Entertainment
15 Reasons Tupac Is Still Alive
When a famous person dies young their fans are often unable to accept the fact that they’re gone.
Elvis, Jim Morrison, Paul Walker — people simply can’t accept that their heroes are no longer around, so instead they create an alternate reality in which their favorite person is still alive and decided to fake their death to either escape the pressure that comes with fame or perhaps the problems they were having with the police.
Tupac Shakur, arguably the greatest rapper of all time, died at the age of 25. Because he was obsessed with his own death — and changed his name to Makaveli before he died — there may be more to the rumor(s) that he faked his death. So, let’s go through the top “evidence” that points to Shakur still being alive somewhere in Cuba.
15. Vegas is Crooked
Faking a death is difficult, it requires the cooperation of multiple people, especially in a situation like the one Tupac found himself in.
While some say the entire shooting was staged, it actually makes more sense that Tupac was shot but then decided he couldn’t take the lifestyle anymore — especially after losing a lung. He either faked his death or decided to cooperate with officials who put him in witness protection program.
Assuming he fled for Cuba, it’d still require the assistance of doctors and even the medical examiner to create a false death certificate. The best city to pull this off would be Las Vegas, which is known for being crooked and money hungry. Considering the fact that Afeni Shakur paid the person who cremated Tupac tens of thousands of dollars. Why?
14. ‘I Ain’t Mad at Cha’ Video
The video that was released shortly before Tupac’s death showed Tupac being gunned down while jumping in front of his friend to protect him from the bullets. After that, Tupac is seen in heaven, rapping about his life and basically saying he isn’t mad at the person who shot him.
Considering the fact that the BMW Tupac was riding in was being driven by Suge Knight and that the car was hit by 12 bullets, 4 of which hit Tupac and none of which hit Suge — he was “grazed” — it’s a bit too much of a coincidence for some people.
Also, the song itself is pretty significant in that it’s titled “I Ain’t Mad at Cha,” especially if you consider the fact that the rumored shooters of Tupac were people that grew up with his best friend at the time — Suge.
13. His Aunt Fled the Police and Lives in Cuba
Tupac’s mother was a member of the Black Panthers back in the 60’s and early 70’s and was pregnant with her son while she was in jail. Tupac’s godmother Joanne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, was also involved in the Black Liberation movement and was a part of the Black Liberation Army.
She was charged and convicted for the murder of a New Jersey state trooper in 1973 and ended up breaking out of prison and fleeing to Cuba. Back in 2015, she was added to the FBI’s most wanted list and was considered the most wanted woman (terrorist) in the world.
If his aunt was able to evade capture for decades while being that valuable to the FBI, her nephew certainly could do the same (he was also wanted as he was out on bail for the alleged sexual assault of a woman in New York and also the assault of Orlando Anderson in Las Vegas the night he “died”).
12. “Toss it Up” Video
In the video for “Toss it Up,” which was released after Tupac’s death, he was seen wearing a pair of Penny Hardaway shoes (it was the 90’s) that weren’t released at the time of Tupac’s death and wouldn’t be released for months.
Now, some say that because Tupac was famous he had access to things that weren’t either yet or readily available to the public, which is fair. But considering the fact that the exact same thing happened in the video for “To Live and Die in LA,” it’s quite the coincidence.
While the video for “To Live and Die in LA” shows Tupac driving around downtown LA in the back of a convertible, “Toss it Up” could’ve been recorded after his shooting as there are only a couple other people present in the video.
Then there’s the video for “Hail Mary” and “I Wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto,” which basically show Tupac getting revenge from beyond the grave and landing in a helicopter in some sort of paradise.
11. The Name Change
Tupac Shakur was known as either Tupac or 2pac in his music, a name that he took great pride in. He was born Lesane Parish Crooks but mother Afeni Shakur later changed his name. Named after the last indigenous Incan monarch, Tupac felt he was a revolutionary and his name reflected that.
