Thinking Sideways: Tupac and Biggie

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Thinking Sideways. I don't you never know stories of things
we simply don't know the answer to. Hey, guys, welcome
to another episode of Thinking Sideways, the podcast the podcast

(00:26):
in music. Yeah, I'm Devin, joined this week by Steve
and a departure from normal times where it's Joe and
then Steve. Yeah, And we're going to talk about an
unsolved mystery, which I know is shocking to most of you. Okay,
this is a pretty twisty one. It's a pretty big one. Um,
some of you may or may not know of it.

(00:49):
You probably know of the people that it involves. I
really would be shocked if nobody, if somebody didn't know
who at least one of these people, I would too,
but hey, who knows. Also, before we get too far
into it, and by too far, I mean even into
it at all. This was a listener suggestion from Jody
on Facebook. Thanks Jody. This is one of those mysteries

(01:11):
that I had always thought about doing, but always kind
of thought maybe our listeners wouldn't be interested. But we're
just gonna do it anyways. You know, honestly, I never
I never knew the mystery, and I didn't realize how
far this thing win. No, I didn't either. It's it's
pretty confident that there's a lot of players in this,
a lot of moving parts. Yeah, and you know, by
popular demand, since apparently you guys love really long episodes,

(01:37):
we're going to try and make this as long as possible.
In case you didn't read the episode title, we're gonna
be talking about the unsolved murders of Tupac Shakur and
Biggie Smalls a k a. The Notorious b I G.
A k a a k a. Christopher Wallace. Yes, a

(01:58):
lot of a kas in here, Yeah, just every every player.
But yeah, I'm gonna for convenience sake, in case you
might easily get confused, it's going to be Tupac or
Poc and Biggie or b I G. That's probably a
good thing. Yeah, And I was, I was reading to
all the stuff about this, you know, and I was like, okay,
Notorious b I G. Right on. Then later on they

(02:20):
referred to referred to as Biggie Smalls. I'm going, okay,
is that the same guy? Was? It was confusing? Yeah,
So I'm gonna try and keep it um as consistent
as possible, but just also as a disclaimer. I am
a huge hip hop fan, and particularly Wrapped from the
mid nineties era is kind of where my love started.

(02:40):
And so sometimes I just start calling people different things
because I knew them as different things. But yeah, no,
I just say I cut my teeth on Wrapping in
the late eighties early nineties, and the same thing I
kept catching myself, all right. Uh. And I'm also not
totally sure how to start this episode because there's so
many different ways. So I guess there's a lot of

(03:01):
information out there. Just talk fast. I'll just talk really fast.
That's not gonna happen. We're gonna I guess we'll start
by just kind of doing the cliff notes of Tupac
and Biggie. That's probably good. Plea, you guys. Cool. Let's
start with Tupac. Tupac grew up in what most would
call a broken home. His biological father walked out of
his life when he was I think five, maybe younger. Yeah,

(03:24):
His mom wasn't um, was addicted to crack, and they
moved around a lot Cheapac spent a fair amount of
his childhood around people who had been or were very
active members of the Black Panthers. See we feel like
we need to talk about what the Black Panthers are.
I think everybody knows what the Black Panthers were. I
think most people know, if you don't Wikipedia, many or

(03:45):
most of them were also convicted felons. Um, we don't
really need to talk about that too much. But Cheepac
was by all accounts also an incredible talent, kind of
from the start. At twelve, he was cast as Travis
Younger in a play that some of you may know
about called A Raisin in the Sun and performed at
the Apollo Theater in New York City, which is a

(04:05):
pretty big deal for a twelve year old. When his
family moved to Baltimore, he attended the Baltimore School for
the Arts, where he studied things like jazz and ballet.
He was, in fact the Rat King and the Nutcracker. Uh.
He also studied poetry and acting and apparently was a
really talented Shakespearean actor. And I think this description of

(04:26):
him doesn't sound like what you would expect from a
kind of gangster apper. It's it's kind of a shame
you got shot. Obviously a talented guy he was, and
he also became really good friends at the Baltimore School
of the Arts with Jada Pinkett now Jada Pinkett Smith,
will Smith's wife, Willio Smith's mom for those of you

(04:47):
who are like really young. Tupac moved to California and
was eventually got a gig as a did roadie for
the Digital Underground. You guys remember Digital Underground? Yes, actually
you're kidding, what's no? No, we're not going to go there.
All right, let's talk about it later. This ended up

(05:07):
being really huge because he appeared on a song called
the Same Song, and that's generally considered to be the
launch of his career, was being in a Digital Underground
song called the Same Song. His career, I would say,
as they say, is history. If you guys don't know
who Tupac is, I'd be shocked and probably a little offended.

(05:30):
I wouldn't. I think Tupac is probably one of the
most famous musicians of all times. Well, he's one of
the great selling but I wouldn't. I wouldn't put it
that way. I mean, people have their own musical interests
and they don't always bleed over. I mean there's there's
giant country stars that I have no idea who they are,
and I've never heard of so I guess that's fair. Yeah,

(05:54):
that's fair. I well, okay, I think that he was
one of the most famous musicians in the entire world
of all times. His music has been definitely heard all
around the world, and his influence on artists is really undeniable.
It's just a solid fact, and that bridges genres as well.
It's not just in the hip hop community, though, in fairness,

(06:15):
it's probably not in the country community so much. Uh.
And like I said already, I'm in I'm kind of
a huge fan of Tupacs, and I think that the
loss of his talent is like a really actual, legitimate tragedy. Yeah.
I do believe that he wouldn't have stayed a gangster rapper,
but I think that, like a lot of guys that
came from that a scene, originally, he would have spun

(06:38):
up into something really phenomenal. Yeah, you never know. I
could have done the whole music thing for a while
and then become an actor. He actually was an actor.
There's in a couple of movies. Yeah, and he and
he was a trained Shakespearean actor and things like that.
I think that his talent would have been one for
the ages had he lived past how old. I'm also

(07:00):
going to go ahead and mention and we'll talk a
little bit more about this when we start talking about Biggie.
But they were friends, they were very good friends. There's
this interview with Biggie talking about Tupac after his death,
and I when I listened to it and watch it particularly,
I guess watch it the listening, it's, you know, bigg
he's talking about Tupac and his death. But when I

(07:22):
watch it, it's like, I don't know, it just seems
like he really really you can see it on his
face and his causes and the way he's trying to
figure out how to say the words where an audio
just uncomfort cross unless he was a great actor to Yeah,
that's that legitimately, I'm sad about the whole thing, yea,
which what sort of undermines the whole idea that they
were enemies right ahead of the script here, Yeah a
little yeah. Anyways, there was a rivalry in the rap

(07:47):
industry that tore the two apart. And this rivalry can
be traced pretty much to one man, one night, one speech.
Though it had been brewing for a while. It had
been brewing, but really just kind of blew up, uh
and enter Suge Knights. What a lovely gentleman. Suge Knight is. Yeah.
At the Source Awards, he was awarded something and this

(08:11):
is how he decided to say his acceptance speech. And
I've watched videos of this. Literally he walks up to Mike,
says this, and walks off. He walks up to the
mic and he says, any artist out there that wants
to be an artist and stay a star and don't
have to worry about the executive producers trying to be
all in the videos on all the records dancing, come

(08:31):
to death Row and then walks off stage because death
Row was the name of his label. Death Row was
the name of the recording company that Suge Knight was
the executive for at that point. Yeah, because I mean
that that statement that he made and then you know,
just troops off stage and the crowd is booing. That

(08:55):
change the tone of that entire award. Everybody got up
at that Ord show. Every time it wasn't thank you,
and I'd like to thank God and my mom and
whoever suddenly was. No, the East Coast is better, No,
the West Coast is better. Oh you don't like so
and so, and it just the whole thing just went down.

(09:16):
The tune really did. And so let's just to clarify,
puff Daddy Sean P Diddy Combs, what what are we
calling him? From here on forward? So we get a
consistent P Diddy puff Daddy. I don't know, I don't
We're not going to talk too much. I wasn't I
wasn't sure. But he ran an East Coast recording label

(09:37):
called bad Boy, and Suge Knight ran the label that
Tupac was on. Death Row. Biggy was signed to Bad
Boy and was I think a kind of a founding
member Tupac. We'll talk about Tupac and death Row in
a minute, but suffice to say, for whatever reason, bad
Boy and death Row we're hating on each other. And

(10:01):
death Row was in Los Angeles, right, Yeah, they were
the West Coast. They were the West Coast side of it.
In the year prior to his death, Tupac, We're sorry,
We're going back to Tupac. Tupac became increasingly reclusive and
kind of seemed to be losing it. There are a
lot of home videos that you can watch of Tupac

(10:22):
from all different times in his life, and most of
them are him just being kind of an entertainer and
being happy. He was laughing, making other people laugh, smiling,
kind of really just enjoying life and really having fun,
very outgoing, really just really a born entertainer personality, huge personality.
And then in the home videos kind of from you

(10:45):
can see him more agitated. Really. There are some videos
that he just he's in a studio after having recorded
sixty seven tracks in a month. I think it was
where he's just kind of lost it, like he just
is pacing back and forth and babbling about nonsense and
just screaming at people and being really annoyed. There's another

(11:06):
video where you can see him spitting at paparazzi later
that same month. It was not a good video, and
many people feel that this decline was fueled by Suge Knight,
who had kind of been cutting Tupac off from his
family and friends. How that well, so he had a
pretty strict contract with Tupac, and remember he made him

(11:29):
live in he specified the apartment he was supposed to
live in, right, And you know, we'll talk again more
about this when we start talking about Suge Knight a
little bit more but essentially what happened is Suge Knight
managed to control Tupac's life for a little while through
a monetary gift kind of that didn't really ever materialize

(11:51):
really just kind of had him in his grip. Yeah,
he really did. Also, Suge Knight was a huge dude
and had huge influence in the community, huge, huge, violent
friends too. Yeah, so it would be not a situation
that you would necessarily push back too hard on. Was
not a dude that you would want to have an
argument with because he's like six seven not he's still alive.

