He attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied theatre, poetry, jazz and ballet. According to the Baltimore Sun, Shakur was “attuned” to “injustice and the plights of the underserved, especially poor black communities in Baltimore.” While living in Baltimore in his late teens, he became a member of the Young Communist League, the Stalinist youth movement. Afeni Shakur later described the name change, after the 18th-century Peruvian rebel Tupac Amaru who revolted against Spanish rule, as honoring and carrying forward “the name of a revolutionary… I wanted him to know he was part of a world culture and not just from a neighborhood.”įor a time, Tupac Shakur maintained an interest in left-wing politics. His mother, Afeni Shakur Davis (born Alice Faye Williams in January 1947), a member of the Black Panther Party, changed the child’s name at an early age to Tupac Amaru Shakur. Shakur was born Lesane Parish Crooks in 1971 in East Harlem, New York City. The anniversary of Shakur’s untimely death provides the opportunity to briefly assess his social and artistic significance. According to, “in a period of five years from 1992-1996 he created a dozen albums, eight feature films, countless commercials, music videos and even two books of poetry.” A 2011 article in Forbes noted that “Shakur has sold over 75 million records worldwide, with the bulk of that coming after his death.” Capitalizing on his continued fame and following, associated music labels were able to produce seven 2Pac albums posthumously. Shakur was a highly prolific and multi-talented artist. In 2019, Shakur was the first solo rap act inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The pair have been appraised as perhaps the most influential rappers in the history of the genre. The circumstances surrounding the two unsolved murders of artists who were at the height of their respective musical careers have led to much speculation. Tupac Amaru Shakur, 1991 (Photo credit–Albert Watson)

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