(Billboard) The Marin County Sheriff’s office reported on Tuesday morning (May 3) that Afeni Shakur Davis, the mother of late rapper Tupac Shakur, died on Monday night at age 69.
Shakur (born Alice Faye Williams) was born in Lumberton, North Carolina, on January 10, 1947, and was known as a political activist and former member of the Black Panther party. In April 1969, she and a number of other Black Panthers were arrested and charged with several counts of conspiracy to bomb police stations and other public places in New York.
She was pregnant during her trial on the charges and gave birth to son Tupac Amaru Shakur on June 16, 1971. After struggling for a period in the 1980s with a drug problem that lead to an estrangement from the budding rapper, Afeni got clean in the early 1990s and reconciled with Tupac, who chronicled her struggles in his song “Dear Mama.”
After Tupac was killed in a still-unsolved drive-by shooting in 1996, Afeni became an executor of his estate, founding Amaru Entertainment to release her son’s posthumous albums and the Tupac Amaru Foundation for the Arts charity, which helps young people get involved in the arts. She was also instrumental in helping to bring the musical Holler If Ya Hear Me to Broadway in 2014.
