On Me Confronting the Earth, the 1995 album from Tupac Shakur, the prodigious rapper foretells his death. "I'm having visions of leaving here in a hearse/ God can ya feel me?/ Take me abroad from all the pressure level/ and all the pain/ show me some happiness once again," he raps on "Then Many Tears." Xviii months later, while riding in the passenger seat under the iridescent glow of the Las Vegas strip with Marion "Suge" Knight at the wheel, Tupac was gunned downwards and mortally wounded. Or was he?

Here's how his death supposedly went down. Just past 11 p.m. on September 7, 1996, at the intersection of Flamingo Route and Koval Lane (and then just a few steps from the Saying Hotel), Tupac and Knight were idle at a carmine calorie-free when a white Cadillac rolled up to the rider side and opened burn. Tupac, whose career had been on a steep ascent since getting out of prison the twelvemonth before, was hitting four times; one bullet critically punctured his lung. Knight, for the almost part, was unharmed.

A calendar week later, on September thirteen, while on life-support in the critical intendance unit of measurement at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, the 25-year-quondam rap phenom died from internal haemorrhage.

The drive-by shooting was reported to be gang-related, spurred by a concrete altercation involving Tupac, Knight, and Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, a Crip gang affiliate from Compton, the night of September 7. (A 2011 investigation by the FBI showed several threats were also fabricated on the rapper's life by the Jewish Defense League).

Dr. Ed Dark-brown, the Clark County coroner investigator, adamant Tupac's death a homicide. " I found no credible life signs," he detailed in his report, "and trauma was observed to the right hand, right hip and right chest nether the correct arm, apparently caused from gunshots.'' Tupac was pronounced expressionless at four:03 p.k. on Friday, September 13, 1996.

But if the old maxim is true, legends never truly dice—maybe quite literally in Tupac's case.

The Most Mutual Questions Surrounding Tupac's Expiry

  • The motion picture above, said to be the last photo taken before the shooting, raises 2 interesting questions: If Tupac was shot on 9/7/96, why does the photo signal information technology was taken on 9/8/96?
  • Why are there no keys in the automobile's ignition?
  • 14 shots were fired, four of which hit Tupac. Knight, who is a considerably big man (around 6'4, 260 pounds) was not hitting in one case. He was said to have sustained minimal injures from bullet fragments, simply no serious wounds were recorded. Did Knight mastermind the shooting? (Believe what y'all will, simply nobody'southward luck is that practiced.)
  • Since being shot at Quad Recording Studios on November 30, 1994, Pac wore a bullet-proof vest almost everywhere. Information technology seems odd, on such a high profile night, that he'd forego protection.
  • The BMW from the photo does not match the BMW from the police investigation video.
  • The shooters were never found. As ane old Outlawz member noted in a 2014 National Geographic documentary that explored Tupac's yet unsolved murder, "This is America. We found Bin Laden." Then why has it been so hard to find the men who shot Tupac? What are the police force not telling us?
  • The streets of Las Vegas are typically jam-packed—with an assortment of cars, people, and entertainers trying to earn a living. Tupac was shot two hours afterwards the Mike Tyson/Bruce Seldon fight, and the streets, the strip specially, were likely congested with traffic that night. And yet, nobody spotted the white Cadillac?
  • The official coroner'south report lists Tupac as 72 inches tall (6 feet) and 215 pounds. Just the rapper's commuter's license identifies him as 5'10 and 168 pounds.
  • Afeni Shakur (Tupac'south mother) and medical staff are the only people who saw the rapper in one case he was admitted into the infirmary. Years later, in a video interview, Afeni says, "In the end, he chose to leave quietly." What did she hateful past "leave quietly"? Was she implying Tupac had a hand in his removal from the spotlight?
  • Tupac was reportedly cremated, and the man who cremated him retired after doing then. He has not been seen since, which, at the very least, is a picayune suspicious.
  • Since Tupac's death, vii albums have been released under his proper name, more than than when he was live. (All the tracks were said to be recorded before his death, merely that seems questionable at best.)