(12:13):
And I meant in that situation where he's the executive
used to be an NFL football player, he's that of
that high Yeah, he's yeah, nothing but muscle or was.
I don't know about now. But so let's go ahead
and just pause there on Tupac. Cliff notes Tupac's life,

(12:34):
All right, let's cliff note Biggie's life. Biggie Smalls a
k A. The Notorious b I G a k A.
Biggie a k A. Christopher Wallace. Not confusing at all,
not at all. I'm just gonna call him all of
those things. Yeah, So Biggest Small was born to a no,

(12:56):
So Biggie was actually also born to black panther parent,
but he had a pretty stable home life. His father
wasn't in the picture really. He was a Jamaican politician
kind of guy too. But his mom was a kindergarten
school teacher and she really did anything the Biggie wanted.

(13:21):
He did not have a hard life. Uh No. She
she was a pretty strong lady, and she kept control
of things and she had it all in order. She did.
And you know, she also made a fine living. And
she only had one son, and they they just had
a really strong connection, is from everything I can tell.
Obviously I wasn't there, so I don't know for sure.

(13:43):
But although allegedly Biggie started selling drugs when he was twelve,
that I think the fact is a bit murky. I mean,
it's on the Wikipedia page, but I've read and heard
interviews with his friends and family, and most of him
say that that's not true. Whether that's a them trying

(14:03):
to protect his reputation though he was a gangster rapper,
so like, I'm not sure that that protects his reputation
not much. I'm not sure. I got the feeling that
it was more of a boast once he became he
got on the rap scene, it was kind of a
boast because he made bows in his songs about how

(14:25):
he lived terrible and he lived in a shack when
that was not the case at all. Well. He yeah,
he definitely created a story for the Notorious b I. G. Right,
So the childhood that Christopher Wallace had was not the
childhood that the Notorious b I. G. Or Biggie Smalls had.
Artists do that all the time. It's not unheard of

(14:47):
at all. He originally attended a private Roman Catholic school,
but asked to be transferred to a public school partway
through his time in high school and started to actually
kind of his His grade stayed good. He had a
good student but he did fall in with maybe a
rougher crowd. He ran into trouble with a lot seventeen.
I spent some time in jail, but he'd been wrapping

(15:10):
on the streets with his friends and started to gain notoriety.
He participated in rap battles and things like that and
just kind of grew in the industry. He signed with
Bad Boy Records and that that was a kind of
a founding move. As we talked about It was early
in the Bad Boy days, and he was kind of

(15:30):
the bigger talent that they had brought in. He rose
to prominence over the next few years and became definitely
one of the most popular artists on Bad Boy. Bad
Boy had a lot of artists that you know now,
lots of names that you definitely would recognize. It it was,
it was. It was a great incubator for a lot
of big really was, and they all kind of fueled
each other's creativity and really did a great job. But

(15:54):
at the time Biggie Smalls was, you know, in the
mid to late nineties, while they were alive, Biggie and
Tupac were really it. It remains to be seen, or
you know, it would have remained to be seen if
that would have stayed that way, or if these other
talents would have kind of come to the scene and
it would have flushed out a little bit more. But

(16:16):
they were the two that people really were into. In
nine four, Biggie and Tupac met. I think they did
a collaboration and they became really good friends really fast.
In ninety four, Tupac was with a different recording label
than he than he wasn't with death row yet, Okay,

(16:39):
just making sure I had that right. Biggie, it turns out,
was actually good friends with a lot of unexpected people,
Like he was really good friends with Shaquille O'Neal. Yeah,
they were really good friends. Actually Shaquille O'Neale was on
his way to meet Biggie when Biggie got killed. But yeah,
lots of unexpected friendships there. But the friendship, it seems

(17:02):
between Biggie and Cheepac seemed kind of unpublicized. You know,
people knew that they were friendly, but I think to
what degree people didn't really know. Uh. They apparently were
frequently at each other's houses, they traveled with each other
all the time, they worked to further each other's career,
and they were quote constantly together whenever either of them
were in each other's town. And this comes from firsthand

(17:23):
accounts of close family and friends of both Biggie and Cheepaw.
And there's some speculation that the feud that we've kind
of touched on earlier was actually just for show that
they never stopped being friends, but that having a big
old feud between two warring rappers might do something good

(17:45):
for your career. And right, also, they might also be better,
like say, if you work for somebody like like sug
like Sugar and Death Row, you know, and then butt
your buddies with somebody on Bad Boy Well, you might
not like that, and you might have to kind of,
you know, for the sake of appearances, pretend to I
really hate the guy. That's what Bad Boy Well I
was also going to say is think about there's a

(18:05):
lot of entertainment industries that do that, and the one
that I'll point to professional wrestle. Yeah, which is true.
I mean, we all know here, but as a twelve
year old, I didn't know that Hulk Hogan didn't really
hate Andre the Giant and the buddies, but it made
for great publicity. Yeah, so there's a little bit of

(18:28):
speculation there. There's not a whole lot of bassis to it.
It's just a sense that some people have gotten that
it would be hard for something to go so wrong
that these two really fast friends would have just walked
away from their friendship. I can see reasons why, but
I know we're going to get into some of that. Yeah,

(18:48):
let's just talk about right now. Okay. November, while Tupac
was recording in a studio, he was shot five times
and robbed of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, and
Tupac apparently said that Biggie knew that this was going
to happen and that he had even planned it. Biggie
of course denied it and was quoted as saying later that,

(19:08):
um Tupac quote just he just couldn't really say who
had something to do with it at the time, So
Tupac had just kind of leaned in and blamed Biggie,
I don't know who it is. Well you must know
who it is. Is that what I am reading that
to say, I, you know, I interpret it as Biggie saying, uh,

(19:30):
Tupac knew who did it, but wasn't in a position
to bad mouth said did it? Like maybe hey, it
was that crappy manager that he had that ripped him
off all the time and orchestrated something. Yeah, like a
guy named Suge Knight. I should maybe maybe we should

(19:50):
like be taking the scientology route on this one, and
I should just be like backpedaling possible, because like Suge
Knight exists in the real world, and I don't really
want to be on his eight list in this particular situation.
I think we're saved because this is all based on
the research, and this is all based on what people
have given interviews to say. So in this this instance,

(20:11):
I'm not worried that Joke Knight's gonna know where we are.
Plus I gave out Joe's address. Yeah. Plus you can't really,
you can't really sue us because this is all out
there the public's true. Yeah. Anyway, the rivalry had been
kind of brewing between East Coast and West Coast rappers,
and no, it hadn't reached its head. It hadn't reached
its head at that point. Now. The reason that Tupac

(20:35):
thought that Biggie knew something about this was because in
Biggie released a song that you most certainly know of
his called Big Papa. The B side of this single
was a song called who Shot You? And this did

(20:55):
not sit super well with Tupac. He was pretty sure
that the song was meant to be a taunt. I've
heard that it was even recorded in the same studio,
not the like actual physical soundbox studio, but the same
I don't know what the recording student studio building. I
guess that Tupac was shot in. This is not true.

(21:18):
The documents that quote proved that Biggie was recording in
that studio that night. They were they were faked. I
had heard that he actually recorded who Shot before the
shooting actually took place. Yeah, well that's actually the next
point that I was going to bring up, is that
the truth of who Shot You is that it was

(21:39):
actually recorded years prior and it was meant to be
an intro to a Mary J. Blige album. And I
don't know if Tupac ever knew that I Gotta be
Illness with You. I listened to it. I didn't hear
anything that that I could even remotely connect to Tupac
in terms of a taunt. Maybe not Tupac specifically, but

(22:01):
it is about a dude getting shot, and in this
particular genre music, there's a lot of people getting shot.
There's a is hubris the right word to to assume
that they're talking about you? It is exactly the right way. Okay,
that's that's so. I guess we so, I guess we

(22:24):
have the two theories right. Either the feud was real
or was fake. I think that it was real in
that Tupac thought it was real, and I think that
it caused Biggie genuine pain that his friend was kind
of walking away from the friendship. That's just a total
personal perception of my own. I don't have anything to

(22:45):
back it up, but I do think that Tupac was
being influenced by a lot of people around him and
probably some drugs around him, and it caused him. It
caused him to really alienate people who really cared for
him and forge kind of relationships that maybe didn't have
his best interests at art. Yeah, I do think that
maybe Tupac was indulging in drugs a little bit much.

