#1: The Murders Of Notorious B.I.G. And Tupac
Sex, murder, conspiracy, police corruption, bi-coastal gang warfare, Diddy - this scandal has it all. The rivalry between the east and west coast rap scenes may have begun with minor east coast rapper Tim Dog’s amusing 1991 hit “Fuck Compton,” but thanks to big money and short fuses, the battle soon grew as epic and violent as the gangster movies rappers referenced, climaxing with the unsolved shooting deaths of Tupac “2Pac” Shakur and Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace in 1996 and 1997. Their murders turned the rap superstars into tragic icons, and a battle of words into The Greatest Celebrity Scandal Of All Time.
Shakur was already a successful recording artist (Dan Quayle had even blamed his music for the death of a cop) when he met and befriended Wallace before the release of the aspiring NY rapper’s debut album, Ready To Die. Their mutual admiration soon turned sour after Shakur accused Wallace and his producer, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, of instigating a 1994 robbery and assault that left him with five bullet wounds. Wallace and Combs swore they were coincidentally recording in the studio where Shakur was attacked outside, but for whatever reason, Shakur refused to believe the pair was not involved.
While Shakur recuperated and went to prison for sex crimes, Wallace’s career thrived as Combs’ label Bad Boy drew attention away from the LA gangsta rap scene, led by Dr. Dre and Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight. Nine months into Shakur’s sentence, Knight, a former football player previously accused of threatening NWA’s Eazy-E with a baseball bat and holding Vanilla Ice out of a window, signed the embattled rapper to Death Row in exchange for paying his $1.2 million bail while he awaited appeal. Soon after, Knight mocked Combs from the stage of the 1995 Source Awards, with the NY audience responding by booing several Death Row artists, inspiring Snoop Dogg to yell “the east coast ain’t got no love for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg?”
Tensions continued to escalate. Knight was accused of making a friend of Combs’ drink urine from a cup when he wouldn’t give the address of the east coast mogul’s mother. Knight also blamed Combs’ for the shooting of a Death Row employee during a fight in Atlanta. Shakur publicly claimed to have slept with Wallace’s wife, and the label’s entourages had an armed standoff following the MTV Music Awards in March 1996. Combs repeatedly attempted to make peace with Knight, even inviting Louis Farrakhan’s son to mediate. Knight declined, claiming he would deal with the drama “his way.”
Before Knight could clarify, Shakur was mortally wounded in Las Vegas on September 7, following the public beating of gang member Orlando Anderson by Death Row employees after a boxing match. Despite multiple suspects, including Anderson and Knight himself (he owed back royalties to Shakur, who allegedly considered leaving Death Row), charges were never filed either due to a lack of evidence or police indifference. Shakur’s mother Afeni sued Knight for the unpaid royalties soon after, inspiring the label’s other artists to leave, claiming similar financial issues (as well as fears of violence).
Bad Boy, which had made a point never to respond to Death Row’s insults on record, released a public statement mourning the loss of Shakur. But when Wallace was shot and killed following a Soul Train Awards after-party in LA on March 9, 1997 (15 days before the release of his second album, Life After Death), many assumed it was a retaliatory gesture. No criminal charges have been filed, but recent civil suits from Wallace’s family argue that crooked police officers on Knight’s payroll were responsible for orchestrating his death, and that the LAPD, suffering from widespread corruption in their anti-gang units, refused to investigate the possibility.
More than a decade later, all the major figures are still in the news. After countless lawsuits, arrests and failed restarts Suge Knight was finally forced to sell Death Row and declare bankruptcy. In March, LA Times writer Chuck Phillips claimed to have proof that Combs (best known as Diddy today) was involved in the 1994 assault on Shakur, but retracted the story when his source was revealed to be a con artist. Notorious, a biopic based on Wallace’s life, is scheduled for a 2009 release, and Tupac’s eighth posthumous album is planned for release by the end of the year. With both murders re-opened and the Wallace family’s civil suit still in motion, it would seem this scandal is far from over.
Share:
August 5th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
RIP
August 5th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
R.I.P. Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G.!!! Gone but not forgotten!
August 6th, 2008 at 1:13 am
If only they were alive today…
August 6th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Are you kidding me!? B.I.G. and Tupac number 1. What did these two thugs ever do? How could they rate above the murder of John Lennon? One of the most influential and talented musicians ever. The death of Princess Diana, also more important than these two.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Tupac isn’t dead.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
You have got to be kidding me? These guys were a flash in the pan. Just a couple of gang bangers that made some raps. I can’t even think off the top of my head what they rapped. I would think the Manson murders or even O.J. would be more scandalous than this. RIDICULOUS!!! Many people have died from gang related violence. There is nothing scandalous about it. And why would you put the Ramsey case on here? Or the Buttafucco’s? They were not famous to begin with. Only famous after the facts. I would not call them celebrities.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
This is sad. It also shows how “dangerous” gangster rap can be. I enjoyed both of their music, and believe this to be a senseless tragedy. Now most of the rap that comes out these days lacks meaning, it’s garbage.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:16 am
What was an excellent article ended so poorly it skews the entire time reading it. Lennon, Diana, MJ, OJ are good examples of top ten but 2 rappers being shot vs Lennon? Clearly all of your brilliant thinking ended with a huge toke off your crack pipe before penning your number one choice.
September 20th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
you dumb *%%$$*&`)`!*$%& holes are playing yourself thisz was important because it was full of the most scandals. Learn you facts before you speak.
