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Underground > Radio & Music >

B.I.G. had Tupac killed

16:18 / 06.09.02

....says the L.A. Times, in a story to run in the paper's Friday and Saturday editions.

[B.I.G.], who was also in Las Vegas at the time, was brought into the picture after the Crips decided to make some money out of their plan. [B.I.G.] agreed to give them $1 million, on one condition: he wanted the satisfaction of knowing that Shakur had been killed by his gun, and he pulled out a .40-caliber Glock pistol, the paper said.

I wonder if P. Diddy is quoted in this story. I wonder if VH1 will stop showing all those video hagiographies of Biggie now.

16:40 / 06.09.02

Link to part 1 (registration required*)

20:52 / 06.09.02

are we surprised? do we care?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:44 / 07.09.02

After extensive chemical testing I have discovered proof that I really don't give a fuck.

The Tower Always Falls

15:16 / 07.09.02

This brings to mind a situation that came up when I used to work in a hip-hop store. we had yet another midnight sale for a Tupac album. So we finally decided to put up a sign that said "No, we don't know how he keeps making albums after he'd dead. Please stop asking." WE pointed to that sign at least twice a day.

This isn't going to remotely affect Biggie's rep. These guys promote the billionaire gangsta lifestyle to the hilt, so when there's actually evidence that one of these guys are NOT just fronting, then everyone goes... "well... I'll be damned..." As for believable, people still say they see Tupac in gas stations. Believable ceases to matter after a music stars death.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:59 / 08.09.02

Funny, from actually listening to Notorious B.I.G.'s music I got the impression he spent most of his time saying how awful a life of crime was, describing the conditions that lead people to become involved in such a life, and celebrating his success in the music biz which enabled him to leave it behind. Doesn't sound like promoting the gangsta billionaire lifestyle to me.

I find the story very hard to believe, by the way, but hey - who cares, right? It's not like these guys were important artists whose deaths were a tragic loss, eh? Not like John Lennon or someone like that.

14:12 / 08.09.02

John Lennon is a good example of someone who was sainted after his death, just as Biggie and Tupac were. Now, Lennon was undisputably a piece of shit in many areas of his life. But he's still a saint to baby boomers (and others), even if he was a horrible misogynist, a junkie, etc.

Biggie and Tupac have achieved the same status for the hip-hop generation. Both of them did some pretty distasteful things in their lives (Tupac was out on bail from serving time for sexual assault when he was killed), but both are saints now. Is their anything that could come to light (ie, proof that Biggie was complicit in killing Tupac) that could take this saintly aura away from them now?

04:10 / 09.09.02

I had the misfortuned to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum in Cleveland, (a city which I would elect as candidate for "Source of All Evil On The Planet Earth,") during the H of F's big "Hip Hop" exhibit. I was standing in front of a display showing one of B.I.G.'s suits on a mannequin, and I said to everyone nearby, "Hey, look, they must have sewed up the bullet holes!"

Nobody laughed. Well, I was suffering from one of the worst hangovers of my storied drinking career. Perhaps it was my delivery.

I think Chris Rock summed up the Biggie/Tupac shootings best.

07:44 / 09.09.02

I think Chris Rock summed up the Biggie/Tupac shootings best

Why? What did he say?

Knee jerk response (hmm, my second kneejerk response on this board this weekend - maybe I should stop thinking and do this all the time) I find the whole story very unbelivable, too convienent and easy for the paper concerned. It's dramatic, it'll sell copies and dead guys don't sue.
As to Biggie's rep. hardcore proof would fuck it up - this, though, is far from it.
But, while we're digging deep - the Nick Broomfield doc. about the shootings is on C4 this week! Well, I'm fucking excited! Let's all watch it and come with conspiratoral mutterings!
What is indicated in reviews and such so far is that Suge had a hand in it. I find this far more belivable as hes one genuine nasty bastard.
And Fly, just to stir a bit of controversy - you don't think the Notorious one glorified crime at all?

07:53 / 09.09.02

The Broomfield doc. is on tomorrow night (Tues) 10 pm, Channel 4.
To get things straight, Bromfield seems to be saying Suge had an hand in Big's death, not Tupac's - bit silly to kill ya best selling artist.

12:37 / 09.09.02

"To get things straight, Bromfield seems to be saying Suge had an hand in Big's death, not Tupac's - bit silly to kill ya best selling artist."