(23:08):
And the reason I say that is you see him
in a lot of videos and he's either smoking a
rollie or he's smoking a joint, And there's there's things
where he was at a ward shows that everybody was
puffing and it was not an uncommon thing for people
to lace pot with angel dust at the time. So

(23:31):
I really feel like, whether he knew it or not,
he was on a lot more than he probably intended
to be. Yeah, that's possible. Let's talk about some other
important stuff. Still doing the kind of housekeeping of this story. Sorry, guys,
huge backstory, huge backstory. We're gonna get Cliff notes, Babe's

(23:54):
got a huge backstory. This is actually the scary part
of the story. Huge backstory. Yes, this is I agree
with that. It's really important to this story to know
that death Row Records had on the payroll many quote
off duty cops as bodyguards. They were working for Was
it Right Way Security? Was that the security company that

(24:15):
they were using. Reggie Wright junr who works for death Row,
He I believe is the one who set up and
ran the security company because it was it was Right Way.
I know that, and I'm almost positive it was a
play on his name. Yeah, So some of these people
have become really key players in the death of Tupacan Biggie.

(24:36):
All of the cops were implicated in the Rampart scandal,
which you didn't know what that is. You don't know.
This is a thing that happened in the god it
was the late nineties, right, that exposed more than seventy
l a p d Cops who were part of the

(24:58):
anti gang ta force called CRASH, which is an acronym
for Community Resources against Street Hoodlums, which I love as
basically really crappy dudes. Yeah, they were sorry, go ahead
just to say I remember hearing about the time that
things about like faking evidence and framing people. Yeah, unprovoked shootings,

(25:20):
unprovoked beating, beatings, planting evidence, framing suspects, stealing then dealing narcotics,
a bank robbery, perjury, and cover ups. One of the
key players here is David Mack, who was an officer
who walked into a bank and stole a hundred and
seventy thousand dollars while he was still a cop. Yeah,

(25:42):
that's protecting served. Yeah, he worked for death Row records.
He was kind of involved in a lot of illegal
stuff and they were just providing like, you know, protection.
I mean, they got involved in some really nasty stuff. Yeah.
There were a couple others that I don't think we
really need to name. Rampart Lice officers had strong ties
not only to death Row but also gangs, most notably

(26:04):
the Piru Bloods, which we're going to talk about in
just one second. But David Mack, who is currently in jail,
openly affiliates with the Bloods. So we'll talk a little
bit about the Pirus, which you may or may not
know about. If you listen to rap music, you've probably
heard that word before. I thought I did I really

(26:25):
I thought I did, but it's amazing how much there
is too the bloods and the crips when you actually
start diving into it. Yeah, it's actually really really fascinating,
and I would recommend that you go out and do
some research on it if you're interested. Essentially, the blood
and the crips are overarching, I guess, like umbrella gangs

(26:50):
and there are gang factions all over America and other
places that are part of that. Right, that's how you
would That's how I would the corporation and and the
the individual games would be like the little franchises of
a business. Is kind of how I would look I
look at it as kind of a tribal structure, and
I'd say, you know, you have a you have a small,
a small plan, and then that clan is smarter as

(27:12):
part of a larger tribe, and that larger tribes is
in turn part of a larger tribal organization. Yeah. I
think that's I've heard it actually described from some people. Um,
I think it was. Maybe it was even like Kendrick
Lamar was talking about how he would he would kind
of describe it as tribes in Africa, because that's kind

(27:34):
of how it is. But to your point, Steve, the
reason that I would say that's not true is that
Bloods are the overarching international corporation. As I tried to
put in, Hiu is a local family, gang family. They're
actually referred to as a mob family sometimes, and I
had never heard that either until I watched some stuff

(27:54):
and would that makes so much sense? Yeah, So they
still exists, this group. They are still have pretty strong
ties to many rappers that are famous and really really rich.
And as it turns out, it will probably not surprise

(28:16):
very many people. Suge Knight is a very very well
known and very very outspoken member of the Piru family.
Did did either of you ever think to look to
see what that stands for? Yeah? I don't think. Oh
it's an acronym. It stands for pimps in red uniforms.
That's from the reason the stuff that I read, it's

(28:39):
pimps in red uniforms, p I R you and crips. This.
I don't know where this came from or how somebody
came up with this, but crip is Piru spelled backwards
if you turn to you on its side to make
it a c According to the like Urban dictionary and
stuff that I and they're not just urban dictionary, but

(29:01):
there was a number of things that I was reading through.
That's where that came from. Is that's why you hear
piru when you hear crips, and they're they're the same thing.
It's just a different way of saying it. I mean,
it's not it's not utterly creative, but it was really interesting.
That's interesting thought that the crips got their name because
they like to shoot their their opponents in the knees

(29:21):
and cripple them. No, really, that's not a real thing. Okay,
So I really hope already shouldn't get it back to
you guys next week. You can come back to you
next week about it. Yeah, that's I think all of
the housekeeping. I think. Do you guys feel like there's
any more backstory that needs to be talked about before
we start talking about the actual story that we're talking

(29:45):
about that we're half an hour in. Oh no, let's
muddy this some more. Let's just let's just add some
more facts. Yeah, what else you want to talk about?
There's so much, so complicated, and it's just it's confusing
after a while, so many names involved Yeah, there's a
lot of names involved, there's a lot of players involved,
and keeping it straight, there's not Honestly, there's not one

(30:08):
good source. I can't say, go check out this thing.
This is, you know, of course, a bunch of research
from a bunch of different sources. I think there are
a couple of documentaries that do a pretty good job
lotch ringing all of the information together, but you have
to watch all of them because they all have different
information that different all have a different agenda. Yeah, that

(30:28):
was my hard part. I watched two or three documentaries
on this because, as we talked about, there's just so
much going on. And I was telling Joe and I
were talking about this earlier before we started recording, that
was the only way I could keep these names straight
is I could actually get a face to the name
through an interview or other people. And still still I would.

(30:52):
I was in the middle of the second or third
one going wait who Yeah. I actually ran into that
when I was, you know, kind of writing the script
for this and what a couple of documentaries and I
was like, oh, I really want to talk about that
one guy they interviewed, uh uh oh, no, what's the
guy who wasn't how was he related? And why did
I care about him? I just had the face in

(31:12):
front of me, you know. So let's just try to
stumble our way through this story. Okay, So where are
we started again. We're gonna start September seven, so we're
starting with what We're going back to Chupac. Okay, We're
gonna start at the beginning of the events. So September
seven might be a date that someone recognized for reasons

(31:32):
not because of the thing we're about to talk about.
Because it was a night in boxing history, actually, which
is fairly controversial. People were so angry for paying for
HBO pay per view. It was the championship UH in

(31:53):
America between Bruce Selden and Mike Tyson. This fight was
pretty controversial for a number reason ends, but mostly because
it seemed really fixed because Tyson knocked Selban out in
just one minute and forty nine seconds for the heavyweight
the heavyweight title. I haven't I didn't ever watch it.

(32:15):
I don't really care to watch boxing, but I read
I read an account that said that Tyson hit him
in the head, but it looked like he kind of
just grazed him. At like a minute thirty and he
goes down and then he gets up and uh, you know,
says no, no, I can go. And then Tyson hits
him one more time and the dude gets back up
but he can't stay standing, and so the ref is

(32:37):
just like, yeah, I know, we're done here, which to
me and so many people paid what like a hundred
and fifty dollars or something to watch this. H yeah,
I was supposed to go a really long time. It
lasted less than two minutes, to be honest. I played
Mike Tyson's punch out on the Nintendo and Mike had

(32:58):
hit pretty hard. Yeah, I don't. I actually think if
they if they had actually fixed the fight, then they
would have stretched it out for a while. Yeah. Yeah,
this fight was orchestrated. This is a fun little fact here.
This fight was orchestrated by a man named James Rosemond,
who was also known as Jimmy Henchman. Really yes, I

(33:19):
mean it's not his real name, but times people get
dumb names, right. Sug Night's real name isn't Sug, Yeah,
but he goes by Sug, which I suppose was at
one point sugar. I it's spelled s u g E
in case anybody was wondering, that's how you say that?
Now everybody I can. I can hear them all going,

(33:40):
oh that dude. Yeah, for once, we're not mispronouncing it. Yeah,
like I did my research. Shuge night. Yeah. Okay, So
tupacin Shug, we've just been saying suge and now thinking
I want to say it that way. No, but Tupac
and Sug we're at the fight and Kevin Hackey, who's

