Mutulu was wanted in part for having helped his sister Assata Shakur (also known as Joanne Chesimard), Tupac's godmother, to escape from a penitentiary in New Jersey, where she had been incarcerated for allegedly shooting a state trooper to death in 1973. His stepfather, Mutulu, spent four years at large on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list beginning in 1982, when Shakur was a pre-teen. His godfather, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a high ranking Black Panther, was convicted of murdering a school teacher during a 1968 robbery, although his sentence was later overturned. Struggle and incarceration surrounded Shakur from an early age. Afeni feared her enemies would attack her son, and disguised their relation using a different last name, only to change it three months or a year later, following her marriage to Mutulu Shakur. His mother, Afeni Shakur, was an active member of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s Shakur was born just one month after her acquittal on more than 150 charges of "Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks" in the New York Panther 21 court case.Although officially unconfirmed by the Shakur family, several sources list his birth name as either "Parish Lesane Crooks" or "Lesane Parish Crooks". He was named after Túpac Amaru II, an Incan revolutionary who led an indigenous uprising against Spain and subsequently received capital punishment. Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City. On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, and died six days later of respiratory failure and cardiac arrest at the University Medical Center. Shakur's fifth album, the first double-disc release in hip hop history All Eyez on Me, was counted as two albums. In exchange for Knight's assistance, Shakur agreed to release three albums under the Death Row label. After serving eleven months of his sentence for sexual abuse, Shakur was released from prison on an appeal financed by Marion "Suge" Knight, the CEO of Death Row Records. Following the event, Shakur grew suspicious that other figures in the rap industry had prior knowledge of the incident and did not warn him the controversy helped spark the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry. Later, he was shot five times and robbed in the lobby of a recording studio in New York City. Shakur became the target of lawsuits and experienced other legal problems. Shakur's debut album, 2Pacalypse Now, gained critical recognition and backlash for its controversial lyrics. Shakur was initially a roadie and backup dancer for the alternative hip hop group Digital Underground. Shakur's work is known for advocating political, economic, social and racial equality, as well as his raw descriptions of violence, drug and alcohol abuse and conflicts with the law. Most of Shakur's songs are about growing up amid violence and hardship in ghettos, racism, problems in society and conflicts with other rappers. He is recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest-selling rap artist, with over 75,000,000 albums sold worldwide, including over 50,000,000 in the United States. In addition to his status as a top-selling recording artist, Shakur was a successful film actor and a prominent social activist. About Tupac Amaru Shakur (JSeptember 13, 1996), also known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper.