On Me Against the World, the 1995 album
from Tupac Shakur, the prodigious rapper foretells his death.
“I’m
having visions of leaving here in a hearse/ God can ya feel me?/ Take me
away from all the pressure/ and all the pain/ show me some happiness again,”
he raps on “So Many Tears.” Eighteen months later, while riding in the
passenger seat under the iridescent glow of the Las Vegas strip with
Marion “Suge” Knight at the wheel, Tupac was gunned down and mortally
wounded. Or was he?
Here’s
how his death supposedly went down. Just past 11 p.m. on September 7,
1996, at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane (then just a
few steps from the Maxim Hotel), Tupac and Knight were idle at a red
light when a white Cadillac rolled up to the passenger side and opened
fire. Tupac, whose career had been on a steep ascent since getting out
of prison the year before, was hit four times; one bullet critically
punctured his lung. Knight, for the most part, was unharmed.
A week later, on September 13, while on life-support in the critical care unit at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, the 25-year-old rap phenom died from internal bleeding.
The drive-by shooting was reported to be gang-related, spurred by a physical altercationinvolving Tupac, Knight, and Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a Crip gang affiliate from Compton, the night of September 7. (A 2011 investigation by the FBI showed several threats were also made on the rapper’s life by the Jewish Defense League).
Dr.
Ed Brown, the Clark County coroner investigator, determined Tupac’s
death a homicide. ” I found no apparent life signs,” he detailed in his
report, “and trauma was observed to the right hand, right hip and right
chest under the right arm, apparently caused from gunshots.” Tupac was
pronounced dead at 4:03 p.m. on Friday, September 13, 1996.
The Most Common Questions Surrounding Tupac’s Death
- The picture above, said to be the last photo taken before the shooting, raises two interesting questions: If Tupac was shot on 9/7/96, why does the photo indicate it was taken on 9/8/96?
- Why are there no keys in the car’s ignition?
- 14 shots were fired, four of which hit Tupac. Knight, who is a considerably large man (around 6’4, 260 pounds) was not hit once. He was said to have sustained minimal injures from bullet fragments, but no serious wounds were recorded. Did Knight mastermind the shooting? (Believe what you will, but nobody’s luck is that good.)
- Since being shot at Quad Recording Studios on November 30, 1994, Pac wore a bullet-proof vest almost everywhere. It seems odd, on such a high profile night, that he’d forego protection.
- The BMW from the photo does not match the BMW from the police investigation video.
- The shooters were never found. As one former Outlawz member noted in a 2014 National Geographic documentary that explored Tupac’s still unsolved murder, “This is America. We found Bin Laden.” So why has it been so difficult to find the men who shot Tupac? What are the police not telling us?
- The streets of Las Vegas are typically jam-packed—with an assortment of cars, people, and entertainers trying to earn a living. Tupac was shot two hours after the Mike Tyson/Bruce Seldon fight, and the streets, the strip especially, were likely congested with traffic that night. And yet, nobody spotted the white Cadillac?
- The official coroner’s report lists Tupac as 72 inches tall (6 feet) and 215 pounds. But the rapper’s driver’s license identifies him as 5’10 and 168 pounds.
- Afeni Shakur (Tupac’s mother) and medical staff are the only people who saw the rapper once he was admitted into the hospital. Years later, in a video interview, Afeni says, “In the end, he chose to leave quietly.” What did she mean by “leave quietly”? Was she implying Tupac had a hand in his removal from the spotlight?
- Tupac was reportedly cremated, and the man who cremated him retired after doing so. He has not been seen since, which, at the very least, is a little suspicious.
- Since Tupac’s death, seven albums have been released under his name, more than when he was alive. (All the tracks were said to be recorded before his death, but that seems questionable at best.)
So, Is Tupac Really Dead?
If we are to follow the reasoning provided by the above Yahoo message board user (we are!), then certain developments within the last few months add up perfectly.
Here are some facts:
- In December 2014, President Obama restored “full diplomatic relations with Cuba,” easing “restrictions on remittances, travel and banking” between the US and Cuba.
- Tupac’s aunt is Assata Shakur, the political activist and former Black Liberation Army member who escaped prison and fled to Cuba after she was convicted for the 1977 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper. She has been living in Cuba since 1984, where she was granted political asylum.
- Kendrick Lamar’s new album To Pimp a Butterfly, released March 16 (1 + 6 = 7!) of this year, features a conversation between the two rappers on the final track, “Mortal Man.”
- Powerade’s new “Rose From Concrete” campaign uses Tupac’s vocals.
You’re thinking, what does all of this have in common? Tupac’s continued existence on this earth.
Proof Tupac Is Alive (and Most Likely Living in Cuba)
Tupac
was the consummate rap artist: overflowing with steely bravado, wildly
intelligent, beloved by those who knew him best, and lyrically assertive
and self-aware on tape. A platinum-selling political provocateur, he
was a true rap iconoclast. His legend, even before the night of
September 7, was already written into the history books. He was, asVibe editor Alan Light said in November 1996, the only rapper who “had come to embody all contradictions and confusion that have grown up around hip-hop.”
Pac
was a public enigma—a man you could never grasp completely, even as he
stood right in front of you. “[H]is life was about juggling plums while
bullets nipped at his ankles,” Danyel Smith wrote in the introduction to
the 1997 book, Tupac Shakur. “It was about defiance, women,
paranoia, ego, and anger—and going out in a blaze of what he imagined
to be glory.” No musical artist—not Jay Z, Eminem, or Kanye West—has
captured the attention of the public quite like Tupac, who played both
villain and hero with a certain tattooed aplomb. Even now, he is your
favorite rapper’s favorite rapper (see: Kendrick Lamar). So it is
understandable, maybe even expected, that fans believe Tupac, arguably
the biggest cultural and artistic force of the last 25 years, is still
alive. Not even bullets could stop this larger-than-life man.
So, my theory: Overwhelmed by fame and seeking “happiness again”
(as he yearned for on “So Many Tears”), Tupac faked his death and fled
to Cuba to stay with his aunt, Assata. Free from the reach of American
media and 90’s rap beef, Tupac knew he’d be safe and go mostly
undetected in the one place the US government wanted nothing to do with.
As the rapper began to re-emerge last year—anticipating Obama’s move to
open diplomatic channels to Cuba before the end of his presidency—Tupac
put monetary safeguards in place. After 18 years away, the rapper’s
funds were nearly depleted, so he sold audio rights to Interscope (the
label that released Lamar’s album) and Coca-Cola (the company that owns Powerade) to ensure his financial survival. It all makes perfect sense, really.
As more details have emerged
in the last decade, fans and conspiracy theorists have scrutinized
September 7, 1996 and the series of events surrounding the shooting with
greater resolve. Maybe celebrity really was too much to bear, many have speculated, and Tupac faked his death (In a 2012 radio interview, Knight suggested that
Tupac was still alive. “Nobody seen Tupac dead,” he said). Maybe the
police are covering up some bigger truth none of us can handle. Or maybe
it was Knight who masterminded the attack, hoping to profit from the
rapper’s passing. Whatever the answer, one certainty persists: the
night’s events did not happen as we’ve long been told.
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