Acctually, there are rumors that Suge was involved in Tupac's death as well. That Tupac was getting ready to leave Death Row, and other stuff that I don't remember. I think Suge will be blamed for everything though sooner or later. People just generally don't like the guy.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:58 / 09.09.02

And Fly, just to stir a bit of controversy - you don't think the Notorious one glorified crime at all?

Sure he did - just like Elmore Leonard, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorcese, not to mention countless rock bands. But the difference in how these artists are perceived is quite telling.

Incidentally, t.o.d.d. - I suspect this is a transatlantic difference, but it seems to me that Biggie is only treated as a saint by the hip-hop media... The mainstream media and white rock press may have toned down their vilification of the man since his death, but at the time they took a very different tone...

03:16 / 10.09.02

"I think Chris Rock summed up the Biggie/Tupac shootings best

Why? What did he say?"

Rock's line went something like this:

"I'm tired of hearing about how Tupac and Biggie got 'assassinated.' 'ASSASSINATED?' Martin Luther King got ASSASSINATED! Malcom X got ASSASSINATED! JFK got ASSASSINATED!

"Them two niggaz got SHOT!"

I love Chris Rock.

10:00 / 10.09.02

Thanks Yagg, and Fly - good answer.
May in fact prompt me to start another thread.

00:25 / 12.09.02

i saw tupac at McDonalds last year

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:51 / 12.09.02

Yagg: Chris Rock's joke - which no doubt endeared him greatly to whitey and the 'respectable' black middle and upper classes - is slightly undermined by the fact that there is as much evidence to suggest police or federal involvement in Biggie and Tupac's deaths as there is to suggest the involvement of either in the other's death...

It also relies on the assumption that nobody would have any interest in killing either for political reasons - a fairly transparent fallacy.

12:15 / 12.09.02

What evidence is there for "federal or police involvement" in these shootings, Flyboy? Other than the appearance of dragging their heels on the investigation (which is attributed mostly to the lack of cooperation of Biggie (and especially) Tupac's associates, I haven't read anything like that.

And calling someone a "respectable" upper/middle black is, in my opinion, incredibly racist. it suggests that only those who are "keepin' it real" like Biggie and Tupac are true black people. Monolithic ideas of what constitute "blackness" are the work of the devil, I think.

No star here laces

14:04 / 12.09.02

What's racist, Todd, is to believe that you can't discuss people of colour's class orientations in exactly the same way that you can discuss those of white people. Middle class blacks look down on poor blacks in exactly the same way that middle class people everywhere look down on poor people everywhere. Chris Rock has made a living out of 'daring' to do this in public qv his 'black people' vs 'niggas' routine.

No Rock isn't racist for using the n word, yes he is an unpleasant snob...

14:22 / 12.09.02

I think we're on the same page here Lyra. The implication in Flyboy's statement that I was objecting to is that "middle-class black people" = "whitey", which is fairly offensive.

Now I'm just going to kick back and wait for Haus to come and make fun of us for being white boys discussing who counts as black.

Regrettable Juvenilia

17:55 / 12.09.02

Saying two different groups of people would both approve of a specific sentiment is clearly *not* the same thing as saying that they 'equal' each other, todd. Nowhere did I invoke "monolithic ideas of what constitute "blackness"", either...

00:23 / 13.09.02

Back to the original subject,

First, all his evidence comes from "anonymous sources." If these sources do exist (and this has yet to be proven) they will be gangsters. The kind of people who could possibly be lieing about this either for rep, or to just fuck with the white reporter.

Second, the story says that Biggie was secretly at the MGM Grand in Vegas that night. Except the possibility of a man of Biggie's fame getting in and out of the Grand with out ANYONE seeing him (cause outside of the reporters "sources" no one else puts Biggie in Vegas) is remote. Not to mention, all creditable witnesses put Biggie in a studio in Jersey the night of the shooting.

It should also be noted that Biggie never retaliated on wax to anything Tupac said on wax. He didn't want to play that game.

In short, all evidence points to either a reporter fabricating a story that would make him famous. Or to a reporter who didn't care about checking the facts because the story would make him famous. Personally, I think Biggie's estate should sue the fucker for slander.

12:21 / 13.09.02

...the assumption that nobody would have any interest in killing either for political reasons [is] a fairly transparent fallacy.

Oh, come on.

Neither of these guys was exactly Fela fucking Kuti.

No star here laces

13:04 / 13.09.02

I'd say Tupac had actually far more impact on the consciousness of black people worldwide than Fela ever did. Yes, from our perspective Fela was more articulate, and maybe more 'positive', but then whitey would say that. Tupac was very very compelling, and definitely changed the way people thought. I'd say that if 'they' wanted to keep the uppity nigras down then getting rid of Tupac wouldn't be a bad start point as he certainly fomented discontent...