(34:03):
one of the off duty l a p D officers
who is actually now an ex con and bounty hunter,
was asked to tell Tupac that a member of the
rival gang, the Crips, was at the casino. This is
before the fight. This was This was before the fight
actually took place. The boxing match hadn't started. They were

(34:24):
just in the casino having a good time. Yes. Hackey
was also asked to implicate the man the Crip in
a robbery that had happened earlier that year from the
Piru family. Turns out, some Crips walked into a foot
locker and robbed a bunch of members of the Piru
So that's cool. This guy was named Orlando Anderson, but

(34:45):
was known as Baby Lane. I wish that I had
cool names like this Tupac. We really need to give
ourselves some awesome monikers. Mine would be d Unit Shorty
a k A. D Unit. It's true, that's mine. I've
got mine. Yeah, you can meet Jay Dogg and Steve

(35:06):
can be Baldy McGee. That's the whitest name I ever heard.
I know what my name is gonna be. It's gonna
be notorious Joe. That's good. Yeah, it's actually really good. Yeah, notorious. Okay, okay, notorious.
This guy Orlando was in or Anderson, Lando Anderson. I'm

(35:28):
gonna call mem Anderson sorry by his last name. He's
the only one. Tupac sees him and just attacks him
because Hackey had told him, because Hackey told him he
was you know, part of it. Tupac was probably drunk
and high and angry, and even if if he wasn't,
he was prone to fly off the handle at that

(35:50):
point pretty quickly. Yeah, at that point definitely. So just
to be straight, here was Tupac ever officially a blood
and he was he was there for the music what
I can tell, But by affiliation, I think that he
had to stand by the quote unquote family. You know,

(36:11):
I'm not a member of the mob, but I've got
to respect the mob kind of mentality. Obviously, you're gonna
be sad since your boss, Shug is a crip. You
kind of got on or excuse me of blood straight. Yeah,
Shug joined in in the beating. It's pretty much just
a beating. There's surveillance tapes of it. I watched it. Shug,

(36:33):
who was on probation at the time, kicks Anderson a
couple of times in the head. In the head. This
was obviously a violation of parole and he was eventually
sent to jail for his parole violation. After the fight
that they had the beating, they watched the fight the

(36:54):
other beating, and then Tupac got into Sugars car with him.
They were going to go to uh death Row owned
club called Clubs six six two six six two is
not wasn't actually owned by death Row. I think death
Row made a lot of claims or Sugar made a

(37:14):
lot of claims that they were in ownership of it,
but I don't think from the stuff that I've heard
that they actually owned it. They just went there a
lot and spread that room. That's fair I guess what
I've always seen and just assumed was true is not.
It did never say they owned it. It It just that
it was a death row club, and that's yeah, it

(37:35):
was a club they went to, but they made allusions
to ownership. That's fair because well they thought they owned
the place. So Shug was driving his car and Tupac
was in the passenger seat. Well, yeah, that the weird
thing is it was only those two in the car.
Normally have godards, You've got your bodyguards with you and

(37:56):
I it was odd. Yeah, Actually his bodyguard Frank Alexander
TWOPOCX bodyguard, Sorry it was it was meant to be
in the car with them, but Tupac at the last moment,
right before leaving, actually asked Frank if he would get
in the car with Tupac's then fiance. Oh that's right,

(38:17):
said under the guys of saying in case we need
more cars to leave the club. But that's a weird
little tidbit about this story, right that at the very
one of two PACs very last acts in life was
to tell his bodyguard, na, go hang out with my
fiance instead, right, Yeah, So that that I think is

(38:37):
an action that does put a lot of question marks
in people's heads. Well, I didn't, didn't should have a
bodyguard or two. I don't he did, but I don't
know that. I was not on the impression that they
necessarily rode with him. There there was a security team,
there was there was security, Yeah, but they mostly it
was kind of like a caravan entourage sort of situation.

(38:59):
They all had big suburbans that they would drive. It's
kind of like the president, you know. And it was
my impression that sug frequently did not have them in
the car with him, that they would drive in other
cars in a kind of caravan situation makes sense. Sugar
was pulled over because the dummy didn't have license plates

(39:21):
on his car because it's brand new. It was, yeah,
I was brand new. I don't think so his license
plates were Actually this was the bit that's dumb. They
were in his trunk. Oh so it wasn't that new
know that he had them. Why did he not put
them on? I don't know? Again, Yeah, no, I mean

(39:44):
I think that this is where stuff that sends red
flags that for people starts to happen. Right, Why did
Tupac tell his bodyguard, hey, right, in a different car,
Why did Sugar not have license plates on his car?
It takes like two seconds and three bolts, right, I mean,
it's not like a huge ordeal to put your license
plates on, particularly if you are probably gonna get pulled

(40:05):
over since you don't have license plates on. So they
got pulled over, but they were released free to go.
I don't know what the term they proved they had
the plates. Sorry, they have a chance. Probably handed a
hundred dollar bill to somebody and went on their autograph

(40:25):
something something like that. They drove just a couple yards
down the road and stopped at a red light. Now
it's important to point out to everybody this is all
in Vegas, Vegas. But this is not on the Vegas Strip,
because remember the Tyson fight has gotten out, so the

(40:46):
strip is a parking lot. Yeah, so they're not on
the strip. They're off the strip at this point. Yeah. Well, okay,
the car pulled up to the stoplight, and a car
with two women pulled up on the left side of
the car, and Tupac was standing in the sun roof.
You know, you stand up in the sunroof like you're
going to prom or whatever. Um, and he apparently had

(41:08):
a conversation with the women and invited them to the club,
and then I guess sat back down, is my understanding.
I've seen a lot of recreations of what happened that night.
Some of them include the fact that he was standing
up and talking to women. Others don't, but he did
sit back down, and a car, a white Cadillac, an

(41:31):
older model white Cadillac, pulled to the right side of
Shook's car. The windows were rolled down, and nobody's quite
sure how many people were in the car, but it's
pretty clear that somebody I think it was in the
back driver's side side right, so the left side of
the car. So it's important to note, because you're saying
somebody in the rear of the Cadillac, is that when

(41:54):
they were at the stop light, shooks car was not
the first car in line. What are their bodyguards cars
was in front, then Shug's car and then another bodyguard.
So they're there too. There one car length away from
the intersection, which is why this car is able to
go where it goes. Yeah, So it goes right next

(42:15):
to them, and driver's side American driver's side, right left
side rolls down and just opens fire through the passenger
side passenger side of Sug's car, Chupac. It's pretty clear
was the main target of this attack. He was hit
in the chest, pelvis, and right hand and right thigh.

(42:35):
Shug claims that he had taken a bullet to the head,
big fat liar. He said that he took a bullet
to the head and that it was embedded in his skull,
and the doctors had told him that it was too
dangerous to operate to take it out, so he just
had been in there. In interviews, there's but it was

(42:56):
really just a scratch. Well, a bullet grazed the side
of his head glass flying glass. Yeah, So what what
makes me curious about this is that one is not
neither one of the two cars fill of bodyguards one
after the white cattle as they did, actually one of
them did, did they? I haven't seen. I hadn't seen.

(43:17):
Everybody I've read is focused on what happened with Sugar's car, right,
But yeah, it's my understanding that one of the bodyguard
cars pursued the white car, but that nobody ever really
heard from the occupants. I think they just lost them.
That was my sense. Probably didn't react right away either,
because what the hell is going on? Right? Yeah, your

(43:37):
boss just got shot, so sug reacts poorly. That's a
good way to put it. Suspiciously panic in just blind panic.
He just started driving. He drove towards the strip, he said,
because he didn't know if there were more attackers, and
he thought maybe it'd be safer on the strip. Anyways,
he's not doing a great job driving. He run into

(44:00):
a bunch of signs and lamp posts and finally breaks
down a couple of blocks away. He drives like Alicia's
Silverstone includes exactly. It's worse than that, actually, somehow worse
than that. Chupac was rushed to the hospital put on
life support. One of the bullets had entered his long
Chupac was heavily sedated, and they actually had to eventually
put him in a coma because he kept trying to

(44:21):
get out of bed. He's a badass, for real, the
way you have to put him in a coma, and
he wouldn't stay in bed, so they just put him
in a coma, and then six days later he died
in the hospital after I guess they did CPR for
a really long time, and his mom was just like,

(44:42):
not just just call it. And then he was cremated,
like suspiciously quickly after that the next day. There must
have been an autopsy, right, No, because he was in
the hospital. They knew what, right, they knew what was
going on with his body. They were trying to save
when he was in the hospital for six days, so
they knew what was going on with him. They didn't like,
they need to do an autopsy, so they just cremated.

