Ten years later
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BY CATHY SCOTT
As the 10-year anniversary approaches of
Tupac Shakur's fatal
shooting near the Las Vegas Strip, his former manager is spending it by talking
about the rap artist's legacy and his impact on the music world.
To many, Shakur was not just another ghetto kid who made it big in the rap
industry. He continues to be an inspiration, not only because of his music, but
also for his ability to reach youth, who look up to him as a role model. Some
called him the Malcolm X of his generation, a voice for young black America.
While Shakur had developed a bad-boy thug image as his career developed, he also
was an avid reader of literature with an insatiable appetite for learning.
Whatever Shakur was, it's indisputable that in both life and death, he took the
rap industry by storm.
"I just got back from putting on a program about Pac in Suffolk, England," said
Leila Steinberg, who was the first to land
Tupac an onstage gig back
when he was with his first group, Strictly Dope. "There's so much to talk about.
I spend time addressing his relevance and his social awareness."
Asked if she'd sensed Shakur's potential when she first met him, Steinberg said,
"In life you meet certain people and you have an instant connection. I was the
vehicle that got Pac his first real recordings, but it was
Tupac who really
facilitated me to learn about the business and the music industry. He's the one
who helped me."
Steinberg, who has a nonprofit business, Hearteducation.org, that promotes
educating youth through music and art, met Shakur at the Bay Area's Rohnert Park
when Shakur, a teenager at the time, was living with his mother and half-sister
in a low-income housing project in Marin County dubbed "The Jungle."
"He is one of the most significant voices today," Steinberg said. "He had an
amazing genius. This 17-year-old bought every book possible to study not just
his art but the [entertainment] business. You don't become a phenomenal artist
and actor without studying."
Shakur, who before his death released several CDs and was in at least three
movies, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting on Flamingo Road off the Las
Vegas strip on Sept. 7, 1996. He died six days
later, on Sept. 13. His
killer has never been caught.
Besides his high-profile shooting, Shakur left his mark in music. He's listed in
the Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling rap and hip-hop artist
ever, selling more than 73 million albums worldwide. Most of Shakur's songs are
about growing up around violence and hardship, ghetto life, racism and his
public feuds with fellow rappers, including The Notorious B.I.G, who was
murdered six months after Shakur in a similar drive-by shooting.
As a teenager, Shakur read Shakespeare and Machiavelli's The Prince. Many
of the lyrics on his album "All Eyez on Me," which was released the year before
his death, reference classic works.
"Now rule two is a hard one, watch for phonies," Shakur wrote. "Keep yo' enemies
close ... Watch yo' homies."
For rapper Raggedy Wood, or Woody, with the West Coast Renegades,
Tupac stands for rising
up in the face of adversity.
"The thing about Tupac
that separated him from every other artist is he was able to speak on any
subject," Woody said in a telephone interview. "Whether you wanted to love your
mama or kill your mama, he rapped about it. His mama was a freedom fighter. He
always spoke big of freedom fighters."
And young people today relate to that, Woody said, because "his music was real"
and "straight from the streets." At first, Woody said he didn't get
Tupac's music. "The way
he formatted rap," he said, "I didn't understand it. I grew to like him."
Had Shakur lived another 10
years, he could have been a force to be reckoned with, said Los Angeles
music producer Darryl Ross. "He had this generation's attention," said Ross, who
landed Digital Underground -- a band
Tupac eventually hooked
up with -- its first record deal. "By now he would have been seasoned and he
would have had a platform, unlike Biggie [Smalls], who was probably my favorite
rapper from a talent standpoint, but he really wasn't saying anything that
hadn't already been said. The social consciousness that
Tupac had and the
contrast of that with his thug street credibility was powerful.
Tupac's persona was
anti-system. That set him apart."
David Wallace, a manager, consultant and record producer who lives in Las Vegas,
agreed that Shakur's rap can be an acquired taste. And his style of rap had an
impact on the music world as a whole, not just on hip-hop.
"He's affected every culture, from the bandanas he wore to his music to,
unfortunately, even his attitude," Wallace said. "Tupac
lives. He's more popular now than he was when he was alive."
