.[105]
All Eyez on Me won R&B/Soul or Revelry Album of the Year at the 1997 Soul Train Euphony Awards.[106] At the 1997 American Music Awards, Shakur won Selection 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 get through 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 filmed in three days, and mixing took another four days. Inlet 2005, MTV.com ranked The 7 Day Theory at No. 9 among hip-hop's greatest albums ever,[112] and by 2006 a credibility album.[113] Its singular poignance, through hurt and rage, contemplation become more intense vendetta, resonate with many fans.[114]
According to George "Papa G" Pryce, Death Row Records' then director of public relations, the baby book was meant to be "underground", and was not intended plan release before the artist was murdered.[115][unreliable source?] It peaked submit No. 1 on Billboard'sTop R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and on picture Billboard 200,[116] with the second-highest debut-week sales total of stability album that year.[117] On June 15, 1999, it was qualified 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". Unadorned 1993 Tupac played a character named “Lucky” in the single 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 handmedown in the 1993 film.[122][123][124]
In April 2022, handwritten poems written contempt Tupac when he was 11 years old were up care sale for US$300,000 but only sold for $90,000.[125] The poems were for Jamal Joseph and three other Black Panther Cocktail members while they were incarcerated at Leavenworth Prison. Even trim his young age, Shakur's writing dealt with themes such rightfully black liberation, mass incarceration, race, and masculinity. The poems attribute a self-portrait of Shakur sleeping, pen in hand, dreaming souk the Black Panthers being freed from prison, and signed comprise 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 along with a poet and activist who became one of his era’s most revolutionary voices."[129] Tupac had passion for theater and awe of William Shakespeare. Years after Tupac's death, Nas said "I put Tupac beyond Shakespeare."[130]
Shakur's first film appearance was girder the 1991 film Nothing but Trouble, a cameo by depiction Digital Underground. In 1992, he starred in Juice, in which he plays the fictional Roland Bishop, a militant and recurrent individual. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers calls him "the film's principal magnetic figure".[131]
In 1993, Shakur starred alongside Janet Jackson in Privy Singleton's romance film, Poetic Justice.[132] Singleton later fired Shakur vary the 1995 film Higher Learning because the studio would arrange finance the film following his arrest.[133][134] For the lead function in the eventual 2001 film Baby Boy, a role played by Tyrese Gibson, Singleton originally had Shakur in mind.[135] After all is said, 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 maltreated him on set due to a discrepancy with the calligraphy. 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 sculptural 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 benefit 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 renounce 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 draw attention to 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 subside found out I [worked on] some movies, so we every time 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] whispered [to me], 'Old man, keep your fingers crossed.' He aforesaid, 'I've got three movies coming up. One of them, I've got to read for George Lucas."[143]
The Phantom Menace script difficult to understand begun being written in 1996 and the eventual film considering release in 1999. Lucas had asked Jackson to ask Shakur to audition but due to Shakur's untimely death the r“le ultimately went to Samuel L. Jackson. The two had worked on the film Juice together.[143]
In his 1995 interview be dissimilar Vibe magazine, Shakur listed Jada Pinkett, Jasmine Guy, Treach survive Mickey Rourke among the people who were looking out home in on him while he was in prison.[133] Shakur also mentioned put off 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 company 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 emancipation his "California Love" music video and had intended to funnel it, but removed herself from the project.[151] In 1995, Pinkett contributed $100,000 towards Shakur's bail as he awaited an influence on his sexual abuse conviction.[152][153] Pinkett later revealed that she turned down his marriage proposal while he was incarcerated belittling Rikers Island in 1995.[154][155][156] Speaking about Pinkett, Shakur stated: "Jada is my heart. She will be my friend for wooly whole life. We'll be old together. Jada can ask brutal to do anything and she can have it."[157] Pinkett whispered Shakur was "one of my best friends. He was comparable a brother. It was beyond friendship for us. The kind of relationship we had, you only get that once remove a lifetime".[158]
After Shakur was shot in 1994, he recuperated cram Jasmine Guy's home.[159] They had met during his guest come into being on the sitcom A Different World in 1993.[159] Guy emerged 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 behave 1990.[161] He made a cameo in Naughty by Nature's punishment video "Uptown Anthem" in 1992.[162] Treach collaborated on Shakur's expose "5 Deadly Venomz" and appeared in the music video suggest Shakur's "Temptations".[95] Treach was also a speaker at a common memorial service for Shakur in 1996.[163]
In 1993, during a policemen raid of Shakur's room at New York City's Parker Peak Hotel, a videotape was confiscated which showed Shakur having coitus with his then-girlfriend Desiree Smith. Officers were attempting to put up their case against Shakur for the alleged sodomy of Ayanna Jackson. In 2022, Smith insisted she was neither underage unheard of 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 measly unreleased songs, was sold to a private collector. The telecasting, which was filmed in 1993, also features rapper Money B from Digital Underground.[165]
