Assata Olugbala Shakur ( born July 16, 1947, as JoAnne Deborah Byron, married name Chesimard ) is an African-American activist and escaped convict who was a member of the Black Panther Party ( BPP ) and Black Liberation Army ( BLA ).

Between 1971 and 1973, Shakur was accused of several crimes and made the subject of a multi-state manhunt.

In May 1973 Shakur was involved in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, during which New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and BLA member Zayd Malik Shakur were killed and Shakur and Trooper James Harper were wounded.

Between 1973 and 1977, Shakur was indicted in relation to six other alleged criminal incidents — charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery, and kidnapping — resulting in three acquittals and three dismissals.

Shakur was then incarcerated in several prisons, where her treatment drew criticism from some human rights groups.

Shakur was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, on July 16, 1947, where she lived for three years with her parents and grandparents, Lula and Frank Hill.

Shakur was arrested for the first time in 1967 with 100 other BMCC students, on charges of trespassing.

That same year she changed her name to Assata Shakur and joined the Black Liberation Army ( BLA ), " a politico-military organization, whose primary objective ( was ) to fight for the independence and self-determination of Afrikan people in the United States.

On April 6, 1971, Shakur was shot in the stomach during a struggle with a guest at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan and was arrested on a string of charges.

Shakur then allegedly displayed a revolver and a struggle ensued, during which she was shot.

Shakur is alleged to have said that she was glad that she had been shot since now that she had experienced what it was like she was no longer afraid to be shot again.

Following an August 23, 1971, bank robbery in Queens, Shakur was sought for questioning, and a photograph of a woman ( who was later alleged to be Shakur ) with thick rimmed black glasses, a high hairdo pulled tightly over her head, and a steadily pointed gun became ubiquitous in banks and full page print ads paid for by the New York Clearing House Association.

On December 21, 1971, Shakur was named as one of four suspects by New York City police in a hand grenade attack that destroyed a police car and slightly injured two patrolmen in Maspeth, Queens ; a 13-state alarm was issued three days after the attack when a witness identified Shakur and Andrew Jackson from FBI photographs.

Shakur was one of those wanted for questioning for wounding a police officer attempting to serve a traffic summons in Brooklyn on January 26, 1972.

During a trip to Las Vegas for a Mike Tyson fight, Shakur was interviewed on the possibility of Death Row East, an east coast branch of the record label, it was also during this time Alex Roberts and David Kenner had been seen at Knights Vegas Club 662 in discussion about the possibility of having Roberts New York underworld connections help pave the way for Death Row East.

He interviewed and profiled General Colin Powell and Tupac Shakur.

Specifically, documentary evidence suggests that Shakur was targeted by an investigation named CHESROB, which " attempted to hook former New York Panther Joanne Chesimard ( Assata Shakur ) to virtually every bank robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the East Coast ".

Tupac Shakur's bodyguard, Frank Alexander, produced a documentary about the murder, Tupac Shakur: Before I Wake, in which he stated that it would be inconceivable that Suge, who was the driver of the car in which Tupac was killed, and a very large man, would put himself in the path of bullets if he knew they were coming.

Clips of Soren's interviews with Tupac Shakur were included in the 2003 documentary film Tupac: Resurrection.

Amaru Entertainment has also released eight posthumous albums by Tupac Shakur and one documentary, Tupac: Resurrection.

Marrow's hip hop albums helped shape the gangsta rap style, with music journalist tracing works of artists such as Tupac Shakur, Notorious B. I. G., Eminem and N. W. A to " 6 in the Mornin '".

* 1971 – Tupac Shakur, American rapper, producer, and actor ( Digital Underground ) ( d. 1996 )

* September 13 – Tupac Shakur, American rapper and actor also known as " 2Pac " ( b. 1971 )

* June 16 – Tupac Shakur, American rapper, poet, and actor ( died 1996 )

# REDIRECT Tupac Shakur

Shakur is the step-aunt of the deceased hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, the stepson of her brother Mutulu Shakur.

Among the album's twelve tracks was also a posthumous duet with Tupac Shakur that was assembled from the large cache of unreleased recordings done prior to his murder in 1996.

Oakland was the birthplace or home at one time of several rap acts, including MC Hammer, Digital Underground, Hieroglyphics ( including Souls of Mischief and Del tha Funkee Homosapien ), The Luniz, Tupac Shakur, and Too Short.

Three of the most famous drive by shootings were the murders of Tupac Shakur on September 13, 1996, and The Notorious B. I. G on March 9, 1997 and The Steve Harvey Show's Merlin Santana on November 9, 2002.

