Biography (2Pac in general)

Member Name:

Product:	2Pac in general
Date:	09/12/00 (74 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Rap Legend

Disadvantages: The reputation

True to his appropriately titled 1995 chart-topping album, Me Against the World, rapper 2Pac has attempted to define himself as a performer amidst numerous criminal charges and convictions. The critical and commercial success of his music (as well as an acclaimed acting career) has been continually overshadowed by his legal entanglements. In the life of this gansta rapper, art and reality have become increasingly blurred.

Shakur, the son of a Black Panther member, spent a great deal of his childhood moving around the country. Just before settling, at the age of 17, in Marin County, California, Shakur dropped out of the Baltimore School of the Arts. The rapper then successfully auditioned to become a dancer and roadie for the rap group Digital Underground and simultaneously worked relentlessly on his own material. In 1991 he signed with Interscope and released the album 2Pacalypse Now (#64 pop, #13 R&B, 1992), a musical mixture of inner-city portraiture and messages of racial strength.

Shakur also became a successful actor in the early Nineties, appearing in Juice (1992) and Above the Rim (1994) and giving a critically acclaimed performance opposite Janet Jackson in John Singleton’s Poetic Justice (1993). Shakur’s second album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. (#24 pop, #4 R&B, 1993), yielded the hits "I Get Around" (#11 pop, #4 R&B, 1993) and"Keep Ya Head Up" (#12 pop, #7 R&B, 1993).

Even longer than 2Pac’s hit list, though, is his police blotter. In 1992 the rapper was arrested after a six-year-old California boy was killed by a stray bullet discharged during a scuffle between Shakur and two others. He was then charged in Atlanta with shooting two off-duty police officers in October 1993. Charges in both cases were dismissed. The following month Shakur and two members of his entourage were charged with sexual abuse following an incident in a New York City luxury hotel. In early 1994 he was found guilty of a
ssault on Menace II Society codirector Allen Hughes and served 15 days in jail. By the end of the year, the rapper was found guilty of the sexual assault only a day after being shot by muggers in the lobby of a New York City recording studio. He was later sentenced to 41/2 years in prison.

While his 1995 album Me Against the World headed to the top of the charts, Shakur headed for prison. Shakur has become the first artist to reach #1 on the American Billboard charts while serving out a prison sentence.

Summary: