The rap performer Tupac Shakur, who was charged in Atlanta last month in the shooting of two off-duty police officers during a traffic dispute, was arrested on Thursday night and charged with taking part in a sexual attack on a woman in a Manhattan hotel, the police said.
Mr. Shakur, who had a leading role with Janet Jackson in the recent movie "Poetic Justice," held down the victim as another man sodomized her in the bedroom of a suite at the Parker Meridien Hotel, police investigators said. As the woman tried to escape, two friends of the rapper restrained her, said Sgt. Edelle James, a police spokeswoman. They were also arrested, but the fourth man got away.
Mr. Shakur, known for lyrics that range from angry to hopeful, was also charged in March with assaulting a driver who complained that he and a friend were using drugs in the back of a limousine. The charges were later dismissed.
In the attack on Thursday night, the police said, Mr. Shakur, who is 22 years old and from California, was in the bedroom of the suite with a 20-year-old woman whom he knew when three friends entered. He held the woman down as one of the men, whom the authorities did not identify, sodomized her, the police said. At one point, the other men grabbed her by the hair and forced her to perform oral sex on Mr. Shakur, the police said. When she tried to leave, two of the men, Charles Fuller, 23, and Ricardo Brown, 30, restrained her, according to the police account. Three Men Charged
Ultimately, the police said, the woman left the suite and notified security at the hotel on West 56th Street. Mr. Shakur and the two other men arrested were charged with forcible sodomy and unlawful imprisonment, and were awaiting arraignment yesterday afternoon.
Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, said that as of yesterday afternoon, investigators from her office had not yet spoken to Mr. Shakur or the other men.
The Screen Actors Guild supplied a business contact number for Mr. Shakur in Atlanta, but calls left on an answering machine at the number were not immediately returned.
Mr. Shakur, like many rappers, often uses hard-edged, visceral language in his songs to articulate the experience of young black men. The genre has also drawn criticism by many who feel that it sometimes crosses the line, delivering a message that preaches violence. Former Vice President Dan Quayle once wanted an album of Mr. Shakur's, "2pacalypse Now," removed from record stores because of antipolice lyrics and references to the Rodney G. King case.
One lyric poses this choice about the police: "Drop them or let them drop you? I choose dropping the cop!"
Sometimes Mr. Shakur's work has been more upbeat. While he played a vicious gang member in the 1992 movie "Juice," he played a hard-working postal worker courting Ms. Jackson in "Poetic Justice." The singer was nominated for an Image Award by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for his role in that film. The awards are scheduled to be presented in January.
And one of his songs, "Keep Your Head Up," tries to convey an encouraging message to his fans. The song is part of his album, "Strictly For My N.I.G.G.A.Z." The cover of the album shows Mr. Shakur wearing gold jewelry, with his hands in his pocket; below his waist, his body is depicted disappearing into flames.
Other rappers have had trouble with the law recently as well. Flavor Flav of the group Public Enemy was arrested three weeks ago in the Bronx and charged with attempted murder after the police were told that he shot at a neighbor during an argument. The performer, whose real name is William Drayton, led officers to his apartment, where they found a loaded .38-caliber semiautomatic handgun with one round missing, the police said.
Photo: The rap performer Tupac Shakur leaving Midtown North Precinct yesterday in Manhattan. (Joe Major for The New York Times)
