The Life and Music of Tupac Shakur
Uploaded by schoolblows on May 04, 2007
The Life and Music of Tupac Shakur
What does it take to be an icon of the 21st century? An icon is a symbol representing what a person did to be admired by many people and achieved many things rarely an ordinary person can do. I would consider Tupac to be an icon of the 21st century because he became a living symbol of his generations to many hip-hop and rap fans all over the world. He was the son of Afeni Shakur and Billy Garland. At his teens, his family moved to Baltimore, MD. He attended The Baltimore School for the Performing Arts and studied acting and ballet. At this school, the teachers had an impression of Tupac that he had an outstanding potential. Unfortunately, he had to move to Oakland, CA with his family and that was when he began to, as Tupac called it, “Hang with the wrong crowd.”
As a true icon of the 21st century, Tupac had many great qualities and was very humble because he grew up in the poorest part of the city and he knew the feeling of being poor. After all of his success he never in any way try to flaunt about his wealth and that he showed strength not by money but by the words he sang and wrote. Tupac Shakur can be characterized as a rapper, an actor and a great personality.
One of the greatest aspects that create Tupac is his great talent of being a great rapper. Baltimore was the city where Tupac really began getting into the art of emceeing. In Baltimore, at the age of fourteen, Tupac was known as MC New York. In California, he joined the rap group Digital Underground to learn the ropes of the hip-hop industry, and became the dancer for the crew. A year later, Tupac finally recorded a song with Digital Underground called, “Same Song.” Not long before the group received award-winning success, Tupac came out with his own album called, “2pacalypse Now”, which was also a success. His hit single, “Brenda’s Got A Baby”, launched Tupac’s career like a rocket, which went gold and sold over 500,000 copies. In 1993 he recorded and released, “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z”, an album that brought him into the pop charts. In 1995, Tupac produced his most impressive accomplishments, which included, “Me Against The World”, that sold two million copies,...