Tupac's Family: Blood, Name and Movement

For a long time, Tupac believed his father was dead. He carried the surname of a man he was not related to. And his godmother lived in exile in Cuba. “Family” had two meanings for him.

There was family in the narrow sense: a mother, a sister, a father who turned up late. And there was the large political family of the Black Panthers, in which people shared a surname without being related. To understand Tupac, you need both circles.

The core: a mother, a distant father, a sister

Afeni Shakur (1947-2016), born Alice Faye Williams, was Tupac’s mother. A Black Panther, she sat in the dock in the Panther 21 trial, the case against 21 members of the party’s New York chapter. After 1996 she ran her son’s estate.

Billy Garland (born 1949), a Panther from Jersey City, is his biological father. He played no part in Tupac’s childhood and only reappeared in 1994. In 1997 a DNA test confirmed paternity. The court still denied him any share of the estate.

Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur (born 1975), the daughter of Afeni and Mutulu Shakur, is Tupac’s younger half-sister. Today she heads the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation. Her children Nzingha and Malik are Tupac’s niece and nephew.

Tupac had no full siblings. Through Billy Garland he has several half-siblings, among them the author Takerra Allen and the TV producer N’Neka Garland, who died in 2023.

A stepfather in prison, a stepbrother in THUG LIFE

Dr. Mutulu Shakur (1950-2023) was married to Afeni from 1975 to 1982, which made him Tupac’s stepfather. From 1986 he was imprisoned over the 1981 Brink’s robbery, an armed holdup of an armored truck. He was released only in 2022, by then terminally ill.

His children from other relationships are Tupac’s stepsiblings: Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur, who stood beside Tupac in the group THUG LIFE, as well as Talib, Ayize Jama-Everett, Nzingha Shakur-Ali and Chinua.

His mother’s side leads to Aunt Glo

Afeni had an older sister, Gloria Jean “Glo.” Staci Robinson dedicated the authorized biography to her. According to earlier information on this site, Glo’s son is Katari Cox, known in the Outlawz as Kastro, which makes him Tupac’s cousin.

Robinson also mentions his cousin Jamala, who answered many of her questions for the book. According to Afeni, Tupac’s second birth name, “Lesane,” also came from her sister’s side of the family.

After the 2026 guilty verdict in the murder trial, his cousin Aiyisha Obafemi spoke for the family (spelled “Aiysha” in some U.S. media). Mutulu’s obituary lists her as his goddaughter.

A name from Harlem, not from a father

Tupac did not get his surname from a father but through his mother’s first marriage. It began with Saladin Shakur, an associate of Malcolm X who became a surrogate father to many young activists in Harlem.

Lumumba Shakur (1942-1986), Saladin’s son, was Afeni’s first husband, from 1968 to about 1970. She kept the name after they split and passed it on to her son. Lumumba’s brother Zayd Shakur was killed in 1973 in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, a toll highway.

Mutulu and Assata took the name Shakur as young activists. Mutulu called Saladin his “revolutionary and spiritual father,” and he called Lumumba and Zayd his brothers.

When people speak of “uncle” Zayd or “aunt” Assata, this political kinship is what is meant.

Godparents from the movement

Assata Shakur (1947-2025) was regarded as Tupac’s godmother. After her escape in 1979 she went underground, and from 1984 she lived in exile in Cuba. She died there in 2025.

Geronimo Pratt (1947-2011), a Panther leader from Los Angeles, was Tupac’s godfather. He spent 27 years in prison until his conviction was vacated in 1997.

Kenneth “Legs” Saunders was Afeni’s partner at the time of the Panther trial and later became a father figure for Tupac. He died in prison when Tupac was a teenager.

Yaasmyn Fula, a close friend of Afeni’s, was the mother of Yafeu Fula, a.k.a. Yaki Kadafi, Tupac’s godbrother in the Outlawz. In 1996 she was the one who told Afeni about the shooting in Las Vegas. Her own son was shot dead two months after Tupac. Mutulu’s family counts her among his sisters.

A marriage behind bars

Tupac married only once, in prison in 1995, to Keisha Morris. The marriage was annulled in 1996. Her story, like those of his partners, is in the Women section.

A family tree in one sentence

Tupac Amaru Shakur, born Lesane Parish Crooks in 1971, was the son of Afeni Shakur and Billy Garland, half-brother of Sekyiwa, stepson of Mutulu Shakur, stepbrother of Mopreme, cousin of Kastro, godson of Assata Shakur and Geronimo Pratt, and he carried the name of a family he belonged to not by blood, but by history.