Tupac’s Authorized Biography Reveals How Rapper Modeled His Mother’s Activism: ‘He Was Angry for the Right Reasons’

Despite being released at the end of 2023, by the publisher Best Seller, Tupac Shakur: The Authorized Biography was commissioned in 1999, three years after the artist’s death, by his mother, Afeni Shakur. The former Black Panther gave the Staci Robinson access to everything left behind by the son, such as diaries, photos, drawings and unreleased song lyrics.

Furthermore, Robinson counted on the help of the years spent alongside Tupacwith whom he studied in high school, at a school in California: “We were friends and we had plans to write together. Tupac was forming an all-female writing group to collaborate and write films and TV shows with him. I would be one of those writers” (via Folha de S.Paulo).

“We were friends until the end. The last time I saw Tupac it was at his house, the day he left to drive to Las Vegas, where he was killed”, added the author. The project was left on stand-by in the late 1990s until it was resumed and completed two decades later.

“Afeni had a strong and very beautiful influence on Tupac. She not only passed on to him the torch of carrying the altruistic mission of thinking community first, of helping others achieve the most basic needs in life, but she also instilled in him the message of hope and change,” he said. Staci about the relationship between the rapper and his mother.

According to the writer, Tupac reflected in the activism of Afeni: “Tupac He was always angry about the racial discrimination and oppression he saw in America. He was angered by the homicide statistics, by the police brutality that was prevalent in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.”

Tupac is still relevant because his message is timeless. The same problems he spoke and wrote about more than two decades ago remain unsolved. Everything he said in the 1990s is still current. As long as inequalities in society exist, Tupac will be relevant.

“It was as if he took all of our anger and placed it on his shoulders, courageously speaking out about it, unlike many of us who lacked the strength to address the inequalities embedded in our nation’s history. Tupac He didn’t mind putting himself in the crossfire of public opinion and spoke his mind. He was angry for all the right reasons,” she concluded.

Death

On September 7, 1996, 2Pac watched a fight Mike Tyson It is Bruce Seldon, in Las Vegas. The artist left the Grand Hotel MGM, alongside Marion “Suge” Knight, with ten more cars, heading to a club. Next to the BMW driven by Knight, a white Cadillac with four people stopped at a red light. Shots were fired from inside the unknown car, four of which hit Tupac. The record label owner Death Row Records suffered minor injuries, while the rapper was taken to the hospital and did not survive. The death of Shakur was declared on September 13th. He was only 25 years old.

The attack was not the first suffered by the musician. In 1994, he had already been shot. At the end of the same year, he was charged by the New York State Supreme Court with sexual abuse and possession of firearms.

Six months after the death of Tupac, Christopher “The Notorious BIG” was also murdered. Among the theories for the still unsolved crimes is that the deaths were the result of the rivalry between the labels Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records.

History

Tupac Shakur He is one of the most influential names in rap and has sold more than 75 million copies of his records. Born as Lesane Parish Crooksthe artist’s parents, members of the Black Panthers, informally baptized him as Tupac Amarunamed after an Inca guerrilla who rebelled against the Spanish invasion.

The fortune of Shakur it was left under the responsibility of her own mother, who passed away in 2016. The BMW 7 Series 1996 model year in the 750i version was purchased and restored by a collector (via Autosport).