Description

Nearly two decades after his death, Tupac Shakur remains one of the most magnetic and best-selling rappers in music. A figure of great strength and vulnerability, Shakur wrote songs that probed the difficult circumstances experienced by many inner-city black youths. Repeatedly condemned for his explicit, violent, and at times misogynistic lyrics, he reveled in his outlaw status and became a part of the "thug life" that his music portrayed. Shakur’s eight-month incarceration for a sexual assault in 1993 coincided with his emergence as a crossover success. Though he glorified being a "playa" in baggy jeans, he was critical of hip-hop’s excesses and wrote poignantly about political and social injustice. Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in 1996 at the age of twenty-five. Like that of his contemporary Kurt Cobain, his life seemed like a constant struggle between his art, his cultural politics, and the demands of fame.

Record Contributed By

National Portrait Gallery

Record Harvested From

Smithsonian Institution