Tupac was clearly a performer with multi-dimensional abilities whose contributions to his art deserve to be studied from a variety of disciplinary viewpoints (see Armond White, 1997). Tupac Shakur's death on Friday, September 13, 1996, at the early age of 25, brought to an end a complex life marked both by personal controversy and artistic success. His impressive achievements include six solo rap albums, over 30 singles, starting or significant roles in six movies and a body of poems anthologized as The Rose that Grew from Concrete. Tupac was born in 1971 and raised in poor inner-city neighborhoods in New York. His father, Billy Garland, as well as his mother Afeni Shakur, had been significant figures in the Black Panther Movement of the 1960s...