Tupac Shakur, in my thoughts, is one of the best rappers that had ever lived. Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in New York on June 16, 1971. It seems that his life was destined to be troublesome being that his mother was incarcerated when he was born. Tupac lived with relatives most of his young life due to this problem. When Tupac was 12 years old he performed in his first play, "A Raisin in the Sun", in which he played a boy named "Travis". His family believed him to be a natural talent. In 1986, Tupac's family moved to Baltimore, Maryland. It is here he was enrolled in the Baltimore School for the arts, studying ballet and acting. .
This is also when he wrote his first rap. Two years later Tupac moves west to Marin City, California. It is there where he was introduced to gangs and drug trafficking. It would have been the end to his story had he not run into a rap promoter who introduced to the Digital Underground record label, where he was a dancer and a rapper. In 1991 he was given his opportunity to make his own album. His album 2Pacalypse was released in November of 1991. This album went gold. Tupac also made his first movie appearance in Ernest Dickenson's "Juice". In the movie he portrays a power hungry gangster who is killed at the end of the movie.
Tupac released his next album on February 1, 1993. That album went platinum. He then receives his next movie role in July of that year. It is John Singleton's Poetic Justice. He plays opposite Janet Jackson. On Halloween of that year Tupac is arrested for the shooting of two-off duty police officers from Atlanta. He claims he was harassed as a black motorist. The charges were dropped, and this is where his decent of his life began. .
The next year in November of 1994 he was entering a recording studio in Times Square, where he was shot five times and robbed of $40,000 worth of jewelry. He survived the attempt on his life, but was sentenced to four and half years for sexual abuse.