(45:03):
I'm surprised by that because that that in cases of
murder than autopsy was mandatory in this case. I don't
think that's true because they knew it. Well. I don't
think an autopsy would really feel anything. Well, No, I mean,
you know it is. It is. Sometimes it seems like
it shouldn't be mandatory because obviously something. Oh no, I'm
thinking of his death certificate. Never mind, I'm sorry, there's

(45:25):
stuff about his death certificate. But I yeah, I I
don't know why there wasn't an autopsy. Yeah, because even right,
it's your understanding too, that there wasn't an autopsy. I
didn't just miss that, know what I was thinking of.
I was about to say, oh, wait, there was it,
but no, what I was looking at was his death, Curt,
I don't think there was, and I'm freely going to
admit that I could have just missed it, but I
will say he was cremated really quick. I think I

(45:47):
think it was even within twelve hours. Four hours. I
definitely twenty four, but I think it was within twelve even.
And I don't I really don't think that there's anybody
who's totally satisfied with the investigation into tupox death. I
don't think anybody in this world. The official line is
that it was members of the Compton Crips trying to
avenge the beating of Anderson that had happened just prior

(46:09):
to the boxing match in the casino. The second part
of this official line is that the gun used was
paid for by Biggie Smalls, actually the one of the
lead investigators, and then some investigative reporters that did some
heavy digging. Faith Evans was married to Biggie and she
recalls Biggie calling her the night that Chupac was shot

(46:31):
and he was crying. Yeah. She said that he didn't
have hate in his heart for anybody, And then a
few nights later Biggie saw Snoop Doggie Dog I'm sorry, uh,
And Snoop recalls Biggie telling him that he never hated Chupac,
and by most accounts, Biggie was like very heartbroken about
the death of Chupac about six months go by w

(46:55):
correct Now Snoop was with which label? Again, Snoop was
on death Row? Okay, there was a mass exodus that happened,
and he was one of the people who kind of
bail started that what how did you how did you
how did you like have a mass excess from death
Row and not get murdered by my sugar? Really though,
that is a good question. Well, and there's some stuff

(47:18):
and I think that there's some leadership issues that come
up here very shortly. Well, I know we're gonna get
into some of that later, Am I wrong? I mean
probably we will if you want. Well, basically, you know,
Suge Knight because of his prol violation for beating the
crap out of Anderson and goes to jail. Did so

(47:39):
it's suddenly easy to get away from the boss when
the boss is locked up. Yeah, I can't, except people
like that have connections. They can still like you know,
or or are you rubbed out from behind bars? Do
you want to talk about connections. Suge Knight really creased
me out with the connections to that he has. Have
you ever seen the interviews of that guy. Well, he's
in jail, he's spoken, a giant, fat cuban cigar, has

(48:02):
a walking cane, and it's not not maximum security, and
it's not you know, the cheapy Charlie. We give this
out just because we have to. It's like a nice
looking solid wooden things that could break. Yeah, that guy
had connections, because I mean, it was amazing to me

(48:23):
to watch an interview with him and he's just puffing
on a cigar like he's the Godfather. Especially. One of
the things that I'd really like to see changed about
our prison system because it's like the worst criminals, the
ones who deserve to be punished the most harshly, always
have the best time in prison. Yes, somehow that's true. Yeah,
six months go by, I think that's where we were. Yes,

(48:44):
six months go by, Biggie had taken a bit of
a step back from the scene. There's this great quote
from him where he just says, my mom, my son,
my daughter, my family, my friends, They're what mattered to me.
Now it seems as though the death of tupac In
a couple other things that happened to him during that
time really affected him. So that's he probably realized how

(49:06):
dangerous things were becoming. Well, I think that there was that,
and also there was just so much violence around him,
and he he did go to jail a couple of times,
and he had some charges against him, and some bad
stuff happened. He was actually in a car accident. His
cousin was driving a car, and it was so bad
that he was confined to a wheelchair for a number

(49:28):
of months. Right, Yeah, he shattered one of his legs.
So I think that all of that kind of contributed
to Biggie thinking maybe this was not a great place.
And he had, you know, he did, he had He
was married and he had two kids, and by all accounts,
he was pretty happy. Although there's some rumors about him
having an affair with Little Kim, but that's not here. There.

(49:51):
In February, you know, that's kind of funny. Yeah, Yeah,
February seven, Biggie went to l A to promote his
new album, which included the song Hypnotized, which is the
other song you definitely know by him. I was going
to try and imitate that like the intro song You're

(50:16):
going to get Please come on, we need another another
song to mix for we need another rap song. So
when did he cut wood Shook? Not for nothing? But
the album he was promoting was called Life After Death.
What's Kyle's prop? On March eight, Biggie was a presenter

(50:38):
at the Soul Train Music Awards. He left the event
in a suburban driven by I think a bodyguard, and
I think his cousin Lilci was in the backseat. I
think that's my understanding. Yeah, Joe was just laughing at
the Biggie and then little everybody got it. They attended
an after party and then left. About twelve d a m.

(51:01):
The suv stopped at her at light and a dark
sedan pulled next to the car. The driver rolled down
his window and fired open fired uh full. Four bullets
hit Biggie and the shooter was seen and a composite
sketch was made and I forget the car was a
It was a black sedan. It was a black or

(51:26):
very dark and PAULA, yeah, yeah, yeah. Biggie was of
course rushed to the hospital and of four bullets only
one did Lasting day Okay, well lasting damage. I mean
it killed him. It was fatal, but well, he would
have easily survived the other one, so had this one not. Yeah, basically,

(51:46):
there was one flash wound in his groin groin area,
which probably wouldn't have been super fun to heal, but
they would have all healed. You know. It was like
one in his arm and one in his thigh, but
the other one went through his pal I was went
in his hip pretty much. Yeah. And there's a picture

(52:12):
I have you guys have in the script in front
of you of the man who did it. Who, honestly,
do you know who he looks like? To me? No
is Andre from Outcast right does, especially in the like
hey video or a little bit of Mr Belvet here,
there's a little bit of little Yeah, but he looks

(52:33):
so much like I'll show you get the picture later
because it looks exactly like that to me. He's wearing
a bow tie. I don't think so. I think we
would know about that by now. There are, of course,
a lot of theories. There are a lot um I've
picked a couple of my favorites, and you know, as
with these stories, many of these just kind of fall

(52:55):
under the same umbrella, and the details are just different
and kind of boring. So let's get into them. Let's
start with gang violence. There's a lot of one. There
are a couple of them. Why bullet pointed these, and
I think four of them are gang violence of different
varieties the subtext because I wouldn't know what was going on.

(53:15):
So just gang violence, the mundane kind that the Crips
did in fact retaliate by shooting at Tupac, and then
Biggie was shot for also gang related reasons. Because Biggie
was Biggie was again affiliated with which gang, if any,
the Crips. The Crips mostly just didn't that bad Boy

(53:37):
was affiliated with the Crips, not because Biggie himself was affiliated.
Have you heard of the practice of making your blood,
which is your initiation kill. Yeah, that'd be a that's
pretty big initiation kill. Though. Hey, if you want to
make a statement and you want to come in gangbusters,
you find the biggest guy you can and you kill you.

(53:59):
I'm not saying that's what's happening, but I'm just looking
at like, if this is just random gang violence and hey,
you got to kill somebody. Hey, look there's Biggie Smalls
get him. I'm gonna be honest, honest with you. If
this were initiation, we like somebody everybody be bragging about that.
The dude who did it would be telling everybody. But

(54:21):
there's also the fact that a lot of the guys
that are involved in this case, we're dead within two years. True,
So it's quite possible that somebody did and a couple
of dudes knew who it was, but they really had
to shut their mouths and then they subsequently die. Then
we don't know now. And my understanding of this too
is that this is a really professionally done hit. It

(54:43):
wasn't some random, like little gangbanger thing. Yes, because I
mean they had other cars that basically like they had
was the Toyota land Cruiser that did a U turn
and and it's basically separated the cars from the from
the bodyguards car and another one that blocked him in
the front. Were you gonna talk about that, by the way,
I'm not well. And when we're just talking about these theories,

(55:03):
are we talking about Tupac specifically, or we talking about
Biggie specifically, or are we just talking in general for
the whole however, long we've been talking so far, well
in this one, in the like it's just general gang violence.
We're talking about both, okay, because I gotta agree with Joe,

(55:24):
which is the whole One of the things I read
is the killing of Tupac follows one a lot of
government agencies like the CIA and places that will go
overseas and to do a hit on somebody that they
need to take out. There was a lot of steps
that were followed, the separating of the vehicles and kind

(55:48):
of like you were talking about, the blocking into the vehicle.
On the other side, there was a lot of stuff
which again I I don't think it was just random
gang violence. I don't know what it was, but it's pinky.
That's actually one of the reasons I want to talk
about later. But white people think that Suge Knight did
it remind me while we're talking about Sue Knight that

(56:11):
we want to talk about that because it's a good
and but it's also not unfair to say that. One
thing that I haven't mentioned, and I know you wanted
to talk a little bit about, is that the FBI
was following Hupac and Biggie both and has pictures of
Biggie the night that he was shot, like getting into
his car, and they were they were following him. So

(56:34):
it's not the most outlandish thing in the world to
say that maybe it was a government hit job. It's weird, well,
and it's it's weird because if they have photos of
him going to the event, leaving the event, going to
the next event, leaving the next event, then where the

