SURROUNDED by secret agents who were corrupt and gang-affiliated, Tupac Amaru Shakur would see his efforts to unite blacks of the East and West Coast being reversed rapidly after signing to Death Row Records.
He began speaking and making music against Christopher ‘Biggie’ Wallace’s camp in response to his shooting which saw no arrests being made.
The whole of New York and the East Coast would be made to believe by way of media, that it was a regional, and not personal, feud.
Before long, many rappers in both coasts began choosing sides and gang activity began to increase.
When Shakur realised Death Row Records was making his revolution counter-productive and sending the wrong message, he decided to leave and start his own record label Euthanasia.
He had become a prominent actor and his albums were selling in millions.
Before trying to leave Death Row Records, Shakur had tried to mend the East and West Coast rivalries by saying: “This is between Biggie Wallace and I and not the two coasts.”
He also tried to promote Death Row East, to show that he had no squabbles with New York where he was born and raised.
By the time Shakur was planning to leave Death Row Records, he had become very independent and influential.
The US authorities could no longer temper with such a public figure without being exposed and his decision to leave Death Row Records would cause him to be targeted for elimination.
In a 1996 interview, Shakur said: “In four years, God willing I’m alive, I’m going to start our own black political party.
“My brain power is strong and because the world fails to change me, then I am going to have to change the world.”
Indeed Shakur had acquired countless followers and was affectionately called ‘Black Jesus’ because he was viewed by many as a deliverer to the black race.
This he had always known and spoken of himself as one bound to be great. However, Shakur also spoke and sang about his pending premature death which would come by way of killing.
For example, in his song ‘If I die tonight’, Shakur sang: “I never die, I live eternal, who shall I fear?
“Don’t shed a tear for me because I’m not happy here.
“When they bury me and send me to my rest.
“Headlines reading murdered to death; my last breath.”
Just as he prophesied in several songs and interviews, Shakur was tragically gunned down on the night of September 7 1996 in Los Angeles (LA).
Shakur had attended a Mike Tyson boxing match.
Afterwards Suge Knight started a fight with a man he claimed disrespected them and Shakur joined in.
Although there was clear footage of Knight and Shakur beating up the victim, the one who was beaten maintained that he by no means retaliated.
Shakur left with Knight, the former in the passenger side and the latter driving.
At a red light, suddenly a car stopped right next to Shakur and fired 13 shots aimed directly at Shakur avoiding Knight.
Knight walked out without a single shot as most of the bullets hit Shakur.
Knight was instrumental in putting Shakur in the position he was shot in.
Knowing the plot, a former policeman called Kevin Hecky who worked for Death Row Records tried to warn Shakur by advising him not to come to LA prior to the shooting.
Shakur’s bodyguard was also called off duty the very same day he was shot.
Hecky was fired just after the shooting because he had tried to warn Shakur about the assassination plot.
He put out evidence that suggests the assassination had US secret authorities and LAPD behind it.
For this reason, no arrests were made and Knight, who was a witness, refused to give up information of the shooter.
Knight was eventually arrested and later released for some other charges and Death Row Records is now in the ownership of a Jewish woman who may have always been in the background.
Shakur fought for his life for days before he finally gave up on September 13 1996. He was killed at the young age of 25 and had no children.
The aftermath of Shakur’s death was a deliberate increase of hostilities and tensions between East and West Coast.
Death Row Records claimed that it was a rival group called Crips which had done the killing and media propaganda hinted at a possibility that it was Wallace’s faction behind it.
Death Row Records worsened the situation by giving guns to a gang called Bloods in order to settle the score for Shakur.
This instigating of gang violence was not a coincidence and Shakur’s assassination was meant to bring this result.
Shakur had been loved by all blacks from different gangs and disuniting the black youths had become necessary to limit his influence and to avoid another black extremist movement which Shakur was planning.
Evidence was eventually found that the FBI had documents that proved that they did surveillance spying on the scene of Shakur’s shooting just before it took place and days before that.
Hecky was sent to prison for several years because he was instrumental in exposing the documents with the above stated evidence.
Shakur’s police files also contained 4 000 pages and out of these, only 99 were exposed and this hints to withholding of information that could have helped prevent his assassination or at least identify Shakur’s killer.
To this day, no one has been arrested for the assassination of this young revolutionary.
Because of the many untrue rumours that circulated, many people died through senseless killings in the aftermath of Shakur’s death.
One of his backup singers, along with his son, was killed.
The atmosphere became so bad that Wallace would also be killed while visiting LA less than a year after Shakur’s shooting.
Wallace was only 24 years old and was killed in a similar way.
The killers of both Shakur and Wallace have not been found to this day.
It is surprising and disappointing to the blacks of the US that the FBI and CIA could find the likes of Osama Bin Laden hidden in a foreign land as distant as Pakistan and yet fail to identify the killers of Shakur and Wallace when their shootings were carried out on the very public LA strip.
The US government, which is behind the killing of many black movements and revolutionaries, is likely to never use its technological resources to assist blacks in a cause that is so clearly against it?
However, unlike Shakur, Wallace was not a revolutionary and his death was seen by many as a cover up.
The whole ordeal was made to seem like it was an East and West Coast rivalry that began with Shakur’s first shooting in New York and ended with the killing of Wallace in LA as an equaliser.
This is far from the truth.
In reality, the black community was robbed of two of its talented sons who had escaped poverty, but fallen victim to the violence aimed towards effective black movements and individuals in the US.
Shakur became a martyr and hero to the blacks and other minority groups.
Shakur’s legacy as a musician matches the likes of Peter Tosh and Bob Marley who are all called Third World saints in the West.