Tupac Shakur case study - Essay Example

His works advocated social, economic and racial equality, confrontation with the law and drug and alcohol abuse. Shakur’s debut album titled 2Pacalypse Now gained critical recognition, but at the same time earned a negative backlash for its controversial lyrics. He became the target of many legal hassles of which one notable conviction was of sexually assaulting a woman in 1993 for which he vehemently denied the claim. He had to serve a 11 month sentence and finally his appeal was financed by the CEO of “Death Row Records” for whom he later did three records.

Tupac Shakur was born in East Harlem in Manhattan in New York City. His name “Shakur comes from the Arabic word “thankful to God. He was named after Tupac Amaru ll an Incan who was sentenced to death for leading an uprising against Spain. Crime and violence surrounded Shakur from an early age. His mother Afeni Shakur was one of the leading members of the “Black Panthers” In New York and just a month before Tupac was born she was acquitted of over 100 charges of “Conspiracy against the United States government and New York Landmarks.

His step father was on the FBI’s top ten “Most Wanted Fugitives”. At the age of 12, Shakur enrolled himself in Harlem’s 127th Street Ensemble and his first major acting role was in a play called “A Raisin in the sun”. He studied acting, Jazz and poetry at the Baltimore School for the Arts and was known as the best rapper in his school. When his family moved to California, he joined the “Ensemble Theatre Company” to pursue his acting career. Due to his mother’s crack addiction he was forced to move to Leila Steinberg’s place who became a sort of a mentor to him.

His Acting Career: In 1992 he starred in “Juice” as Bishop as a trigger happy teen for which he got acclaim by Peter Travers of “The Rolling Stones” as “the film’s most magnetic figure”. He also featured in “Poetic Justice” with Janet Jackson. Three of