Rapper, actor, poet. Five years between his first album and his death, and he’s still releasing records. Here’s the life, the music, the movies, the plaques and the honors, in order.
Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in East Harlem on June 16, 1971. His mother, Afeni Shakur, was a member of the Black Panther Party, and a month before he was born she was acquitted in the Panther 21 case. She named him after Túpac Amaru II, an indigenous leader who rebelled against Spanish rule in 18th-century Peru.
The family moved often. In Baltimore he got into the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied acting, poetry, jazz and ballet and became close friends with a classmate named Jada Pinkett. At 17 he moved to Marin City, California, where he wrote poetry, studied with Leila Steinberg, who became his first manager, and started recording as MC New York.
His way in was Digital Underground, the Oakland group behind “The Humpty Dance.” He started as a roadie and dancer and made his recorded debut on their 1991 single “Same Song.” His own first album, 2Pacalypse Now, came out that November. It was angry, political, about police violence and poverty, and it made him a target: Vice President Dan Quayle said it had no place in American society.
Acting came at nearly the same time. He was cast as Bishop in Juice in 1992, then starred opposite Janet Jackson in John Singleton’s Poetic Justice. On record, “I Get Around” and “Keep Ya Head Up” made him a star. Off it, his life got harder: arrests in Atlanta and New York, a robbery in a Times Square studio lobby in which he was shot five times, and a 1994 conviction for sexual abuse that sent him to prison.
He was in prison when Me Against the World went to No. 1 in 1995. That October, Death Row Records’ Suge Knight arranged his $1.4 million bond and he signed with the label. All Eyez on Me, rap’s first double album, followed in February 1996 and eventually went Diamond. On September 7, 1996, after a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas, he was shot in a drive-by. He died six days later, at 25.
He released more after his death than before it. His mother ran the estate and put out album after album of unreleased recordings, and five of his albums have reached No. 1. He’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, “Dear Mama” is in the Library of Congress, and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2026, almost 30 years after the shooting, Duane “Keffe D” Davis was convicted of his murder.
| Released | Album | Billboard 200 | RIAA |
|---|
| Year | Song | Hot 100 | RIAA |
|---|
RIAA levels: Gold is 500,000 units, Platinum is 1 million, Diamond is 10 million. A dash means no RIAA certification is listed. Singles here reached the Hot 100’s top 40 or are certified.
He was nominated for six Grammys during and just after his life and never won one.
Dates, chart peaks and certifications are from Billboard, the RIAA, the Recording Academy, the Library of Congress and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as compiled on Wikipedia, plus news coverage of the 2023–2026 murder case. Certifications keep changing, so check the RIAA for the latest. No photos here, just the record.