Afeni Shakur, mother to late rap legend Tupac Shakur, has passed away at the age of 69. Marin County deputies have reported that they responded to a call at her Sausalito, CA home on Monday night, saying Shakur was rushed to a local hospital for an apparent cardiac arrest but died at approximately 10:30pm.
Born Alice Faye Williams in North Carolina in 1947, she changed her name after coming to New York City and joining the Black Panther Party. Shakur was arrested in 1969 on charges of conspiracy to bomb multiple city buildings. While on trial, she acted as her own criminal defense attorney and was acquitted of all charges. In 1971, she was released from prison and gave birth to Tupac.
She was the subject of his song “Dear Mama“, which chronicled the rapper’s childhood struggles with poverty while she suffered from an addiction to crack cocaine, but overcoming the addiction and struggling to put food on the table and raise two children on her own. The song was added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress, who deemed it a work that is “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.”
After Tupac’s shooting in 1996, Afeni took control over the rapper’s estate, which reportedly earned in the range of $900,000 per year after his death, and started the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, which raised and provided money for youth art programs, along with Makaveli Branded, a clothing that donated all of its proceeds to the foundation.
Watch “Dear Mama” below, in honor of Afeni Shakur. RIP.
[via NY Daily News]