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.

Shakur devotes only one paragraph of her autobiography to her marriage, attributing its termination to disagreements related to gender roles.

As of February 17, 1972, when Shakur was identified as one of four BLA members on a short trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee, Shakur was wanted for questioning ( along with Robert Vickers, Twyman Meyers, Samuel Cooper, and Paul Stewart ) in relation to police killings, a Queens bank robbery, and the grenade attack.

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.

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.

On this initial release, Shakur helped extend the success of such rap groups as Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, X-Clan, and Grandmaster Flash, as he became one of the first major socially conscious rappers from the West Coast.

San Francisco was one of the homes of the late global rapping legend Tupac Shakur.

Another report was that Death Row Artist, Sam Sneed, was beaten in one of the label's meetings by a group of Death Row affiliates, led by Knight and Shakur.

Exactly one year following Tupac's death, with the money made from Tupac's posthumous albums, Afeni founded the Georgia-based Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, which provides art programs for young people, and Amaru Entertainment, the holding company for all Tupac's unreleased material.

The genre-crossing Frank Zappa was also from Maryland, as was Tupac Shakur, who was born in Harlem, though he began his career in Baltimore, eventually becoming one of the most famous rappers in hip hop history.

On October 20, 1981, after six previous unsuccessful attempts to rob a Brinks truck, Shakur and five or six other men succeeded in robbing one in Nanuet, New York.

In October 2011, former LAPD detective Greg Kading, who was once the lead investigator in the murder of Christopher " Biggie Smalls " Wallace, came out with a book which alleges that Sean “ Diddy ” Combs commissioned Duane Keith “ Keffe D ” Davis to take out Tupac Shakur, along with Knight, for one million dollars.

Credited with being one of the forefathers of G-funk and the West Coast hip-hop scene, his frenetic hand-clapped, bass-driven beats inspired the productions of songs released by DJ Quik, Eazy-E, Warren G, Spice 1, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, E-40, Ice Cube, Tech N9ne, Brotha Lynch Hung, Sicx and even East Coast rapper The Notorious B. I. G.

Among musicians, the song drew criticism from singer Dionne Warwick, and disapproval from Kool Moe Dee and Chuck D, who felt that although Shakur was one of the most substantive rappers of that period, he had gone too far with " Hit ' Em Up ".

Despite initial critical cynicism of the program's concept, it quickly gained cult status and was praised for the quality of its production, witty and often cringe-induced humour ( one recalls a contestant's sobbing lament of the deaths of two icons she held dear-Diana, Princess of Wales, and Tupac Shakur ).

Justice is at the hair salon working one day when a young postal clerk named Lucky ( Tupac Shakur ) comes in and begins flirting with her.

Surkov reportedly has portraits of Argentine-born revolutionary Che Guevara and American rapper Tupac Shakur next to one of Putin in his Kremlin office and is fond of poets such as Allen Ginsberg of the Beat Generation.

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

It has since been sampled by at least six rap artists, including Tupac Shakur, E-40, and Mase.

Following her capture, Assata Shakur was tried in six different criminal trials.

* On September 13, 1996, rapper Tupac Shakur died from respiratory failure and cardiac arrest, after having been in critical condition for six days.

Assata Shakur, with gunshot wounds in both arms and a shoulder was moved to Middlesex General Hospital, under " heavy guard ", and was reported to be in " serious condition "; Trooper Harper was wounded in the left shoulder, in " good " condition, and given a protective guard at the hospital.

After the death of Shakur in 1996, Burrell left the record company.

After the death of Shakur in 1996, Burrell left the record company.

In the October that followed, towards the end of the same year, Tupac Shakur had been bailed out of jail by Death Row's Suge Knight in exchange for releasing his following four albums on Death Row Records.

Shakur has four children, including two daughters ( Sekiywa and Nzingha ) and two sons ( Mopreme, Chinua ).

Rap artist Tupac Shakur attended the fight and shortly after was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in the Las Vegas metropolitan area of Nevada.

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.