On this day in history, one of the greatest Rappers of all time died six days after being shot. Tupac Shakur was shot in Las Vegas on September the 7th 1996. Tupac had survived an attempt on his life two years earlier. On November 30, 1994, he was shot and seriously wounded during in a Manhattan office building. Tupac had been recording his third album in Manhattan when he was shot. Officially the shooting of Tupac was a result of a failed robbery, some believe that it was in reality, a deliberate attempt to kill Tupac. The rapper had made many enemies in the industry and beyond. He was not afraid to tell someone if he did not like them and many were jealous of his talent. Nick Broomfield in his 2002 documentary ‘Biggie and Tupac’, blamed the rapper Christopher Wallace and others for organizing the attempt on Tupac’s life. Tupac was a New York native and he caused an uproar when he moved to L.A. and signed to Death Row Records. At the time there was at times a violent “East Coast versus. West Coast” rivalry that defined the rap scene and hip-house music during the 1990s. Some believe that Shakur’s death was linked to this feud. He was at this time the biggest star in rap or hip-hop and he was widely seen as the voice of a generation.
Shakur was in Las Vegas for the big Mike Tyson fight. He and some of his friends were involved in a confrontation in the lobby of the MGM Grand hotel. One of the men involved in the scuffle with Shakur and his friends was later identified from CCTV footage as a member of an LA gang. Some believe that Shakur was killed because he had ‘disrespected’ a member of the feared LA street gang, ‘The Blood’s’.
That night , Shakur was a passenger in a car driven by Death Row Records head Marian “Suge” Knight. A car pulled alongside Knight’s car as he had stopped at a red light on Flamingo Road and one of the occupants of the car opened fire. Twelve shots are fired, into the car , three of them hit Shakur and one of them narrowly misses the head of Suge Knight. Shakur is brought to a local hospital in an ambulance and he is operated on almost immediately. However, Shakur died six days later, much to the shock of the rap and the hip-hop world.
Christopher Wallace, the longtime rival of Shakur was murdered in very similar circumstances in Los Angeles, some months earlier. No arrests have ever been made in relation to the murder of Tupac Shakur and there are many theories as to the identity of his killers and their motives.