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:23 / 13.09.02

Jack, I fail to see your point, so maybe you'd better explain it to me. No, neither Christopher Wallace nor Tupac Shakur were the same person as Fela Kuti (much as they weren't Whitney Houston, Richey Edwards, Jim Davidson, or any number of other people). Do you then agree that "nobody would have any interest in killing either for political reasons"? Why?

Edited to add: Tupac, like many MCs defined as 'gangsta rappers' by the mainstream media and white music press and thus dismissed as apolitical/negative etc, promoted a policy of armed resistance on the part of impoverished black urban males against a police force he and many others saw as inherently racist and oppressive. Whether or not you believe he was right to do so or think that way, this would surely have made him a target for a political assassination.

14:44 / 13.09.02

I think you're vastly overestimating Tupac's political impact and the threat he presented to The Man.

Conspiracy theories are seductive: but if espousing such views in a public forum truly were as fraught with peril as you would have me believe, then Chuck D would have been in his grave fifteen years ago.

15:04 / 13.09.02

So, who had Tupac whacked? Dan Quayle?

W/R/T the reporter who wrote this story, he's a past Pulitzer Prize winner, so I don't think he was "out to make a name for himself." The LA Times is a major newspaper, so i don't think that they'd print uncorroborated garbage. That doesn't mean the story is true, however. It could be a bunch of Crips with waning influence trying to up their reputation.

And Biggie's family has released a statement saying that Biggie had reserved studio time in NYC at the time of the incident, and thus wasn't on the scene.

autopilot disengaged

21:34 / 13.09.02

so who saw broomfield's documentary?

his alternate theory, involving suge knight and a gaggle of crooked cops (doubling as paid assassins) seems to win the support of various individuals intimately involved with events... biggie's mum (with whose help broomfield got unprecedented access to witnesses and etc) seemed sympathetic to it, too.

whether suge is actually such an actual gangsta to kill the two (tupac over money, biggie as a 'diversion') seemed semi-plausible by the time the credits rolled - but actual evidence wasn't exactly bustin' out all over - and one always feels wary around this kind of demonization...

the advantage of the broomfield version is, it gives a half-decent reason why the police have been so staggeringly inept in the matter (fear of exposing police corruption, and by association, being 'involved' in two of the highest-profile murder cases of the last decade). it seems likely the boys in blue might try and bury any evidence police officers had been implicated - even if it was a black man (knight) pulling the strings, the use of cops as killers makes rodney king look like a minor indiscretion...

whatever happened, whoever did it, whoever's right - the fact is (whatever you think of their art) the murder of these two major artists remaining unsolved is a scandal almost unimaginable with more mainstream-friendly celebrities.

i mean, can you imagine the police force giving a shrug if britney got popped?

22:42 / 13.09.02

Using cops as paid killers in a private vendetta doesn't make it a political killing.

autopilot disengaged

23:42 / 13.09.02

it's not, y'know, apolitical though, is it? in a power-based sense...

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

14:36 / 15.09.02

I saw the documentary it seemed pretty plausible to me and I have been following the events for some time and seen and read a number of things on it in the past.

Biggie always seemed to me to be playing the role of gangsta. I don't think he had connections, I don't think he was interested in getting into the feud, in fact I think he was terrified of Death Row and their connections.

Tupac was already disliked by the police (he had opened fire on two officers he'd found beating on a guy by the side of the road) and there was anecdotal evidence to suggest that his assault charge was a frame up. It did look very much like the FBI had Tupac and Biggie under surveilance during the shootings and some of what was revealed in the documentary reminded me og the COINTEL Pros that the FBI used to run against the civil rights movements and what they saw as Black Militant groups during the 60's & 70's.

Wether or not Hip Hop is an actual threat to the "establishment" (choose the them you want) a lot of powerful people seemed to think so.

Tupac's earlier work was quite political beyond the gangster pulp fiction of a lot of gangsta rap music, he lost a lot of that when he went to Death Row. Question: Does a lot of mainstream (by this I mean chart) hip hop seam to have lost it's political impetus since the death of these two? Or am I just being paranoid?

It now looks that Suge Knight (who I must admit I think is the villain of this piece) is going after Snoop Dogg.

Thoughts?

I'm assuming that was a joke about John Lennon vs Tupac/Biggie?