When Tupac Shakur rose to stardom, he and his mother — former Black Panther member, Afeni Shakur — made headlines all across the country. Even after their deaths, they continue to be topics of discussion. But there’s one person in their family you don’t hear much about – the slain rapper’s sister, Sekyiwa Shakur. But now, she’s shared her story and turned quite a few heads with her transparency in what she had to say.
Tupac’s Sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, Shared Details On Her Struggles And Triumphs In His Shadow
She wanted to maintain her privacy because of her last name
During a past interview with All Hip Hop, Sekyiwa shared details about the difficulties she’s faced over the years. Although she’s spoken out now, she wasn’t always open to sharing her life with the public. Her brother’s inability to escape the public eye influenced her decision to keep her personal life under wraps. “I kind of like my privacy. Because [as seen with] my brother, his real name was his stage name, he couldn’t escape into a private world. I didn’t want my identity out there.”
Her battles with mental health, depression, and her parents’ personal struggles
Over the years, Sekyiwa said she had bouts with bipolar disorder and depression:
Via 2PacLegacy.net – When I was growing up my mother [Afeni Shakur] was going through depression,” [said Sekyiwa Shakur]. Her brain was cut off at a certain point, when I needed it. Her fighting times were when Tupac [Shakur] was being developed, between his birth and 13. All this stuff happened between Assata Shakur being broken out [of jail].
My father [Mutulu Shakur] is in jail for breaking Assata Shakur out of prison. This happened when I was 5.
I’m bipolar. I battle with depression and suicide on a daily.
I’ve been hospitalized twice. After I left the hospital, I went through intensive therapy for three years, going to the therapist three times a week. I moved to Sausalito, California, where there was nothing but high class white people. They didn’t even know who Tupac was. I really needed to separate myself from the black community and it was almost like I was in refuge there. I was able to build my spirit back.”
On her struggles with being “dark skin”
In a column she’d written for AOL’s “Black Voices,” Sekyiwa shed more light on her insecurities. With her brother in the limelight, her last name carried a lot of weight and she often felt like she didn’t measure up to the mainstream stereotypical views of beauty. For that reason, she often found herself depressed:
Sekyiwa Shakur- “Growing up, dark-skinned, Black, with short hair, in a revolutionary family with a name like Shakur you deal with American issues with beauty, the girls with the pigtails. Weare always the outcasts of the neighborhood, always the ugly girl with the short hair – the African. Then I started feeling a little better about myself, and The Color Purple comes out and now I look like Celie [the character played by Whoopi Goldberg]. My beauty was always who I am, and I took it from my mother, did my hair [naturally].”
After Tupac and their close friend, Khadafi, died Sekyiwa struggled even more
Even after winning a beauty pageant in high school, she was faced with another life-changing experience that, once again, made her question her beauty:
“When I was like 16 or 17, I won a beauty pageant in high school, something like the Black Nubian Queen,” explained Sekyiwa. “Six months after that, I got pregnant and I was a fat baby mama, living the life of a fat baby mama. When you have a beautiful person like Tupac as your brother, it’s a cruel mirror to look at, you know what I mean? He didn’t have the problems. I had the two of them [Khadafi and Tupac] once they died I wanted to put myself back to where they saw me. I had just let myself go.”
It’s a new day for Sekyiwa now
Things are quite different now for Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur– who’s now the proud mother of two children, Malik and Nzingha:
“When we moved back to Atlanta, where my family was, is when I was able to put all of my tools in play. So, just coming back home around black people, coming back to society and seeing the difference from how I was, before I went to the hospital, and how I am now and how I walk in my own faith and my own spirit. I’m not Afeni’s daughter, or Tupac’s sister, or Mutulu’s daughter, I’m my own being and I’m powerful.
Your opinion of me is none of my business.”
Well said Sekwiya…job well done queen.