Shakur and Mickey Rourke formed a bond onetime filming the movie Bullet in 1994.[166] Rourke recalled that Shakur "was there for me during some very hard times."[167]
Shakur esoteric friendships with other celebrities, including Mike Tyson[168]Chuck D,[169]Jim Carrey,[170] last 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 ireful open letter.[175] Shakur later apologized to her sister Kidada Phonetician, whom he began dating in 1996.[176] Shakur and Jones accompanied Men's Fashion Week in Milan and walked the runway merger for a Versace fashion show.[177] Jones was at their hostelry in Las Vegas when Shakur was shot.[178]
In November 1993, Shakur and glimmer other men were charged in New York with sodomizing a woman in Shakur's hotel room. The woman, Ayanna Jackson, described that after she performed oral sex on Shakur at interpretation public dance floor of a Manhattan nightclub, she went discussion group his hotel room on a later day, when Shakur, write down executive Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant, Shakur's road manager Charles Architect and an unidentified fourth man apprehended and forced her vertical perform non-consensual oral sex on each of them.[179][180] Shakur was also charged with illegal possession of a firearm as deuce 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", though he had been raised in a female household and bordered by women his whole life.[182]
On December 1, 1994, Shakur was acquitted of three counts of sodomy and the associated ordnance charges, but convicted of two counts of first-degree sexual practice 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 enraged $3 million as "inhumane". Shakur's accuser later filed a civil tally against Shakur seeking $10 million for punitive damages which was then 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 despite for Agnant who Shakur theorized had set him up respect the case.[86][139] Shakur reportedly believed his accuser was connected function 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 stay in keep himself free until sentencing so he surrendered himself stop working authorities at the Bellevue Hospital Jail Ward in New Royalty 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 Clinic 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 happening of brutal violence against a helpless woman".[181][190]
In March 1995, Shakur was transferred to Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora.[191] While inside, he began reading again, which he had been unable assess do as his career progressed due to his marijuana talented alcohol habits. Works such as The Prince by Italian dreamer Niccolò Machiavelli and The Art of War by Chinese militaristic strategist Sun Tzu sparked Shakur's interest in philosophy, philosophy clutch war and military strategy.[192] On April 29, 1995, Shakur marital his girlfriend Keisha Morris; the marriage was later annulled.[173] Even 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 singular confinement.[195]
By October 1995, pending judicial appeal, Shakur was incarcerated necessitate New York.[153] On October 12, he bonded out of say publicly maximum security Dannemora Clinton Correctional Facility in the process entity appealing his conviction,[52] once Suge Knight, CEO of Death Escalate Records, arraigned for posting of his $1.4 million bond.[65]
On October 31, 1993, Shakur was arrested in Atlanta suffer privation shooting two off-duty police officers, brothers Mark Whitwell and Player Whitwell.[196] The Atlanta police claimed the shooting occurred after description brothers were almost struck by a car carrying Shakur from way back they were crossing the street with their wives.[197] As they argued with the driver, Shakur's car pulled up and purify shot the Whitwells in the buttocks and the abdomen.[198][199] Banish, 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 Hollow Whitwell shot at them first.[183]
Shakur was charged with two counts of aggravated assault.[196] Mark Whitwell was charged with firing silky Shakur's car and later with making false statements to investigators. Scott Whitwell admitted to possessing a gun he had captivated from a Henry County police evidence room.[198] Prosecutors ultimately dropped all charges against both parties.[199] Mark Whitwell resigned from interpretation force seven months after the shooting.[183] Both brothers filed lay suits against Shakur; Mark Whitwell's suit was settled out disregard court, while Scott Whitwell's $2 million lawsuit resulted in a lapse 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 flustered by his beeper.[200] Music manager James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond reportedly offered Shakur $7,000 to stop by Quad Studios, in Earlier Square, that night to record a verse for his consumer Little Shawn.[86][200] Shakur was unsure, but agreed to the outburst as he needed the cash to offset legal costs. Grace arrived with Stretch and one or two others. In depiction 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 sheet cared for by his mother and a private doctor move Guy's home.[159] The Fruit of Islam and former members a choice of 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 survive, Combs and B.I.G. released the track "Who Shot Ya?", which Shakur took as a mockery of his shooting and meditating they could be responsible, so he released a diss sticker, "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, report on the 1994 ambush and shooting.[210] The newspaper later retracted the article since it relied partially on FBI documents afterwards discovered forged, supplied by a man convicted of fraud.[211] Refurbish 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]