Wallace, who manages artists under his gospel label 4DL Records, once met both
Shakur and his record producer, Suge Knight, at an event called "Death Row
Night." Shakur's music was released under the Death Row label, now called Tha
Row.
It was New Year's Eve 1991. Wallace and his band at the time, The Bomb, were
flown out to a party -- held in a hangar at the Los Angeles airport -- by an
assistant of Knight. Wallace's group was scheduled to perform.
"I wanted Tupac to
introduce The Bomb," Wallace said. "Tupac
was like, 'Hey, it's cool, but I don't know them.' He said he couldn't do it." A
fight broke out and the band ended up not playing.
Wallace believes Tupac
"was more than just a rapper off the streets."
"He was a poet," he said. "His rhymes made sense, the way he talked about real
life and the metaphors he used."
Even today, "Tupac
challenges rappers," Wallace said. "He brought it to a higher level. To me he is
the most prolific rapper. When he uses profanity, he uses it more as an
expression instead of rappers today who use it to fill in a blank space. I
believe in artists' freedom of expression. You have to give
Tupac credit for his
contribution to the industry and the fact that he took his rap seriously. He
really had something special."
The only thing negative about his music, especially with his
later lyrics, Wallace
said, was when he rapped about violence and guns. That, he said, was done simply
to sell the music and did not send a positive message to youth.
Those lyrics caused controversy throughout Shakur's career. He was heavily
criticized by politicians, including then-Vice President Dan Quayle, who
targeted the lyrics from "2Pacalypse Now," which included the tracks "I Don't
Give a Fuck" and "Brenda's Got A Baby."
In a documentary interview after Quayle publicly denounced him,
Tupac defended his
lyrics. "I didn't create the thug life," he said. "I diagnosed it."
"They're trying to stop me," he continued. "I felt like I was a target, you
know? I'm not going to say I'm going to change the world, but I guarantee you I
am going to start the spark of grain that will change the world."
Steinberg explained that Shakur, even at a young age, because of his upbringing,
recognized the ills of society. "He was able to be a diagnosis for society, for
black pain, for oppression, for poverty," she said. "He was one of the greatest
voices. I could not have been on the road and worked with
Tupac if I didn't believe
in him and have something that connected me to him."
Before Tupac died in a
Las Vegas hospital, he was in a coma for six days. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who
met Tupac at a school
when he was 12, went to his bedside, then on to a West Las Vegas Baptist church
where the civil rights leader spoke to the congregation about Shakur, who has
often been called a "gangster rapper."
"Before you condemn Tupac
for calling women bitches and ho's in his music," Jackson told parishioners,
"you need to understand and know about the background of this man and where he
came from."
Tupac Shakur, born Lesane
Parish Crooks in June 1971, was raised by Afeni Shakur, a radical Black Panther
who represented herself in a
murder case in the late 1960s and won. His mother renamed him
Tupac Shakur after
Tupac Amaru II, an Incan
revolutionary.
Shakur, in the song "Dear Mama," wrote about his mother and the struggles she
went through raising two children. "A poor single mother on welfare, tell me how
ya did it," he wrote. "There's no way I can pay you back. But the plan is to
show you that I understand. You are appreciated."
"My moms," Shakur once told a TV reporter, "was a Black Panther, so all my roots
for the struggle are real deep."
Indeed, his background shaped him into the performer and political activist he
became with the lyrics and poetry he wrote, Steinberg pointed out.
"In his brilliance, he diagnosed us as a people," said Steinberg, who lives in
the Los Angeles area. "Pac manifested everything he thought and spoke."
And that, Wallace, said, is the essence of his message. Shakur made people
think, he said, about more than themselves with his political statements.
Today, Tupac's poetry is
being studied by college students. Classes on the rapper have been offered at
Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley.
And Frank Alexander, Tupac's
personal bodyguard who was with
Tupac the night he was
shot, is about to release a second video about the rapper and his music.
Alexander's first documentary, Before I Wake, was released in 2001.
