Meet the Knight of Swords (IRL) - Tupac Shakur

While we don't have his birth time, a sunrise chart shows Tupac has a Gemini stellium containing his Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn. Tupac was more than a rap icon — he became a voice for his generation and the generations that followed. He was empathetic and intelligent, and much of his work focused on articulating the effects of systemic racism within economically disadvantaged communities of color, struggles he knew firsthand.

A lot of Tupac's lyrics feel very Gemini to me. He raps constantly about community, and Gemini is all about the local community. His writing also carries a real duality: some songs focus on the fight for equality and carry a more uplifting feel, while others surface the pent-up aggression and nihilism — no doubt a direct side effect of existing under oppressive systems — that's a hallmark of traditional gangster rap. He's the perfect example of how two things can be true within a person at once. Unfortunately, the latter eventually became his demise.

Tupac was born June 16, 1971, in Harlem, NY, to his mother, Afeni (aka Alice Faye Williams). She was already raising two children alone, and the family struggled financially, moving around often and sometimes staying in shelters.

Tupac's family was actively involved in the Black Panther Party, a group dedicated to fighting police brutality, organizing community programs ranging from free breakfast to healthcare aid, and uplifting communities of color more broadly.

Tupac attended a high school for the arts in Baltimore, MD, but the area where his family lived was rife with crime, so they relocated to Marin City, California. There, his mother became addicted to crack, and Tupac began selling drugs. Early on, though, his love for music and focus on the arts kept him out of violent crime.

He met a woman named Leila Steinberg in a park in 1989, and the two struck up a happenstance conversation about Winnie Mandela. She described him as a charismatic young man with an infectious laugh and unusually long eyelashes. He shared some of his poetry with her, and she became his manager. Together they secured him work with Digital Underground in the early '90s, and his debut recording, "Same Song," was featured in the Dan Aykroyd movie Nothing but Trouble. That eventually led to an Interscope record deal.

Tupac repeatedly fought for artistic freedom in his writing, recording, and production. He wrote about traditional gangster rap themes alongside far weightier systemic issues, handling both with sensitivity and care. But the industry wanted a gangster rapper — they weren't nearly as interested in his softer material.

In 1992, a group of jealous peers attacked Tupac in California. He pulled out his gun but dropped it in the commotion. Someone else picked it up, the gun fired, and an innocent six-year-old bystander was killed. The incident ate at Tupac for the rest of his life. The boy's family filed a civil suit against him, which was settled out of court after a "mystery" record company — many speculate it was Death Row Records — offered nearly half a million dollars in compensation.

Then in 1993, Tupac was involved in an altercation with police in Atlanta, wounding two white off-duty officers after a confrontation, and was charged. But court proceedings showed the officers had been drinking and had initiated the incident by harassing and threatening Tupac, who hadn't done anything wrong. The charges were dropped.

The incident illustrated exactly what Tupac had been rapping about — the misrepresentation of Black men and the attitudes police held toward them. The courts wanted to paint Tupac as a dangerous gangster, but in reality, this was self-defense: a young man being harassed by police and fearing for his life.

By the mid-'90s, Tupac's fame was ever-growing. In 1994, he did a short stint in jail for assaulting a film director, and later that year the infamous rap rivalry with Biggie Smalls began. Tupac was shot multiple times in the lobby of an NYC studio. No one was ever charged, but Tupac believed Biggie was behind it, kicking off a two-year stretch of diss tracks traded between Tupac's label (he wasn't yet with Death Row) and Bad Boy Records, Biggie's label.

In 1995, Tupac served an eight-month sentence on sexual assault charges. He maintained his innocence throughout his life but did express regret for not stepping in to stop others from assaulting the victim. He was released on bail pending appeal after Suge Knight of Death Row Records posted his $1.3 million bail, and Tupac joined the label upon release. From there, the East Coast/West Coast rap rivalries rapidly escalated.

Tupac was Gemini if there ever was one. He rapped about the outlaw/gangster lifestyle and was deeply entangled in these coastal rivalries — while at the very same time setting up at-risk youth centers, hotlines, and sports teams for economically disadvantaged kids.

Tupac died from complications after a shooting in 1996. The murder has never been officially solved, though many point to Bad Boy Records as the culprit. Some people even believe Tupac is still alive, living out his life in hiding.

Everything about Tupac's life showed the dual nature so characteristic of Gemini. Like the Knight of Swords, he lived fast. He was intelligent, with revolutionary ideas, but also impulsive. He was complicated, complex, and often at the center of controversy, just as the Knight of Swords so often is. But his impression is lasting.

He was nominated for two AMAs, winning one. He won an ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Award and a MOBO Award in 1996, and was nominated for three VMAs. He received an NAACP Image Award nomination in 1994, three Soul Train Award nominations (winning two), and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. He was posthumously nominated for an ECHO Award in 2002 and received six Grammy nominations throughout his career. His music is still widely regarded as among the most influential in rap history.