Almost every year since 1996, another CD, book or documentary is released that further fuels the speculation and suspicion surrounding Tupac Shakur’s short-lived ‘Thug Life’ and subsequent death at age 25.
L.A. Times reporter Chuck Philips stirs the cauldron yet again with his latest story on the neverending saga.
After publishing a 2002 piece by Philips that implicated slain rapper Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace in Tupac’s death, the L.A. Times yesterday published “An attack on Tupac Shakur launched a hip-hop war” — a piece reported and written by Philips that fingers both B.I.G. and his former boss, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, for setting Shakur up in the 1994 robbery attempt at New York’s QUAD recording studios.
Unfortunately, he fails to provide any real clarity.
Though Shakur survived the infamous attack, it was the beginning of his status as a living legend, and it sparked the East vs. West war that would splinter rap.
You can read all about it in Philips’ piece, which details the plotter’s apparent motives leading up to the shooting/robbery and the feud that ensued as a result.
If you’re looking for a good ol’ whodunit, the story fits the bill. But the true crime is that the case has never been solved by police. Neither have the Biggie/Tupac murder cases. Meanwhile, more books, documentaries and news stories draw links between the victims and their would-be killers.
While it would be nice to think that the report was motivated by the idealism of investigative journalism, it’s more than likely a case of a paper exploiting the volatile story of a mythic figure’s life and death for its own gain.
Mostly, Philips has pieced together stories that have already been reported over the past decade, though most were never confirmed. And his only confirmation comes from unnamed sources.
This isn’t investigative journalism; it’s incendiary and ill-targeted. But it’s sure to garner a lot of online hits. (After 12 hours, the story had generated over 200 comments and counting.)
In the end, media outlets such as the L.A. Times may be just as culpable as the LAPD, NYPD and the criminal justice system for adding fuel to the fire that ravaged the bi-coastal rap war in the first place.
It’s almost as if one institution has chose to ignore the machinery of murder, while the other oils it.
And somewhere, Suge Knight is smoking a fat stogie.