So, Is Tupac Really Expressionless?

If we are to follow the reasoning provided by the above Yahoo message board user (we are!), then certain developments within the terminal few months add upward perfectly.

Here are some facts:

  • In December 2014, President Obama restored "total diplomatic relations with Cuba," easing "restrictions on remittances, travel and banking" between the US and Cuba.
  • Tupac's aunt is Assata Shakur, the political activist and onetime Black Liberation Army member who escaped prison and fled to Republic of cuba after she was convicted for the 1977 murder of a New Bailiwick of jersey State Trooper. She has been living in Cuba since 1984, where she was granted political asylum.
  • Kendrick Lamar'due south new album To Pimp a Butterfly, released March 16 (1 + 6 = vii!) of this year, features a conversation betwixt the two rappers on the terminal rails, "Mortal Man."
  • Powerade's new "Rose From Concrete" entrada uses Tupac's vocals.

Yous're thinking, what does all of this accept in mutual? Tupac's continued existence on this earth.

Proof Tupac Is Live (and Most Likely Living in Republic of cuba)

Tupac was the consummate rap creative person: alluvion with steely blowing, wildly intelligent, beloved past those who knew him best, and lyrically assertive and self-aware on tape. A platinum-selling political provocateur, he was a true rap iconoclast. His legend, even before the night of September 7, was already written into the history books. He was, as Vibe editor Alan Light said in November 1996, the only rapper who "had come to embody all contradictions and confusion that take grown upward around hip-hop."

Pac was a public enigma—a man you lot could never grasp completely, even as he stood right in front of you. "[H]is life was about juggling plums while bullets nipped at his ankles," Danyel Smith wrote in the introduction to the 1997 volume, Tupac Shakur. "It was about disobedience, women, paranoia, ego, and anger—and going out in a blaze of what he imagined to exist glory." No musical creative person—non Jay Z, Eminem, or Kanye West—has captured the attention of the public quite like Tupac, who played both villain and hero with a certain tattooed ataraxy. Fifty-fifty now, he is your favorite rapper's favorite rapper (run across: Kendrick Lamar). And then it is understandable, maybe even expected, that fans believe Tupac, arguably the biggest cultural and artistic force of the last 25 years, is still alive. Not fifty-fifty bullets could terminate this larger-than-life man.

And so, my theory: Overwhelmed by fame and seeking "happiness once again" (as he yearned for on "So Many Tears"), Tupac faked his death and fled to Cuba to stay with his aunt, Assata. Gratuitous from the attain of American media and ninety's rap beef, Tupac knew he'd be prophylactic and become more often than not undetected in the ane identify the US regime wanted nada to do with. As the rapper began to re-sally last year—anticipating Obama'due south motility to open diplomatic channels to Republic of cuba earlier the end of his presidency—Tupac put monetary safeguards in place. After 18 years away, the rapper's funds were nearly depleted, and so he sold audio rights to Interscope (the label that released Lamar's album) and Coca-Cola (the company that owns Powerade) to ensure his financial survival. Information technology all makes perfect sense, really.

As more details have emerged in the last decade, fans and conspiracy theorists have scrutinized September 7, 1996 and the series of events surrounding the shooting with greater resolve. Maybe celebrity really was too much to deport, many have speculated, and Tupac faked his death (In a 2012 radio interview, Knight suggested that Tupac was still alive. "Nobody seen Tupac dead," he said). Perchance the police force are covering upwards some bigger truth none of u.s.a. can handle. Or maybe it was Knight who masterminded the set on, hoping to profit from the rapper'southward passing. Whatever the reply, 1 certainty persists: the dark's events did non happen as we've long been told.

This is Illuminati Month on Black Pocketbook , in which Gawker locks itself in the woodshed and breaks out the red yarn to explore its favorite conspiracy theories. Image past Jim Cooke, source photograph via Getty.