Entertainment / Music
Tupac's mother, Afeni Shakur Davis, dies at 69
03 May 2016 at 19:56hrs | Views
Afeni Shakur Davis, the mother of one of hip-hop's most seminal and iconic figures, has died at age 69, the Marin County, California, sheriff's office said Tuesday.
Though she is best known as Tupac Shakur's mom, she was also a Black Panther as a young adult and an activist and philanthropist in her later years.
Deputies responded to a family member's call reporting "a possible cardiac arrest" at Shakur Davis' Sausalito home around 9:34 p.m. Monday, the Marin County Sheriff's Office said.
Shakur Davis was taken to Marin General Hospital where she died at 10:28 p.m., the office said.
There was nothing suspicious about her death and there's no evidence of foul play, Lt. Doug Pittman said in a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
She struggled with drug abuse but got clean in 1991 and when her son was gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996, she resisted the urges to delve back into her old bad habits.
She instead founded Amaru Entertainment to keep her son's music alive.
"Arts can save children, no matter what's going on in their homes," she said. "I wasn't available to do the right things for my son. If not for the arts, my child would've been lost."
She provided the majority of the money to begin the $4 million first phase of the arts center, while her Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation hosted poetry and theater camps for youngsters in the Atlanta area.
"I learned that I can't save the world, but I can help a child at a time," she said, pointing out that her new life of philanthropy wouldn't have been possible without the influence of her legendary son.
"God created a miracle with his spirit. I'm all right with that."
And as much as she credited Tupac with inspiring her to help others, the tribulations she endured in raising him weren't lost on the multiplatinum artist.
He regularly invoked her in his music, perhaps never as directly as in his chart-topping song, "Dear Mama."
In it, he rapped, "And even as a crack fiend, mama, you always was a black queen, mama/I finally understand, for a woman it ain't easy trying to raise a man/You always was committed, a poor single mother on welfare, tell me how you did it/There's no way I can pay you back, but the plan is to show you that I understand."
Shakur Davis is survived by a daughter, Sekyiwa Shakur.
Though she is best known as Tupac Shakur's mom, she was also a Black Panther as a young adult and an activist and philanthropist in her later years.
Deputies responded to a family member's call reporting "a possible cardiac arrest" at Shakur Davis' Sausalito home around 9:34 p.m. Monday, the Marin County Sheriff's Office said.
Shakur Davis was taken to Marin General Hospital where she died at 10:28 p.m., the office said.
There was nothing suspicious about her death and there's no evidence of foul play, Lt. Doug Pittman said in a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
She struggled with drug abuse but got clean in 1991 and when her son was gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996, she resisted the urges to delve back into her old bad habits.
She instead founded Amaru Entertainment to keep her son's music alive.
"Arts can save children, no matter what's going on in their homes," she said. "I wasn't available to do the right things for my son. If not for the arts, my child would've been lost."
She provided the majority of the money to begin the $4 million first phase of the arts center, while her Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation hosted poetry and theater camps for youngsters in the Atlanta area.
"I learned that I can't save the world, but I can help a child at a time," she said, pointing out that her new life of philanthropy wouldn't have been possible without the influence of her legendary son.
"God created a miracle with his spirit. I'm all right with that."
And as much as she credited Tupac with inspiring her to help others, the tribulations she endured in raising him weren't lost on the multiplatinum artist.
He regularly invoked her in his music, perhaps never as directly as in his chart-topping song, "Dear Mama."
In it, he rapped, "And even as a crack fiend, mama, you always was a black queen, mama/I finally understand, for a woman it ain't easy trying to raise a man/You always was committed, a poor single mother on welfare, tell me how you did it/There's no way I can pay you back, but the plan is to show you that I understand."
Shakur Davis is survived by a daughter, Sekyiwa Shakur.
Source - CNN
