October 1st, 2023
It is a cold case that has remained as cold as the heart which beat inside the body of an unknown gunman in the white Cadillac that pulled alongside a black BMW at the intersection of East Flamingo and Koval lane in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 7th, 1996 and pulled the trigger of a Smith and Wesson 40 Caliber Glock 22 to take the life of one of our generations greatest talents.
Inside the BMW were two individuals, one of them, the world famous rap star, Tupac Shakur and the other, his producer and the CEO of Death Row Records, Marion “Suge” Knight. After being hit 4 times, Tupac Shakur survived for six days at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada and died on Friday the 13th, 1996.
The murder of Tupac Shakur has remained unsolved for nearly three decades and until just recently, there were no legitimate leads into uncovering exactly who may have fired the ominous shots which took his life.
The life and the legacy of the late Rap icon, Tupac Amaru Shakur is as rich if not infinitely more rich than any of the other great musical icons who have tragically passed away at far too young of an age and in their prime – before being able to realize their full potential or, even growing into an adulthood which would allow them to enjoy the fruits of their labors.
In the music industry, it is known as the 27 Club, consisting of musicians who lost their lives at the young age of twenty-seven. Their names are etched into the endless scroll of our cultural lexicon – consisting of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendirx, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse to list some of the musical greats whose tragic lives were cut short far too soon. Artists whose only sin was perhaps flying too close to our nearest star and as stars themselves, their names carry the light which burned as bright as only the light from a star can.
Tupac Shakur, having died even more tragically at the younger age of 25, was indeed one of the brightest stars of his generation and the number 27 now appears in his history in another form and perhaps this time, it will bring with it a long awaited cosmic justice.
September 13th, 2023 marked the 27th year since the death of late rap legend and exactly sixteen days later, on September 29th, 2023, a former Southside Crip gang member named, Duane “Keefe D” Keith Davis was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada in connection with the murder of Shakur.
While the outcome of this arrest and whether the LVPD have actually found the man who killed Tupac Shakur remains to be seen, the revitalization of this case and the death of a rap legend or, martyr led me to consider just how much knowledge Tupac may have had about his own demise and even his own fate.
My every move is a calculated step
To bring me closer and embrace an early death, now there’s nothing left
How could it be that two years before his death, Tupac wrote these exact lines in Shed So Many Tears one of his greatest songs from the 1995 album, Me Against the World? Many who knew Tupac and who continue to speak about his life, character and impact in interviews decades later speak on a common theme in their description of the subject matter Tupac would write about so feverishly and so consistently: the obsession with the subject of Death.
It is true that we if one were to listen to Tupac’s entire music catalogue or, just even the albums released between the years 1991 to 1996, the theme of death can be found literally everywhere. In my view, it is the theme of death that 2pac wrote about so passionately because it was death that was haunting and destroying the black community – which he had always sought to uplift – and it was death which was continuously marking the communities with a trauma and a wound which Shakur must have known would remain unhealed and set his community back for generations as the tragedies of death and their merciless sorrow and grief often tend to do for the survivors who carry must carry the burden of these grim memories forward into time and find a way to survive.
It was while this recent news made headlines recently that I began to consider a new perspective in regards to Tupac’s fascination and obsession with Death.
There are times in our lives where we may feel we have no hope or, when we do not want to move on. The feeling can linger for days or, perhaps remain within us for years and even a lifetime and express itself through low self esteem or, it can come in a sudden wave and compel us to act in an irrational way so that we might hope to see an end to a terrible and fruitless circumstance or, a dead-end path.
The feeling of suicide is perhaps the most tormenting of all of these feelings and while it may seem that suicide is a sign of giving up – I recently was reminded by my own soul searching as well as some wise words I had come across – that the desire to die or, the desire to end one’s life is actually a sign of something else – it is a sign of Seeking Transformation.
When I came across this perspective, it completely reframed my mind as it made perfect sense. When someone wishes they were dead or, expresses a deep desire to die – they are not seeking an end – they are seeking a new beginning. They are seeking and expressing a deep desire to become something else and to transform themselves to escape their current circumstances.
I likewise believe that something similar may have occurred in the life and death of Tupac Shakur. Tupac sought to transform not only himself, but his entire community. Hence the name change in late 1995 which he likely planned while in lockdown in prison in the Clinton Correction Facility in upstate New York in 1995. Tupac changed his name to Makaveli after the Renaissance philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli.
Machiavelli taught the practical vision and application of politics based in realism. A realism and not a romanticization of what people, cities or, kingdoms and empires should be. In this way, Machiavelli is in my view, one of the realest or, most modern voices that is still among us to this day.
Tupac himself was a realist. Tupac believed in not only telling the truth and being a truth teller but also believed that by exposing and showing the truth – circumstances could change and be transformed – and in this respect at least in theory he was correct. Since, in order to change or, transform – one must accept their present circumstances as they actually are.
The truth CAN set us free but first we must accept it and before we must accept it, we must identify it and through his work and his efforts, Shakur was identifying the truth with an urgency and a fire that only he possessed.
That Tupac Shakur sought transformation is evident in his life, his work and his abilities in the craft of Acting which is an artform based on transformation itself.
I can only hope that justice is served and that Tupac’s murder is ultimately solved. The coming years may grant us this knowledge and this peace. In the meantime, I wanted to express this thought and this perspective which entered my mind recently, that the death of Tupac Shakur was not the end of something, but the beginning…
…TO BE CONTINUED
The Chain 