Shakur was born on June 16, 1971, in East Harlem, New York, despite his West Coast upbringing.1)
Lesane Parish Crooks was Shakur's true name. 2)
Tupac's mother, Afeni Shakur, renamed him Tupac Amaru Shakur a little less than a year after he was born.3)
Tupac Amaru was a revolutionary from South America who led the indigenous revolt against Spanish tyranny. His oppressors would execute the revolutionary. 4)
Afeni Shakur was an active Black Panther Party member. Tupac Shakur was born one month and three days after Afeni was acquitted of “Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks.”5)
When he was 13, he portrayed Travis Younger in A Raisin in the Sun, which was staged at Harlem's Apollo Theater to benefit Jessie Jackson's presidential campaign. 6)
He attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied dancing.7)
In the Nutcracker, he played The Mouse King. 8)
Shakur began rapping under the alias MC New York in Baltimore. 9)
Tupac and Jada Pinkett Smith had a very close platonic friendship.10)
He joined the Young Communist League USA while still in high school in Baltimore.11)
Shakur began his showbiz career as a backup dancer for The Digital Underground in 1990. 12)
Shakur completed The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory in seven days, taking three days to create and record the tracks and four days to mix the album under his new stage name Makaveli. 13)
According to Shakur's ex-wife Keisha Morris, Shakur auditioned for the role of Bubba in Forrest Gump but did not receive the job. 14)
Shakur was set to play the lead in Menace II Society, but he was replaced by Larenz Tate after an altercation with co-director Allen Hughes.15)
Shakur claims that when filming Poetic Justice, he was requested to undergo an HIV test before filming a love scene with Janet Jackson. 16)
He was in a relationship with Madonna.17)
He was a Shakespeare connoisseur. 18)
He grew up listening to English and Irish pop performers such as Kate Bush, Sinead O'Connor, Culture Club, and U2. 19)
Rashida Jones, then 17, wrote an angry letter to Shakur in 1993 after he chastised her father, Quincy Jones, for having affairs with white women.20)
Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. were actually pals before the whole East Coast vs. West Coast spat.21)
'Me Against the World' debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, marking Shakur the first musician to do so while in prison. 22)
Tupac and Ice-T once performed a duet.23)
While in prison, Shakur was strongly affected by Niccol Machiavelli's writings, particularly The Prince. 24)
Members of the Outlawz smoked marijuana after mixing some of Shakur's ashes with it after he was cremated. 25)
“Dear Mama” became the third rap song in history to be inducted into the National Recording Registry in 2010. 26)
Shakur changed the name of his publishing company, Ghetto Gospel, to Joshua's Dream in honor of 11-year-old Joshua Torres. 27)
Shakur shot and killed two off-duty police officers. Charges were dismissed, however, after it was determined that the policemen were inebriated, in possession of stolen firearms, and lied to police officers. 28)
He sobbed after speaking with Maya Angelou on the set of Poetic Justice.29)
Tupac was shot four times in the chest by an unidentified shooter on September 13, 1996. 30)