The first 15,000 fans at the Baltimore Orioles‘ May 8 matchup against the Athletics will take home a special Tupac Shakur bobblehead.
A prominent figure on the West Coast rap scene, the legendary rapper and his family moved to Baltimore from the Bronx in November 1985 when he was 14 years old. He went to middle school and high school in Baltimore before moving to Marin City, Calif. in 1988.
The Orioles will honor Shakur with a bobblehead of him rocking an Orioles uniform, black bandana and holding a bat.
On May 8th, we’re celebrating the life and legacy of legendary rapper and actor Tupac Shakur.
Before becoming a global icon, Shakur lived in Baltimore from 1984-88. He attended @BaltSchoolArts, studying acting and poetry – a formative chapter that helped shape the artist he’d… https://t.co/PtTpCcB0ws
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) January 12, 2026
Shakur first went to Roland Park Middle School then Paul Laurence Dunbar High School before auditioning as a theater major at the Baltimore School of Arts. He studied acting, poetry, jazz and ballet at the school.
He rapped along the way, too, with Baltimore playing a role in his career as a musician. According to Baltimore Magazine, Shakur and his friend Dana Smith won a youth rap contest in November 1985 held at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. He spotted a flier that read: “Calling All Rappers” with the two penning a song called “Library Rap.” Shakur wrote his verse on a piece of lined notebook paper, which now resides in Pratt’s special collections archive alongside work from legendary Baltimore scribes H.L. Mencken and Edgar Allen Poe.
Shakur is widely regarded as one of the greatest rappers and lyricists of all time. He became the first solo hip-hop artist to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. He was murdered in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting in 1996.
