Following a unanimous vote by the city council on Tuesday, the late hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur will have a street in Oakland renamed in his honor. Tupac, who first arrived in the Bay Area as a teenager and rose to fame as a member of the group Digital Underground in 1991, credited his time in Marin City as instrumental in his development as an artist. The section of MacArthur Boulevard by Lake Merritt where Tupac once lived will retain its current name, but will also be known as Tupac Shakur Way in recognition of the rapper’s contributions to the community. The Tupac Shakur Foundation will cover the costs of signage and commemorative plaques for the newly named street. The decision to honor Tupac was made with the intention of celebrating his impact on Oakland and recognizing the transformative power of art and culture.
Over the years, the city has also paid homage to other icons with street names for record producer Too Short and Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton.
Tupac died of of gunshot wounds suffered in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting in 1996, at just 25, after paramedics rushed him to the ICU at University Medical Center.
He was ‘shot him four times in the chest at a stoplight’ by an ‘unknown gunman in a white Cadillac,’ according to Britannica.
In an attempt to save his life, he was placed on life support and put under an induced coma.
Nearly 30 years later, the homicide case remains unsolved.