Some say he changed his name because he often said, before going to prison, that if he ever did go to prison he’d come out “reborn.” However, his first album after his release was titled All Eyez on Me and was released under the name Tupac. So, why change your name to Makaveli after releasing your largest record yet as 2pac?
Makaveli was a play on the name Machiavelli, an Italian philosopher (among other things) who wrote The Prince, which was published after his death. Coincidence? Beyond that, an anagram for Makaveli is Am Alive.
10. The Makaveli Album
The Makaveli album is full of clues, at least if you ask those who believe Tupac is alive. The cover has Tupac on a crucifix, for example, as a representation of Jesus who died and returned after three days.
In the album booklet there is the also the phrase, “Exit: Tupac, Enter: Makaveli,” which some say is his way of saying that Tupac is going to die but reemerge as Makaveli. In the video for the hit song ‘Hail Mary,’ there is a gravestone with the name Makaveli. The ground splits and the person buried there goes on to get revenge on those who put him in the ground.
There’s another theory that the album begins by indicting Suge Knight in the shooting of Tupac. There’s gibberish at the beginning of the album’s first track, “Bomb First,” that sounds a lot like someone (Kadafi?) saying: “Suge Shot Him.” However, that’s an argument for another list.
9. Where was his Vest?
One of the biggest questions and really just sad coincidences is that Tupac was always seen wearing his bulletproof vest. After being shot five times in New York City during a “robbery,” Tupac was extremely paranoid and thus wore his vest everywhere he went. However, the night of the shooting that took his life, he declined to wear the vest supposedly because Vegas was too hot.
Why would he forgo his vest, especially on a night in which he told his fiancee Kidada Jones not to ride in the car with him because he feared retaliation from the Southside Crip he and his crew had just beaten to a bloody pulp in the lobby of the MGM Grand. Especially when the desert cools down significantly at night?
Considering Tupac died from a gunshot to the chest — the bullet entered through his hip and up through his chest — it’s really too bad.
8. No Funeral
One of the strangest things surrounding Tupac’s death was the fact that there was no funeral. When his rival the Notorious BIG/Christopher Wallace was killed, there was a funeral procession through his hometown of Brooklyn that was basically a rap version of the procession for JFK.
Tupac, on the other hand, had no funeral. While there were some memorial services planned, they were abruptly canceled. Tupac was reportedly cremated and the person who cremated him reportedly received tens of thousands of dollars. Why wouldn’t his mother want to celebrate him? Why did she rush to get him cremated and pay that much for a routine cremation?
7. His Friends Never Saw Him Dead
The aftermath of Tupac’s death was very strange. His friends and rap crew The Outlawz, have said on multiple occasions that they never saw Tupac dead. While some have said that they actually smoked some of Tupac’s ashes and had a small get together on a beach where they spread his ashes, it was later clarified that those weren’t Tupac’s ashes.
Tupac’s friends were at the hospital basically 24/7 — they feared that the people who shot him would return to finish the job. They had been receiving threatening calls at the hospital and Tupac’s room was on the first floor near the entrance.
Some claim they didn’t see the commotion surrounding his death despite being there the entire time. As he went into cardiac arrest for the fourth time, his mother reportedly told the doctors to not resuscitate him as it was his time to go.
6. Suge claimed Tupac was still alive?
Suge Knight has been talking about Tupac’s death a lot more lately, even going so far as to say that Tupac is actually alive — or that he believes he’s alive. As the driver of the car that Tupac was riding in, he had the best perspective in terms of what condition Tupac was in when they reached the hospital.
The Tupac biopic made it seem like Tupac was basically dying as he laid on the Las Vegas Strip. However, Suge remembers Tupac not only being conscious but cracking jokes as they were being taken to the hospital.
Suge reportedly said that Tupac told him to worry about himself as a bullet had grazed him in the head. This story was backed up by one of the doctors who worked on Tupac at the hospital.
