Tupac Shakur and his Mysterious Death by Abraham Baqdounes

Tupac Shakur and his Mysterious Death

Tupac Shakur is a rapper and artist, who has made millions of dollars of off his music. In just the first week of Tupac’s second album “all Eyez on Me” sold 566000 copies (Crowe, 2). By the time of his second album, Tupac was a worldwide phenomenon. Tupac made many popular albums including: “Me Against the World”, “The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory”, and “R U Still Down? (Remember Me)” with all of threes going platinum (RIAA). There are three conspiracy theories: Tupac faked his own death, he escaped to Cuba to live with his aunt, and his record producer killed him so he couldn’t leave the record company. These conspiracies are what we are going to explore in this essay.

            Tupac Shakur is a rapper/artist who made rap music mainstream. He grew up in the ghettos of East Harlem, New York causing him to grow up around violence and drugs. This caused Tupac to have many run ins with the police, ranging from jaywalking to the sexual abuse of a woman. Some people believe that this is stereotypical of a man born in Harlem, but Tupac was very smart, throughout his rap career he studied Shakespeare extensively to help him formulate ideas for his rap music. He had internal conflicts fighting the idea of retaliating against the police that unjustly jailed him and he has an external conflict of surviving the “11 and a half months in a maximum-security jail” (Shakur 4).

Tupac was a highly ambitious person with a strong determination to succeed.  For example, all his life Tupac wanted to change the vision people of had of young black people born and raised in Harlem. To do this, he first had to change the meaning of the word “thug”. This was a word commonly thrown at him to try and describe him at a “violent person” or a “criminal”. Therefore, Tupac created his crew T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E., this crew “redefined the word “thug” into a man who triumphs over systemic and societal obstacles” (Reeves 12). This shows how Tupac revolutionized the world, and changed the entire meaning of a word just to help shed a positive view on the people of Harlem.

           

In the homicide case of Tupac Shakir, there are three main conspiracy theories surrounding Tupac, they are: that he faked his own death, escaped to Cuba to live with his aunt, and that his record producer killed him so he couldn’t leave the record company.

            The first conspiracy theory is based on the theory that Tupac Shakir faked his own death to escape a life of constant turmoil. Tupac was extremely famous, having “75 million records worldwide” and 11 of his “albums went platinum” (Payne 3). This caused the East Coast-West Coast feud to blow up into something major. The main components in this feud were Biggie Smalls, otherwise know as, The Notorious B.I.G. on the East coast and Tupac Shakur in the West coast. The two rappers made song after song mocking and insulting each other causing the media to get involved. The media played a huge role because during this time they became heavily involved and fanned the flames of hate between the two groups. This caused the rivalry of these two areas to skyrocket and it eventually led to the shootout that “killed” Tupac Shakur. It was on September 7, 1996, where Tupac Shakur was shot in a drive-by shooting at the “intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas,” (Greenburg 5). This supposed killer was a member of the Compton gang (Tupac’s rival gang) and was carrying out revenge after Tupac beat one of the members, but this is where the conspiracy comes into play because many people believe that Tupac faked his own death. In an interview in 2014, Suge Knight (Tupac’s record producer said), “that Tupac is alive and he's ‘out in the islands smoking a Cuban cigar" showcasing an example of why this theory works and is widely believed (Austin 30).

            The second conspiracy theory that is widely believed is that Tupac Shakur, a well-known hip-hop artist, is living in Cuba with his aunt. Fans of Tupac believe he faked his death to escape the fame he had in America. Tupac was doing a good job staying hidden, until he was spotted on numerous occasions in Cuba. A writer from TMZ in 2014 said, “Why you think nobody’s been arrested if they said that their the one that killed Tupac? Because Tupac is not dead. If he was dead, they’d be arresting those dudes for murder. You know he’s somewhere smoking a Cuban cigar on an island” (Ham 8).  Although it’s hard to believe, his statement has some truth to it. There was an investigation for Tupac, but no hard evidence was uncovered about his death. They do know that fourteen shots were fired in the shooting, and there was also one witness. Surge Knight was accompanying Tupac on the night he allegedly died, and he claims only a fragment of the bullet hit Tupac. His theory is that Tupac staged his death, because on the night of the shooting he was not wearing a bullet proof vest. On almost every other occasion, Tupac was seen wearing a vest. This was only one reason why Surge believes he staged his death. A rumor was passed around that Tupac was working with the CIA to destroy his record label, “Death Row Records.” In exchange, the CIA would help him disappear. This theory was quickly put to bed as the CIA tweeted out that they had no contact with Tupac, and did not know where he was.

            The last conspiracy theory points to Suge Knight, the producer of Tupac’s record company “Death Row Records”, who supposedly had Tupac killed, so Tupac couldn’t leave the record company. Tupac had many aspirations to create his own record company and after his album “All Eyez on Me”, he completed the three-album commitment he had to Death Row. If Tupac left Death Row, then he would have brought half of the artist with him because many of the artist in Death Row were only there because of Tupac. This would have cost Death Row millions of dollars and “you can make more money off a dead person— just ask Elvis” (Macaluso 20).  Plus, it would have been almost impossible for Suge to not have been shot in the drive-by. The shooters car was ahead of Tupac’s car making it incredibly difficult to just fire at Tupac. Even after an investigation team put this theory to the test by have a weapon’s expert do the shooting, the dummy representing Suge Knight was “shot three times” (Macaluso 32). It is very unlikely that Suge would put himself in this position showing that Tupac most likely did not die in a drive-by shooting. A survey of twenty-five people revealed that around 84% of people agree that this theory best solves the death of Tupac Shakur.

            Currently, the debate of Tupac’s death is still widely debated with people speculating how he died or if he even died at all.

            On September 13, 1996, in Las Vegas, Nevada, 25-year-old Tupac Shakur got involved in a drive-by shooting. The results of the drive-by shooting led to Tupac’s “supposed” death and three conspiracy theories:

1.      That Tupac faked his own death

2.      He escaped to Cuba to live with his aunt

3.      His record producer killed him

In 2016, the twentieth anniversary of Tupac Shakur’s death, the theories around him are still being asked. As of now, Orlando Anderson is still the prime suspect of Tupac’s “supposed” murder.

Works Citied

“80 Best Tupac Shakur Quotes On Life, Love, People.” Quote Ambition, 21 July 2017, www.quoteambition.com/best-tupac-shakur-quotes-life-love-people/.

Austin, Jon. “Is THIS Where Tupac Shakur Is Secretly Living after 'Faking Own Death?'.” Express.co.uk, Express.co.uk, 27 Feb. 2018, www.express.co.uk/news/weird/924245/Tupac-Shakur-alive-conspiracy-theory-faked-own-death.

Greenburg, Zack O'Malley. “Tupac Shakur Earning Like He's Still Alive.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 2 Mar. 2012, www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2011/05/31/tupac-shakur-earning-like-hes-still-alive/#15f960ad641e.

Payne, Ogden. “20 Years Later: Tupac Shakur's Legacy By The Numbers.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 13 Sept. 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/ogdenpayne/2016/09/13/20-years-later-tupac-shakurs-legacy-by-the-numbers/#10c6eb4049a0.

Reeves, Mosi. “8 Ways Tupac Shakur Changed the World.” Rolling Stone, 25 June 2018, www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/8-ways-tupac-shakur-changed-the-world-128421/.

Worthington, Clint, et al. “A Reminder That Tupac Is Still Alive and Living in Cuba.” Consequence of Sound, 13 Sept. 2016, consequenceofsound.net/2016/09/a-reminder-that-tupac-is-still-alive-and-living-in-cuba/.