Thinking Sideways: Tupac and Biggie

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 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, 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 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 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.

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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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,

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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. 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, 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, 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. 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. 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 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 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

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 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 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 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

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, 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 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 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

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 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 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, 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, 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, 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 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, 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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

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. 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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

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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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. 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 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 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 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,

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. 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 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 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

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

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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 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. 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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.

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 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. 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 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

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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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,

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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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,

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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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

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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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

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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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. 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.

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, 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 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

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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 mistake of listening to your episodes at night in the dark in my house. Please any tonight like suggestion. You probably aren't listening to us there, though, you're probably listening to us on iTunes. If you are, leave us a comments and a rating so other people can find us.

You could also be streaming us on a host of different streaming sites, apps, things I've stopped adding Yeah, I can't find Yeah, I can't either. Um, if you want to connect on social media with us, you can do so either. At Facebook we have a fan page and a group, so you find this friend us and like us. We also have Twitter, which is thinking sideways. You can also send us an email. It's thinking side with podcast

at gmail dot com. Stop sending us email is a little a little with a dessert because the box has 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 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 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,