(56:54):
hell were they when the shootings happen? His mom asks
that same question, does but there's people who asked that
for Tupac as well, because he was under surveillance and
and so that's that's the really really odd thing. There's
the I know that I think we're gonna talk about
this later, but might as well just do it now

(57:15):
because we're talking about yeah, is there's there's conspiracy theories,
and I'm gonna call it a conspiracy theory. There are
a couple this, I know. The one you want to
talk about now is that this was that both of
these were government hits. Y. Here's the background on this
is that, Okay, Tupac comes from a family that's you know,

(57:36):
it's got ties with the Black Panthers. He's a very
persuasive figure, He's a very very big figure for the
young black community. So people say that certain elements in
the government were worried that he was going to become
the next Martin Luther King, the next Malcolm X maybe

(57:57):
I don't know who. They thought he was gonna combat
they had. There was enormous fear, so they decided to
take him out rather than have this urban uprising. I've
heard that for Tupac. What I don't understand is how
that relates to Biggie. Well, so this is, uh, I

(58:19):
don't see what Biggie was doing. Well, so this is
echoed throughout a lot of a lot of the theories.
You'll hear this that the Biggie death is a coincidental
cover up of whatever happened to Tupac, right, that it
was a lean into the feud, and that it was
convenient if you would just off Biggie then it would
look like retaliation for Biggie killing even though Tupac even

(58:45):
that was more or less the same person who kill
them both. Right, So that that that you can hear
that echo throughout many different, many different theories that we're
going to talk about, is that the reason that Biggie
died is because Tupac died and that it was easier
to explain and the aftermath that oh, Biggie had to
pack offt and then the Piru family had Biggie off

(59:07):
and then yeah, that that doesn't hold. I agree. I
absolutely agree with that. I agree it's nonsensical to commit
another murder six months later to cover up another. I
mostly agree. There's one theory that I think it fits
nicely into, but the rest of them I totally agree
with as far as as government assassination theory now because

(59:28):
I don't think there was any threat there was going
to become the next Malfolm whatever. And also again, you're
talking about a bunch of an industry where people kill
each other all the time, So why go to the
trouble and the risk of murdering somebody when he's probably
gonna get murdered anyway. People, because people point to our

(59:48):
our past vice president who is worse pronouncing words than
we are, Dan Quayle, who was giving speeches about the
read of urban youth and the rap industry, and people
point to that as an executive office mandate to quell this.

(01:00:12):
That's but that. But you gotta remember too that Dan
Quill left office three January. But if it's an executive
level thing, I mean no, I think the whole thing
is it's hair brain. Yeah, that that's what it is.
But that's where I know it stems from, at least
from the research I've seen. Yeah, I would agree with that.

(01:00:32):
There's also some conspiracy theories that the Illuminati killed them.
You're laughing, but it's true and in fairness right. Tupac's
last album was called The don Killum, Killer Kill Him.
I can't actually say it, Kati. Yeah, the seven Day Theory.
I can't believe I got that. Yeah, it's a play

(01:00:54):
on Illuminati. Yeah, I think I like that. That's kind
of cool. Yeah. That was his first or his last.
That was the title of his album with a month
after he died. Yeah, it was released prematurely, was released
earlier than it was meant to be released. We're going
to talk all about this, Okay, second, but I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to no, no, no, not at all.
And I think, you know, we do have to mention

(01:01:15):
that the Illuminati might have done it, even though that's dumb.
They didn't. They didn't do it, they didn't. Why not?
I like it just kidding. So the next gang violence
theory is we've talked about a little bit already, right,
is that Biggie, for whatever reason, had Tupac killed death
row in turn, had Biggie killed in retaliation. I think

(01:01:38):
that's done for a number of reasons. Not one of
them notwithstanding is that, like, I really do believe that
Biggie had nothing but love for Tupac. You know where
they came from, right, Yeah, the l A time. Yeah,
the l A times, like made stuff up, so much
of a lot of cover up. There's a lot of
make up, made stuff up. And that's where it from

(01:02:00):
his I think somebody they put out an article from
a source they couldn't disclose that he offered a million dollars.
And by the way, according to the story, he was
also in Las Vegas at the time, which he absolutely was. Yeah,
probably not. Um next theory is gang violence, but this
time with p DDE Tough Daddy, Shawn Colms, you know

(01:02:22):
however you want to call him. He apparently he was
also he owned bad Boy Records, Right, it still does.
I think I think it's still a thing. I'm not
totally sure, I'll be honest with you. He had Tupac
off because reasons and biggieming by reasons. You mean, we

(01:02:46):
don't know. And then death Row had Biggie killed in retaliation,
this time with a lot of the l a p
D corruption that it was. It was essentially that Suge
Knight paid the cop to do it. Yeah, bigg shooting,
but an undercover polace or off the book shooting. That

(01:03:09):
was it really interesting to see. Um, I can't remember
which l A cop it was, but as far as
as far as as big E goes Biggie goes, I
mean there was one of the one of the cops
that was involved with this soul thing. Actually wasn't it?
Was it Hacky? I think it might have been Hacky,
but I'm not sure. No, Hackey was the one. Was

(01:03:30):
one of the ones that said he knew who had
done it, but it was I think it was David Mac.
I'm pretty sure, yeah right, yeah, yeah, And so he
was an l A p D officer but he worked
for he was the one who did the bank robbery. Yeah,
and his his his handle was d Mac and he
owned a black and Palaea. Interestingly enough, the l A

(01:03:52):
p D never bothered to even take a close look
at that car. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, there's one of
many things that they didn't bother there to do. That's true.
They didn't bother to interview so many l A p
D and the Las Vegas p D. They both kind
of screwed the pooch on these cases. They didn't bother

(01:04:14):
to investigate a lot of people, and I think it's
just because they had biases against those people. I'm not
saying it's a racial thing. I'm saying that it's you're
in this rap industry and we know that you're dealing
drugs and you're just not going to tell the truth,
so we're not even gonna waste our time kind of bias.

(01:04:35):
Although many of the cops were corrupt, so I'm just
going to cover sprevolved and involved. Next theory is that
they take their deaths, both of them, so they both
take their desks, that they're off living on an island
somewhere together. Yeah, I don't know, they were friends. You
could also theorize that I think the case for Tupac's

(01:04:58):
faking his death is much stronger than Biggie faking his death.
So you can combine theories and say that Tupac faked
his death and then in retaliation, people had Biggie killed
because they thought that he had Tupac killed. That doesn't
sit right with me, but it's always possible. Tupac. Well,
let's first talk about Biggie. Life after Death was his

(01:05:18):
last record that was released, and then in bad Boy
released another one of his albums called Born Again, which
in fairness people point to. But I'm pretty sure that
bad Boy just named it that it didn't actually come
from Biggie. But okay, yeah, the Tupac album was already
named before he died, Yeah, the don kill him. Yeah,

(01:05:44):
but the Biggie album that Born Again wasn't released. Yeah,
so that's way after his death. I don't think they
had that record. No, it was all just unreleased stuff. Yeah,
so that that's a marketing bit. I agree Tupac. You know,
he released the album The Dawn Lamati. The seven day

(01:06:06):
depends on how you want to pronounce. Yeah, I seven
just as right, the seven day principle. No, it's this.
I had it before the seven Days something something, Now
I've lost it was originally the three Day Something and
then they did the Seven Day Something. He was Jesus
on the cover. He was Jesus on the cover. There

(01:06:28):
lyrically a lot of references to life after death, resurrection,
also faking one's own death. You know, Tupac was super
obsessed with Machiavelli at the time. He really was. No,
he well he always was, he had always yeah, he
So he released this album actually under his stage name

(01:06:51):
quote unquote of maki Velli. It was spelled differently than
the Italian artist, but that he had always kind of
planned all of his stuff that he had planned to
do for a death row he planned to do under
that name as a stage name. Was not an artist, philosopher,
political philosophy. Sorry, yeah, yeah, I said, Well he wasn't

(01:07:15):
away but you know, one of the things that Machiavelli
was so popular for, I was talking about deceit and
deception and things like that, particularly within the political system. Sure,
but people kind of point to that and say, well,
Tupac was talking about deceit. He was really obsessed with
deceiving people. So, and there have been some sightings of

(01:07:37):
Machiavelli or Tupac, Well he was, you know, he was
called Machiavelli an artist. So maki Velli was the original
cynic he was you never read the book, you should
as good ridden. Yeah, I've seen a number of things
that Tupac is still alive. Oh yeah, I don't ascribe
to it, agreed, but there are but that that hologram

(01:08:01):
was super convincing though, right, I totally know about the hologram.
I just can't believe you win there. That was the
look of are you kidding? Uh No. What I was
gonna say is is there's things that people have pointed out.
I looked at Tupac's death certificate. I couldn't read it

(01:08:22):
because the copy that I came across on the internet
was so bad. But people say that two Bucks alive
and then he faked his death, and that the body
that was cremated wasn't actually his because the body that
was listed on the death certificate had a sixty pound
weight difference from him. Because Tupac, what was he I

(01:08:48):
can't remember how much he was. I think he was
like a hundred sixty or a hundred seventy pounds or
something like that. He was only muscular dude, but he
was kind of a tall guy, and there was there
was a weight difference. Evidently, there's some just crepencies on
the tattoos because he had a budget. Big notable one
was thug life across his abdomen. But there's that, and

(01:09:11):
there's the fact that the the guy that cremated the body,
nobody can find him. He wasn't hardly a regised person.
And it's amazing amount of money that he was paid.
I think he's paid like three or five grand to
do it, or no, it was more than that, but
I can't remember how much it was. But he's paid
some obscene amount of money to do the cremation super fast.

