''Although some may say that Tupac laid down in the bed he made, it is always unfortunate when someone with talent dies at such a young age, regardless of circumstances,'' said Geoff Mayfield, director for charts at Billboard, the music's industry trade magazine. Long before his death, his career raised questions about hip-hop's devotion to ''realness,'' the notion that a performer has to live (or have lived) the life he raps about. At the same time, he sold millions of albums and reached No. Shakur offered prime examples for groups that wanted to clean up rap lyrics he also considered himself a target of police harassment. With many raps about killing policemen (usually in self-defense), Mr. ''All we know is violence,'' he declared in ''Trapped.'' In an interview with Vibe magazine this year, he said children should be told that ''because I'm talking about it doesn't mean that it's O.K.'' But he also reveled in his notoriety, particularly after he was released from jail. He described gangsterism as a vicious cycle, a grimly inevitable response to racism, ghetto poverty and police brutality. But in many others, sometimes on the same albums, he portrayed the gangster life as a desperate, self-destructive existence of fear and sudden death. Shakur glamorized the life of the ''player,'' a high-living, macho gangster flaunting ill-gotten gains. Hopefully, this will have some positive effect on people - the gang members - who are shooting each other.'' ''There was this wonderful, charming, bright, talented, funny person that no one is going to get to know they are just going to know this other side.
''It's really unfortunate that the violent perception that the world has of that young man may be exacerbated by the way he died: art is being confused with real life,'' Mr. He was also a convicted sex offender, and the words ''Thug Life'' and ''Outlaw'' were tattooed on his body. He was an intelligent, vivid writer who had studied acting at the High School of Performing Arts in Baltimore he was an accomplished rapper with a husky baritone and crisp enunciation. Shakur was a complex and sometimes contradictory figure, with a career featuring million-selling albums, gunshot wounds and run-ins with the police. That night as he was leaving the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon prizefight, a Cadillac pulled up alongside the BMW in which he was riding and he was shot four times. Shakur, who lived in Los Angeles, had been in critical condition at University Medical Center in Las Vegas since Saturday. Tupac Shakur, a rapper and actor who built a career on controversy, died of wounds yesterday from a drive-by shooting last Saturday.