Alexander is no longer a bodyguard. He works in the mortgage business in
Southern California and produces videos on the side. He also wrote the book
Got Your Back. "I stopped body-guarding after
Tupac died," he said. "I
don't want to take someone else's life in my hands."
As for Shakur's murder
case, Alexander said he and others who were with Shakur that night "wanted to
see the shooter brought to justice." That never happened.
Ten
years
later, police are no
closer to solving the murder
than they were when it happened. On a busy Saturday night in the Las Vegas
Valley, the shooter got away with
murder.
On that night Shakur was in town with his record producer, Suge Knight, for the
evening's championship boxing match between heavyweights Mike Tyson and Bruce
Seldon. The town was packed with fight fans, including celebrities. Shakur and
Knight were planning to meet up
later with Tyson at a
party at Club 662, a private nightclub run by Knight. Shakur was gunned down on
the way to the party. A gunman in a white Cadillac pulled up next to the BMW
Shakur and Knight were driving in and opened fire. Shakur was shot five times.
He, along with Knight, who was grazed in the back of his head, was rushed to
University Medical Center's trauma unit.
"All I saw was the position of the shooter," Alexander said in an earlier
interview. "[The gunman] was in the back seat. I saw the arm of the shooter come
out. I saw a silhouette of him which was a black person wearing a skull cap, a
beanie cap."
Still, Las Vegas police never questioned Alexander and members of
Tupac's entourage again
after that night -- not until Alexander several
years
later complained to a
reporter. Then Las Vegas detectives met Alexander at a restaurant in Orange
County and showed him some photographs.
"It wasn't that we weren't interviewed by police," Alexander said. "It was that
there was never any follow-up, no lineup. We wanted to see the shooter brought
to justice."
The eventual lineup of photos didn't do any good.
"I couldn't identify anyone from those photos," Alexander said. "I saw people
who I knew, a couple of faces I recognized, but there was no one involved in the
shooting."
Shakur's death was one of the most publicized killings in Las Vegas. Privately,
investigators at the time said they didn't believe the shooter would ever be
caught. The handling of the investigation has been criticized from start to
finish by participants and observers alike who contend the police didn't do
everything they could or should have, including preserving the crime scene.
Bicycle officers at the intersection of the shooting, at Flamingo and Koval
Lane, left the scene and ended up a mile away on the Strip after they followed
Shakur's car and not the shooter's.
For their part, investigators say it hasn't been for a lack of effort, but,
rather, for lack of cooperation from just about everyone involved: witnesses,
Tupac's friends and
associates, and even police from other departments and jurisdictions. The
witness statements were pretty much the same. Metro Police Lt. Wayne Petersen,
who headed the homicide unit, mimicked witnesses at the time: "l didn't see
nothin'. I didn't know nobody. I wasn't even there."
Shakur's slaying was one of 207 homicides within the Las Vegas valley and one of
168 in 1996 within the jurisdiction of the Las Vegas police that year.
For Steinberg and Shakur's mother, the police case hasn't gone unnoticed. "We
both -- Afeni and me -- know the truth of what's important to think about,"
Steinberg said, "but we also have to think about his death."
But at the tenth anniversary, they're only thinking about
Tupac Shakur and who he
was.
"I hope [Afeni's] taking time for herself -- for the whole family -- to heal,"
Steinberg said.
While his murder
investigation continues to go
unsolved, Shakur's ability to touch people with his music continues,
producer Wallace said.
"I appreciate his music, especially 'Dear Mama,'" he said. "That is the epitome
of what a record is all about. It's real. Everyone can relate to it, from the
kid who's had a mother like that, to the mother who's raising a young son. It's
an encouraging song of hope. It's an anthem. It says, 'Even though things didn't
come out the way we thought, I still love you.' He was a real poet. He didn't
just wake up with a microphone in his hand.
"He was an artist. You can't just sing to somebody. You have to sing through
them. Man, when Tupac
sang, he was real about it."
Cathy Scott, an author and freelance journalist based in Las Vegas, wrote the
book The Killing of Tupac
Shakur.