Among the notables who died either without a valid will or no will at all are Ross Alexander, Fatty Arbuckle, Anura Bandaranaike, Madhav Prasad Birla, Sonny Bono, George Brent, Lenny Bruce, Jacob A. Cantor, Kurt Cobain, Russ Columbo, Sam Cooke, James Dean, Sandy Dennis, John Denver, Divine, Duke Ellington, Cass Elliot, Chris Farley, Bobby Fischer, Redd Foxx, Mary Frann, James A. Garfield, Marvin Gaye, Ulysses S. Grant, Billie Holiday, Buddy Holly, Shemp Howard, Howard Hughes, Andrew Johnson, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ernie Kovacs, Harry Langdon, Bruce Lee, Abraham Lincoln, Peter Lorre, Jayne Mansfield, Rocky Marciano, Karl Marx, Steve McNair, Sal Mineo, Carmen Miranda, Keith Moon, Rosa Parks, Pablo Picasso, Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin, Tupac Shakur, Don Simpson, Anna Nicole Smith, William Desmond Taylor, Sharon Tate, Tiny Tim, Ritchie Valens, Hervé Villechaize, Barry White, and Jimmy Witherspoon.

Displaying his influence on rap and hip hop, Clinton also worked with Tupac Shakur on the song " Can't C Me " from the album All Eyez on Me ; Ice Cube on the song and video for " Bop Gun ( One Nation )" on the Lethal Injection album ( which sampled Funkadelic's earlier hit " One Nation Under A Groove "); Outkast on the song " Synthesizer " from the album Aquemini ; Redman on the song " J. U. M. P.

Prior to its release, Brown had been in negotiations with rapper Tupac Shakur to get signed to Shakur's new label Makaveli Records.

# redirect Tupac Shakur

In 1995, after doing " California Love ", which proved to be his best selling single ever, Tupac Shakur would do its remix with Dr. Dre again featured, who originally wanted it for his next album, but relented to let it be on the album All Eyez on Me instead.

* The lead role was originally written for Tupac Shakur in 1996, but when he died, production for the film was put on hold.

Aboriginal boxing champion and former rugby league player Anthony Mundine identified US rapper Tupac Shakur as a personal inspiration, after Mundine's release of his 2007 single, Platinum Ryder.

** Tupac Shakur begins serving a 15-day sentence in a county jail for attacking director Allen Hughes on the set of a video shoot.

After several years of chart successes for artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Outlawz and Tha Dogg Pound, Death Row Records stagnated after Knight's incarceration on parole violation charges in September 1996.

The same year, Knight offered to post a bail ($ 1. 4 million ) for Tupac Shakur if the troubled rapper agreed to sign with Death Row.

" Cathy Scott wrote a book entitled The Killing of Tupac Shakur.

At this point, Assata Shakur and Acoli were ordered to put their hands on their laps and not to move ; Harper said that Assata Shakur then reached down to the right of her right leg, pulled out a pistol, and shot him in the shoulder, after which he retreated to behind his vehicle.

Acoli then drove the car ( a white Pontiac LeMans with Vermont license plates )— which contained Assata Shakur, who was wounded, and Zayd Shakur, who was dead or dying — down the road at milepost 78 across from Service Area 8-N ( the Joyce Kilmer Service Area ), where Assata Shakur was apprehended.

East Brunswick was also the site of the gunfight at Turnpike Exit 9 shortly after midnight on May 2, 1973, in which a car being driven by Zayd Malik Shakur ( born James F. Costan ), with Assata Shakur ( formerly JoAnne Chesimard ) and Sundiata Acoli ( born Clark Squire ) as passengers, was stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike State Trooper James Harper, backed up by Trooper Werner Foerster in a second patrol vehicle.

After Zayd Shakur was asked to step out of the car to address a discrepancy in his identification, a shootout ensued in which Trooper Foerster was shot twice in the head with his own gun and killed, Zayd Shakur was killed, and both Assata Shakur and Trooper Harper were wounded.

After the death of Tupac Shakur and the release of Tha Doggfather, Snoop Dogg openly blasted Suge Knight for the murder of Shakur and decided to leave the label, which he did in 1997, moving to Master P's No Limit Records and then forming his own record label, Doggystyle Records.

As a result, DMX was the second rapper in history ( following Tupac Shakur ) to have released two albums in the same year, which both debuted at number one on Billboard 200.

Late 1993, Tupac Shakur formed the group Thug Life with a number of his friends, including Big Syke, Macadoshis, his stepbrother Mopreme Shakur, and Rated R. The group released their only album Thug Life: Volume 1 on September 26, 1994, which went gold.