Tupac Amaru Shakur was born Lesane Parish Crooks, in Brooklyn, New York on June 16, 1971. As a child, Tupac lived an impoverished life and his family struggled when Tupac's step father, Mutula Shakur (who was a member of the Black Panthers) was sentenced to six years in prison, after taking part in a fatal armored car robbery. Tupac and his family moved from Brooklyn to the Bronx, to Harlem, and to different homeless shelters throughout the city. As a young teen, Tupac's family moved to Baltimore, and Tupac attended The Baltimore School for the Performing Arts. Tupac had started to show interest and excel in acting when his family packed up and moved once again, this time to Oakland, California (White, 13-30). Throughout Tupac Shakur's entire childhood, he always felt as if he didn't fit in because he never got the chance to settle in one area for an extended period of time. In Oakland, Tupac began to, as he called it, "hang with the wrong crowd" (TupacFans.com). Tupac became involved with hip-hop at the age of fifteen. Seven years later, Tupac released his solo album debut, 2Pacalypse Now. His first album, like the rest of his music and poetry which he would go on to write in the years that followed, addressed the societal problems of the urban lifestyle. Tupac knew all of these problems well, because he had dealt with all of them while growing up. Tupac's first hit single, "Brenda's Got A Baby," launched his career and put him in the spotlight. Before he released his second album, titled Strictly for my N.I.G.G.A.Z., Tupac landed a role in the film Juice. As Tupac's fame grew, his
             message was heard by more and more people around the world. Tupac Shakur's music and poetry were written by the society that surrounded the troubled rapper, and at the same time, his music and poetry rewrote the views that people had on the urban life of which poverty-stricken ...