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On September 28-29, 2012, Hip Hop scholars, educators, students and artists convened at the Atlanta University Center (AUC) Robert W. Woodruff Library in Atlanta, Georgia for the Tupac Amaru Shakur Collection Conference. The academic conference, “Hip Hop, Education, and Expanding the Archival Imagination,” explores the life and work of Tupac Shakur and Hip Hop archives and studies.
Speakers included: Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University; Dr. Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Vice Provost for Diversity and professor of History at the University of Connecticut; Kevin Powell, author and political activist; and Dr. Akinyele K. Umoja, associate professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Georgia State University.
The conference commemorates the Tupac Amaru Shakur Collection, which opened to the public for research last year on the fifteenth anniversary of the artist’s death. Spanning a period from 1969 to 2008, the Shakur Collection includes items such as handwritten song lyrics and poems, memorabilia, correspondence, press clippings and publicity materials. The Shakur Collection represents a partnership between the AUC Woodruff Library, Amaru Entertainment, Inc. and the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation to make available these original documents.
Born in East Harlem, New York, Shakur came to prominence in the early 1990s as a featured rapper for the Hip Hop group Digital Underground, going on to become one of the most significant cultural icons of the Hip Hop generation. Prior to his untimely death at the age of 25, Shakur released five albums and appeared in four motion pictures. Ten albums, numerous compilations and four feature films have been released posthumously, including Tupac: Resurrection, which received an Academy Award nomination for “Best Documentary (Feature)” in 2005.
About the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation
The Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation is home to the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts, just outside of Atlanta in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The Center is dedicated to providing youth and the community with educational programs in the arts. The Center’s programs have served youth of all social and economic backgrounds, giving countless young people the courage to get off the streets and learn vital skills that have the potential to positively impact their communities. For more information or to make a donation, visit www.TASF.org.