Recently, Knight said that Tupac had told him repeatedly that he thought that he was going to die and the doctor had to reassure him that he’d be okay. Also, Tupac later had to be put into a medically induced coma as he kept attempting to leave the hospital — as he had done after being shot in NYC.
He’s well enough to get up and attempt to leave but suddenly dies seven days later?
5. The hospital initially said he was going to survive
Speaking of Tupac’s behavior in the hospital… If you watch any of the news from around that time on YouTube, you’ll find the hospital’s spokesperson and numerous anchors and news reports stating that while Tupac had incurred multiple injuries — including a lung that had to be removed — he was in stable (but critical) condition.
They reportedly claimed that he had “dodged another bullet” or would live to see another day. Now, the official story is that after the doctors removed that lung, they couldn’t stop the bleeding and Tupac died from it.
It seems odd that a 25-year-old, physically fit man would suddenly die or progressively get worse after the hospital told the media that he’d be fine.
4. The Helicopter
One of a slew of songs released after Tupac’s death was “I Wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto.” In the video, a helicopter lands somewhere that could be Heaven — or Africa — and is shot from a first-person point of view.
The idea behind it is that it’s Tupac going to Heaven, but why include a helicopter? Clearly, that’s the most practical way in the 90’s to show someone flying, but there was also technology available to make the camera appear to be flying.
It’s interesting because there are eyewitness accounts from the shooting that claim Tupac was airlifted to the hospital. Some news reports that claim the same thing even though the official version is that Tupac was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Perhaps he was airlifted somewhere else? Like Cuba?
3. The 7’s
The number of 7’s involved in Tupac’s death are sort of eerie and hard to explain. He was shot on September 7th and survived 7 days until he died at 4:03 p.m. (4+3=7). There’s Tupac’s first posthumous album, Makaveli: The Seven Day Theory — notice a trend?
Tupac’s last album before he died was released exactly 7 months to the day that he died (April, 13th). Tupac was 25 (2+5). It’s certainly a strange coincidence considering the fact that the album was originally titled The 3 Day Theory, and was changed after his death to 7 without explanation.
The reason for the 3 was that the album was recorded in three days — but that’s also the number of days it took for Jesus to be resurrected. The album also refers to Suge Knight as “Simon,” one of the apostles who witnesses Jesus’ resurrection. Hmm…
2. The Endless Music
Despite the fact that Tupac was an extremely motivated person, he was also incarcerated for a lot of his adult life. He was really only on Death Row records for less than a year before his death.
Yet somehow he recorded a ridiculous amount of musi. Despite the posthumous albums, there are still reportedly 150 to 200 unreleased songs. How could that be? Also, as a skit on the Chapelle Show noted, how could some of Tupac’s songs released after his death mirror things in popular culture?
For example, in the song “Let’s Be Friends” from the album Until the End of Time, Tupac uses the term bling, bling despite the fact that that hadn’t become a thing until well after his death — thanks to Lil Wayne and company.
The songs also talked about his death in ways that are hard to explain. In the song “N***** Done Changed” from one of Richie Rich’s albums (that was released the same day as Makaveli, Tupac raps: “I’ve been shot and murdered, can’t tell you how it happened word for word, but best believe that N***** gon’ get what they deserve.”
1. Witness Protection?
The biggest question behind all of this becomes, well, where did he go? While Cuba is the frontrunner there is also the option that Tupac was approached by the government and entered the witness protection program.
The FBI had a large file on him, and while Tupac rapped about hating the police and the government in general, perhaps he changed his mind after being shot — especially after reportedly being mistreated, financially, by Suge Knight and wanting out of Death Row Records.
Considering that Suge went to jail for the better part of a decade after Tupac “died” — for the fight that lead up to the rapper’s “death” — he very well could’ve helped the case against Knight in exchange or freedom.
Perhaps that’s why those closest to him never saw the body, why there was no funeral. Also, the only entity powerful enough to silence that many people is the United States government.