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:21 am
I say RIP to Tupac, Biggie AND John Lennon. I do understand that Lennon’s murder was a scandal, but you’d have to consider how it would rank in a time after the major Cable news channels. I know Beatles songs, but I know Big and 2Pac songs. The angle onwhich all 3 used really was simplistic and self enlightening. They spoke of what they knew. The Beatles claim to fame was all about getting high….That’s all they spoke of. Same as Biggie and Pac.
So, a solo Lennon doesn’t rate higher in MY opinion. Now if Ringo was accused of setting John up, then, you may have a valid point. What makes Big and Pac number 1 was the controversy, and supposed hatred of 1 another, that the media insisted upon. (But, I have personal knowledge that it was about the money, and controversary sells. Pac liked Big until the end…)
And as far as Lennon being more influencial in music…that’s your opinion.
I agree with leaving the Buttafucco’s and Joan Benet Ramsey off the list. The St Valentine’s Day massacre was a larger scandal. Take into account the media attention was only the paper then, and the scene’s still replicated in movies today.
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:04 am
RIP BIGGIE.
Pac is still alive.
October 11th, 2008 at 5:59 am
The nr. 1 on the list of 100 greatest sex scandals ought not to be on that list at all. There is no significance at all with these two guys. They are virtually unknown outside of the USA (maybe outside of the editorial room?) and people are shot in the USA all the time. John Lennon, of whom I am not a fan, was “more famous than Jesus” and had a message that still rings with people after 30 years and seems to become more relevant with each new Republican on the American throne. To put these two already forgotten blurters, with no lasting message or impact at all, above people like Pincess Diana and Lennon is absolutely ridiculous, to put it kindly.
The only thing that is conveyed now, is that the list has something to do with race or with idiosyncrasies of a, no doubt black, chief editor. Stuff and nonsense.
October 20th, 2008 at 12:56 am
OJ is one major scandal after another, that continued until recently. I’d put Princess Di as #2, then John Lennon and Clinton/Lewinski. I’d put Tupac and B.I.G.’s deaths neck and neck with Dave Chappelle’s going off-grid from a multi-million contract lower than OJ, Di, Lennon, and Clinton/Lewinski. People of ALL ages, ALL cultures, and even many countries talked a lot more about those scandals than they did about Tupac/B.I.G. No disrespect to them, their loved ones and fans, but their following — in life, and in the media after their deaths — was a much smaller percentage than the others I listed.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:45 pm
i would have put them no. 1 as well
October 29th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Putting two thugs that were virtually unknown outside of anyone who listened to cRAP (and definitely not outside of the states) at number one - before John Lennon or Princess Diana is beyond ridiculous.
Two wannabe gangsters that sang (if you can call it that) about killing, murder, drugs, etc…? It’s no surprise they ended up the way they did. I’m not saying they deserved it, but it’s definitely not shocking. A man who spoke of love and peace murdered by a lunatic who had asked for an autograph only hours before or a woman who was so loved (by everyone but her royal husband and his mother) and loved so many - now those are true tragedies. Shocking doesn’t even cut it.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
1st of all the Biggie and Tupac are known worldwide. I was in the Marine Corps from 1996 - 2000, and was overseas for 9 months and EVERY country we went to (Eritrea Africa, Jordan, Hong Kong, %`@`!`*(_#@^^~)) ket Thailand, Guam, Australia, etc.) knew EXACTLY who these 2 guys were. They were playing BOTH of their music in each and every club I went to. The notation that they were and are only known in America is flat out wrong.
2ndly the fact they were the top 2 megastars of the top money making music genre of this ,and any other generation, who were good friends but let money and ignorance drive them apart, makes this the most intriguing scandal of all time to me. Not knowing if one had anything to do with the others death will forever make this the most talked about story EVER!! Its sad it will be but it is, especially with other important deaths like MLK & JFK still unsolved.
3rdly, neither Pac or Biggie were thugs or gang members. They were actually brilliant, business saavy men who got caught up in all the hoopla and bullsh*t of the media and there respective Label heads. Especially Tupac, who began to try to live his lyrics instead of letting his lyrics be his life.
January 27th, 2009 at 5:11 am
Have you ever listened to their music? Doubt it. Tupac was not only a rapper, which is MUSIC, no one said anything about singing sweetheart, but a poet. His music had urban beats, but he was definitely more articulate than you, and talented. Lets see you rap, or in any case, make poetry with a repeating number or syllables. Can you even do that? Because that’s what rap is. It’s expressing urban emotions, on beat, with usually a stressed form of syllables in each line and stanza and rhyme scheme. Personally, I think it takes more talent to rap, especially if you write your own verses, especially if you had written as much music as Tupac did. Tupac was an intellectual. Its ignorant people like yourself that need to find self confidence and stop judging people of color. You probably failed English, that’s why half the people who dislike Tupac and such artists, like Lil Wayne, dislike them. They can’t even understand it. Yeah, and “we’re” illiterate. Go read the definition of a metaphor and find me one Tupac or Lil Wayne song that doesnt contain some type of English satire or hey; any type of Grammatical irony.
April 5th, 2009 at 2:28 am
they were great musicians too
i do believe this deserves #1 simply because
up till now no one knows who or why they killed
these 2 rappers i truly believe it had nothing to do
with gangs.
thugs?
obviously you have never
heard a single song from them or know anything
about their personal struggles
April 25th, 2009 at 12:18 am
who ever made the stupid comment about this not being important, clearly has lived under a %@)_@$!&^!&~~`+` ing rock and lead a very sheltered life. the two biggest rapping legends are murdered and their are no leads, and thats not important!!!!!! grow the %@)_@$!&^!&~~`+` up you dumb !$_`)_*~!$@!*!@ es that dont have a clue. but on a serious note rip to the two biggest names in rap of all time.