(01:09:34):
So I know that's what fosters people to say that
Tupac is still alive. There's also an awesome report that
I read that said that in Cuba, a week after
Tupac's death, like one thousand people called the cops to
say that they saw Tupac in Cuba, which is one
of the stupidest things I think I've ever heard in

(01:09:55):
my entire life. According to the lore, and I'm going
to call it the lore, his grandmother evidently his grandmother
killed a cop in seventies seven, So again he comes
from a family that just unlike the law, not making
any any any conclusions about that, but just she killed
a cop. She escaped from jail after she was convicted

(01:10:19):
of the killing and supposedly went to Cuba. So people say, well,
bos in Cuba, that's where you were. I would have
won to Cuba. I don't know that i'd go to Cuba.
There's some there's some really interesting videos of the sightings
of Tupac. You should just go out and google because
it's pretty awesome. Because it's just some brown skin dude

(01:10:40):
walking down the street with his head shaved. Yeah, it's
like dudes who look kind of vaguely like Upac. But
the next theory, oh this is yeah. Is the last
theory in my favorite Yeah, which I think that a
lot of people think and a lot of people don't like,
but that's okay, is that Suge Knight orbustrated the whole

(01:11:02):
thing on both killings, on both killings, Yeah, which is
a little bit high risk in the case of the
Tupac shooting shot a little Yeah. And although that would
explain actually why the shooter was in the backseat, because
if he's alongside and he would actually not be firing
directly into the bat and the side of the car,
but actually firing from behind, which would leaves anyway, Am

(01:11:22):
I getting ahead of you? But that's the FA point. Yeah,
but that would leave, That would leave because the bullets
would go into the dash and then the engine apartment
instead of going through and so going through tupacing into Yeah, well,
let's just back up for two seconds. You did get
a little It's totally fine because we are going to

(01:11:44):
talk about that, and it's good points to bring up
the reason. You remember how I mentioned earlier that Tupac
had recorded sixty seven songs in a month. He did
that because of sugar. As far as anybody can tell,
Tupac had initially fused to join death Row, saying that
he just wasn't ready in Tupac landed himself in jail

(01:12:08):
on sexual assault charges and he couldn't make bail. It
was a pretty high bail in fairness, they really forwarded.
But should Night decided, oh, hey, I will bail you
out if you joined death row? Records, can I clarify

(01:12:29):
something I just because I'm not absolutely was it bailed
him out or got him out because I thought he
had like a three or four year sentence. That's what
I thought too. Actually sprang him out of prison? Yeah,
he sprang him out of prison with money. So people
refer to it as kind of bailing him out, because
I think, as far as I can tell, it wasn't

(01:12:51):
necessarily bail. It was well, it was served the time
or befind X number of dollars. That's my my understanding
of it. Again, I could be totally off that between
the time he said yes and the time he walked
out it was like a month. Yeah, but that's like
it took almost no time. But uh so Sugar got

(01:13:14):
him out of jail with money. And also, and you know,
the deal was, i'll get you out of jail. You
signed with death Row, and here's this super generous signing
package that was like a million dollars for his first album,
a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars for a car,
a hundred and twenty thousand dollar expense account per year,

(01:13:34):
two hundred and fifty thou dollars, legal allowance, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
He there was like fairly generous, pretty good royalty situation
that he worked out, lots of percentages and on points.
So I just kind of chose to not write any
of that stuff down. And I wish I found an
article because that's really trying to figure out what his
contracts said. Yeah, well, essentially he was promised a whole lot.

(01:14:00):
But yeah, but once Tupac actually signed with death Row,
Shug just kind of started screwing him over. He charged
you have written down here for a family friendly show
and yeah, yeah, so he uh, he charged him outrageous
amounts for rent on the apartment that Sug kind of

(01:14:24):
required Tupac livin. He also charged one of He charged
Tupac for one of his bodyguards child support payments. What wait,
explain that to me because he took it out of
his check. So he had a bodyguard. Tupac had a
bunch of different bodyguards, right, so Tupac has to pay

(01:14:45):
part of his bodyguards fee. I get that, but you're
saying he also had to pay for the child sports
said bodyguard owed to a woman. Well, Sug had him
do that, Yes, is my understanding of the Mostly it
was kind of just a mess. And the deal that

(01:15:07):
Tupac had signed with that throw was that he would
do three albums for them. So he decided, I'm just
going to do three albums in a month and get
myself out of this crappy situation. And he released one
album before he died. He released one, and I think
he had recorded the majority of both of them, both

(01:15:28):
of the next ones. He had definitely recorded the entirety
of the next one that was released, right, but I
think he had many of the next album recorded as well. Basically,
he was recording a bunch of tracks. To say, here's
three albums worth. He recorded three songs a day, which
if you're recording artists or know anything about recording, you

(01:15:50):
know that is an outrageous number. That's a hellacious pace. Yeah. No,
he he had done too again pulled the dev I
watched it. Yeah, grabbing sparked food. I think I have
the article open. No, he did two albums he had
done All Eyes on Me was released in nineties six

(01:16:11):
and then the Don Kilimannati, which I suddenly can't say
the seven day theory, that's what it was. We couldn't
think of earlier. That was also released in And that's
two albums in a year, and he had he was
well on his way for a third. He probably could
have left him with four albums worth. That's that's saying

(01:16:35):
they're going to cut so many in short Sugar with
kind of introl and control of Tupac's life for as
long as Tupac was working for death Row, and he
was highly motivated to get the heck out of Dodge.
And in fact, it's rumored that Tupac was planning to
leave death Row like really soon after the fight in

(01:16:56):
Vegas and then sue them for all of his old incomes,
like millions of They owed him serious back money, like
millions of dollars. They weren't paying anybody at that point.
Suge Knight was making a whole Suge Knight was making
the money, but death Row owed everybody money and there
was a mass exodus, you know, when Sugar finally went

(01:17:18):
to jail, there was that mass exodus of a lot
of artists. They left and went onto their own things.
Well that's um not gosh. I can't remember when. But
death Row eventually went bankrupt and they're now owned by
Entertainment One. I think it's Entertainment One, which is out
of Canada. So they got bought up, and all of

(01:17:40):
the legal garbelet cook that has been sued since then
for e one has has been stuck with. I don't
think they realized what they were getting into. What the
Suge Knight's still in jail by the way, No, No,
he does seven year. I think he did a five
or seven year too. He spent five years. He was

(01:18:02):
sentenced to nine. I think he spent five. He spent
five in and then he got out and he's doing
whatever he wants now. I'm sure he's quite wealthy. Well,
Suge Knight has his own set of problems. In fact,
I was going to just talk about that for a second.
He actually I read something recently on on Reddit that
said that his girlfriend, one of his girlfriends, went missing.

(01:18:25):
That wouldn't surprise me. He hasn't missing. Is in he
misplaced her? Yeah? No, I'm guessing that's not what you
mean when just he misplaced her, like she just disappeared. Yeah,
like he might have just misplaced her, intentionally misplaced her.
I was doing the joking misplaced it seems that, and

(01:18:46):
I didn't actually do any research into that, and so
that could be totally liable. And I'm super sorry if
that's true. But Suge Knight, however, is truly demonstratively a
bad man. He Here's the story that I like to
tell about Suge Knight, which I think is fairly interesting. Uh,
it involves Vanilla Ice. He actually I don't remember. I

(01:19:12):
don't like Vanilla Ice. Yeah, I don't remember what the
situation was why Shug was mad at Vanilla Ice. No, no, no,
actually that's not true. I totally do remember. It was
that the he had a tenuous business agreement with the
guy who produced Vanilla's ICE's Ice Ice Baby, and he

(01:19:32):
exploited that to gain the rights or trying strong arm
the rights of Ice Ice Baby from the dude who
actually owned the rights and Vanilla Ice, and Vanilla Ice
was like, nah, I'm gonna keep that, thanks, and Sugar
was trying to strong arm him into signing the rights
over to him and death Row. So Sugar, after a
series of other kind of trying to intimidate Vanilla Ice tactics,

(01:19:58):
shows up at a hote tell the Vanilisa staying in
with two of his giant bodyguards, gets him on the
balcony and either does dangle him off the balcony or
says he's about to dangle him off the balcony. I
think he actually did do that. Definitely could have actually

(01:20:19):
done that. Anyways, Well that's than that when he first
when when he first opened up his label. To remember
I was alluding to this, yeah, yeah, when he visited
that guy and basically after an hour with him and
his tooth, his tooth thug accomplices, basically persuaded this guy
to just signed over its reacts. You know that I

(01:20:40):
can't remember the guy's name now, Easy, easy, who if
you know the music catalog was a bad guy. He
was a strong presence in the community or in the
rap community, and just for no money, for no nothing,
just just I'll give you Trey, I'll give you a snoop.

