Tupac Shakur Multi Platinum Rapper

This legendary rapper was gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996, but not before having multi-platinum releases and a promising acting career. A prime example of the line rappers walk between street credibility and their art, Tupac pushed the East-West rap feud both as a real fight and as a tool to influence media coverage of his career. Tupac's raps were part traditional social protest and part gritty descriptions of street life in urban neighborhoods. This book includes details of his life, career, and like the other Essential Lives Cut Short books, covers the controversies surrounding his life and death. Lives Cut Short is a series in Essential Library, an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.

This legendary rapper was gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996, but not before having multi-platinum releases and a promising acting career. A prime example of the line rappers walk between street credibility and their art, Tupac pushed the East-West rap feud both as a real fight and as a tool to influence media coverage of his career. Tupac's raps were part traditional social protest and part gritty descriptions of street life in urban neighborhoods. This book includes details of his life, career, and like the other Essential Lives Cut Short books, covers the controversies surrounding his life and death. Lives Cut Short is a series in Essential Library, an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.

Tupac Shakur tells the story of the short, tumultuous life of one of rap music's brightest and most controversial stars. The son of a Black Panther mother, Tupac had a short childhood in Harlem and the Bronx, and a violent adolescence as a drug dealer, before finding fame with his first 'gangsta rap' album, 2Pacalypse Now, in which he drew on his experiences to describe gang life in the ghetto. Denounced by Vice-President Dan Quayle as having 'no place in our society', the album nonetheless launched a phenomenally successful music and film career for Tupac, with multiplatinum record sales and roles in movies such as Juice, Gridlock'd, Bullet (with Micky Rourke) and Gang Related (with James Earl Jones). Like many gangsta rappers, however, Tupac felt that leaving his 'Thug Life' behind him when he became famous would make him appear out of touch with the subject of his songs, a fake. He continued to live the life of a gang member in Los Angeles, being arrested frequently on assault and weapons charges. His lyrics baited rappers from rival gangs, particularly those from the East Coast, such as Biggie Smalls, whose wife he claimed to have slept with. Ultimately, Tupac died the death of a gang member too - gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas at the age of 25. The murder remains unsolved but Tupac's friends and the media blame his gang allegiances and rivalries. Extensively illustrated with over 100 photographs, as well as with exclusive interviews with the star and contributions from other key figures in the world of rap, Tupac Shakur is the first book to take on the contradictions of Tupac, to examine the talented private man behind the violent public image, and to pay tribute to an extraordinary life lived on the edge.

Traces the life, career, early death and influence of rapper and actor Tupac Shakur.

Tupac Shakur is not just a posthumous hip-hop icon. In the years since his September 1996 murder, he has attained a status that led some to coin him 'the Black Elvis'. More successful as a recording artist than at the active peak of his career, his posthumous albums continue to sell in massive quantities around the world. His cultural importance is reflected in a 'Tupac's not dead' myth - the first time a black performing artist has been mythologised on the level of a Presley or a James Dean. Crucial to the iconic appeal of Tupac is the mass of contradictions that define him: the macho gansta-rapper who eulogised the 'thug life'; the erudite young man who hoped for a political and spiritual awakening among his peers; the sexually insatiable star who served a prison term for sexual abuse of a young woman fan; the sensitive son of a politicised single mother, who recorded a sympathetic pain to women. A Thug Life explores all these contradictions, alongside every other aspect of Tupac's life and career. Compiling interviews, articles, reviews and essays on rap music's enduring icon, this extensively illustrated anthology is divided into five distinct sections, covering his early life, his music, film and the dark side of his life - the flirtations with gang culture, accusations of forcible sodomy and rape, his lucky escape from death after a 1994 shooting, and his accusations against former friend, the Notorious BIG, that fuelled the East-West Coast rap wars. The final section examines the murder of Tupac one September night in Las Vegas, and the conspiracy theories it fuelled. Interview transcripts are included of Death Row Records boss Suge Knight, talking of how Shakur died in his car, and Afeni Shakur, describing her legal action against the young gang member she blamed for her son's death - which was halted with the suspect's own shooting.

A star during his lifetime, a legend after a bullet killed him at the age of twenty-five, Tupac Shakur was the most influential rap musician of his day–and the most misunderstood. Far from being the insolent “gangsta” that the press put forth, Tupac was a committed and fearless visionary determined to make a difference not only on the music scene but in the black community at large. Darrin Bastfield grew up with Tupac in a rough Baltimore neighborhood, rapped with him, fought with him, and performed by his side. Now in this vivid, highly personal memoir featuring never-before-seen photos of the rap artist, Darrin shows the world what Tupac Shakur was really like as a teenager destined for greatness. In tight, edgy prose, Darrin follows Tupac through the seven years of their friendship. In Roland Park Middle School in the mid-1980s, rap was a kind of underground movement, and the kids with real talent always found each other. Tupac–new in town, a skinny thirteen-year old with shabby clothes and lopsided hair–may have looked uncool, but it soon became clear that he had the gift. When Tupac teamed up with Mouse, king of the beatbox, they blew the school away in their performance as the Eastside Crew. It was the first in a series of increasingly electrifying performances. When Tupac went to the Baltimore School for the Arts, then it really started to happen. A new group called Born Busy, unforgettable performances at the Beaux Arts Balls, an eye-opening backstage encounter with Salt-N-Pepa, their tight friendship with John, known among black kids as “the cool white boy,” a series of love affairs with adoring girls, the wild nights of the 1988 senior prom–Tupac and Darrin lived though it all together, and in this memoir Darrin makes it all come alive again. From the start, Darrin knew Tupac was a marked man, singled out by his charismatic gift. So it came as no surprise that Tupac made it big when rap went mainstream. What stunned Darrin was the violent turn Tupac’s life took once he relocated to L.A.–and how swiftly that violence engulfed and destroyed him. Vibrant, gritty, alive with the tension and spontaneity of rap music, this memoir of Tupac’s teenage years is a haunting portrait of one of the most important artists of our day.

Ten years after his tragic, untimely death, Tupac Shakur remains just as--if not more--popular with fans. He is among the top 40 best-selling artists ever and the best-selling rap artist, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. His six posthumous albums have all gone platinum. Tupac Remembered is an intimate collection of personal snapshots and memories from those who knew him best: from the Blank Panthers he grew up with to Quincy Jones, from his close-knit family to those affected by his legacy. Interviews from influential people include rappers Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent.

A biography highlighting the life, career, and the impact of rapper and actor, Tupac Shakur.