(01:21:04):
I'll just give you my biggest acts in a in
a meeting. It's just like, what did he have over
easy to be able to pull that off? That's a
good question. Pounds, I don't I mean, I don't think
that it was a matter of money or size. I
think that he wasn't afraid to pull some devious practices.

(01:21:28):
And I think that him I think he blackmailed, He
caught him his pants down somewhere and got him in trouble,
or could get him in trouble. You know, had a
piece of evidence, whether it be verbal or physical. It's
scared easy enough to just say, all right, dude, you can,

(01:21:49):
I you never gonna Can I have that document? Can
I have that whatever? Get out of my office and
never talk to me again. So he was obviously not
a dude. And these this is all for stuff that's
way less than millions of dollars in his reputation, because
had Tupac actually left death Row and sued for millions
and drag Sugars name through the mud, that costs sug

(01:22:11):
way more than say killing, so essentially goes, well, it's
it's free if you already have dirty cops on your
I'm sure you had to give him a bonus for
the wax, sure, but not that much. Probably the thing Okay,
I don't think shug get it well, he didn't pull

(01:22:32):
the trigger. I don't think Sugar organized the Biggie killing,
and I'm I'm highly doubtful that he organized the Tupac killing.
And my reason is is that Suge Knight is a bully.
He's a big, hulking, red glowing eye bully. But I

(01:22:56):
don't think that he has the wherewithal to organize it all.
You don't think so, I don't think so. I think
that his play is I'm gonna stand in front of
you and I'm going to scare the holy hell out
of you. But I don't think that he has the
wherewithal to plan like what we were talking about where
it takes all these bits and pieces of the car,

(01:23:17):
you know, the U turn car and then the other one.
You don't think are you saying he doesn't have the
mental camel power? And I don't think he does. I
think that's outside of his range of ability. But he
can hire. But he can hire professionals who are good
at that. Okay, you're right, that is completely possible. Well,

(01:23:37):
so one thing we haven't really talked about because I
was trying to keep this episode under two hours is
that two hours shot? Is that shug antipop both but
should particularly had a huge love for mob movies. He did,
And it's not wildly out there to assume that he

(01:24:00):
watched enough of The Godfather or whatever other mom movies
to come up with a Hollywood convoluted plan enough that
he could tell all the you know, off to the
cops that he had on his payroll, Hey, I want
to do this thing, and then they would say, oh,
well we'll do it this way. Okay, let's let's run
down that. Sure, I'm trying to remember the name of

(01:24:20):
the documentary that gave me all the information that I'm
thinking about. It's the one that came out in two
thousand and seven. It was Tupac assassination or something. I
can't remember pac assassination. Well, no, it's assassination or the
second one was just assassination. The one that came out
in two thousand nine was just Tupac assassination. The two

(01:24:41):
thousand seven had a double part on it. But the
point is what that one brings out. And this is
why I know everybody thinks Shug did it. Is that
we were talking about right Way security, the security guards.
There was a whole bunch of weird stuff that happened
in Vegas that weekend where suddenly the bodyguards were told

(01:25:05):
not to carry guns. They were being shuffled around. Now
you're watching Park, Now you're watching Shugar. Now you're gonna
go to the bar, and now you're gonna come back
like weird shuffling, So nobody knew where anybody was this
whole What I would attribute to terrible management, other people

(01:25:25):
have attributed to let's shake them up so they don't
know what's going on. So nobody knows where they're at,
so it's easy to make the hit. But again, I
right way security I think is is was just poorly managed.
But people say, um, what Reggie Right, when Shuge Knight

(01:25:46):
went to prison, you know who took over death row,
Reggie Right Jr. He's the one who took the whole
thing over. So I never hear him as the one
who should have been respond possible for creating the whole thing.
Because let's let's take another angle. Okay, Shug is just

(01:26:06):
peeved that he's gonna lose his top artist, but he
also owns the rights to all that music that artist
has made, so he's going to make the money on it.
But Reggie Wright, who wants to get to be the
top dude, says, wait, my boss is on parole and
I just I know he just beat the crap out
of some guy and I can totally get him in trouble.
And by the way, I hate that Tupac guy. Why

(01:26:28):
don't I do this stuff? Like he's in control of
all this stuff, and he was in control and for
five years until Suge Night got out of prison. I mean, again,
I don't think this is right. But if we're gonna
say Sugar is responsible, Why don't we say Reggie right
is junior is responsible and all that he probably would
have even if the order had come from Sugar. I mean,

(01:26:51):
Reggie would have been involved. I'm sure. Yeah, but yeah,
you're right, You're right. It's possible that Reggie could have
done it all on his own without shows knowledge. We
we hear all these things about you know, Bob hits
it where the dawn dies and it turns out and
underlaying who had you know, these these cravings for powers,
the one who set the whole thing up thinking he
would take over it could be the same thing again

(01:27:13):
you talked about earlier. Is kind of this Hollywood thing
that I saw this in a movie and it worked.
I could totally do that. Do I think that's what happened. No,
but just as pausible, I guess, just to my point
or to your point of uh, Sugar still making money
off Tupac's money or records, that's fair, except that he

(01:27:35):
was going to get sued for a whole bunch of money.
And it doesn't matter you have more money potentially coming
in on record sales, because you're gonna have to give.
You have to give most of it up. Well, but
according to the contract, they owned the rights. And that's
the way I mean, that's I mean, I was I try.
I got into some contract law because I had the
same question. Okay, they're gonna they do. They do own

(01:27:57):
the rights. That's fine. Tupac would never get those rights back.
But for the amount of money that he was talking
about suing, for the amount of money that he was owed,
it could have very easily bankrupted. At least shug I
questioned the amount of money that he was owed. I'm
not going to disagree with the fact that death Row
was charging him exorbitant amounts of money for things. I mean,

(01:28:21):
I've I've seen the laundry list of you know, video
production and and car rental, and you know, a hundred
thousand dollar hotel room bill like this. Whether it's true
or not, it doesn't matter. But the label takes on
covering your costs. You get paid after those costs recovered.

(01:28:42):
And they I think that they probably could have made
a strong case to say this dude was charging things
out there wazoo and he gets this. Okay, Steve, you
don't like Suge Knight, who did it? Then? I don't
know who did it. This is one of those things.
This to me is like talking about the Nity killing
because there's so many effing players involved that it's it

(01:29:07):
could have been any of them, and it could have
been all of them. It could have been somebody we
don't even know about. I mean, you're talking. I mean,
I'm gonna blame I'm gonna blame Dan Quayle because he's
just as likely aspect well you know. Yeah, and when
you when you have all these gang members involved, I mean,
factions that are don't even reach the radar of reporting

(01:29:28):
because they're just they're they're on the street, they're not
in the news. Yeah, I don't know. I mean I
like Sugar Knight. I mean I don't like Sugar Knight.
Actually I like him as and I don't think he
pulled the trigger in either one of these heads. But
I did think that it's quite likely because he did
have a motive. Ye have a good motive, and obviously

(01:29:50):
it was pretty bare knuckle kind of guy. Yeah, I'm
not afraid to use violence. I think it was Shug
Night too, but yeah, it's just me. Yeah, I mean,
any more theories that you guys have any more? Yeah, Yeah,
why did we not bring the Masons in. Yeah, we

(01:30:11):
brought the Illuminati. Yeah, or the Illuminati. Excuse me, I
said Illuminaties. That was stupid. So yeah, who else is
the Druids? Well then I guess that's enough of Biggie
and Tupac. You know, we can go for like another

(01:30:32):
forty minutes, and we can make those people who wanted
the longer episodes around their office for like another forty minute.
I'm not interested in that. It's time for the credits
and all that stuff. We have links for some of
our research on the website Thinking sideways podcast dot com.

(01:30:55):
You can stream our episodes there. You can download our
episodes there can also donate or buy merch there. Night Light, Yeah,
we just stand in the night like at the suggestion
of one of our listeners said, listen, I make the
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(01:31:17):
dark in my house. Please any tonight like suggestion. You
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You could also be streaming us on a host of
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(01:31:40):
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(01:32:01):
at gmail dot com. Stop sending us email is a
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been just a little bit insane, like two weeks and
we got a lot of emails. Don't so don't stop
sending us email. But we like we like email. It

(01:32:22):
may take us a little extra time to get back
to you these days. Yeah, I've actually sort of knocked
off work early the other day just to work through
some emails because well we had a bunch of um
that having been said, I think we're gonna get out
of here. I think we need to wrap. Oh so

(01:32:47):
nobody good rap songs. Besides, how much would could it
would chuck chuck throw your hands in the air, yotized, Well,
please somebody turn this off before we make ourselves look
at looking stupid air composns in the air. Future player, Bye,