Opening Day Auction Closing May 9th
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/10/2015
In less than five years Tupac Shakur went from struggling unknown rapper to one of the best-selling music artists of all-time. With fame comes the usual pressures, but being a rap musician Tupac had to deal with more than the usual aspects of stardom. The sensitive poet inside had to take a backseat to a thuggish image in the tough world of rap music. Once he signed on with Suge Knight's Death Row Records that image became a frightening reality. First came a prison sentence in 1995 followed by a recording that fanned the flames of an East Coast - West Coast rap rivalry. Everything came to a violent head on September 7, 1996 when Tupac and Suge Knight attended the Seldon-Tyson fight in Las Vegas. After the fight Tupac and Knight climbed into a '96 black BMW 750iL sedan and led a convoy of their enter age down Las Vegas Boulevard. The BMW was stopped at a red light when another car pulled alongside and raked the vehicle with gunfire. Knight took a bullet in the lung and survived but Tupac bore the brunt of the assault and collapsed with four shots to the pelvis, chest, thigh and hand. After two weeks in intensive care he finally succumbed to an internal hemorrhage on September 13th. Rap's brightest star was dead at the age of 25. His assassination touched off open warfare between East and West resulting in the retaliation death of Biggie Smalls. This lot collects four 4" x 6" color snap shots of the bullet riddled BMW Tupac and Knight were riding in that fatal night. Taken in what appears to be a gated police impound lot, each shot focuses on a different angle of the death car - three exterior and one interior. A close up of the BMW's passenger side doors illustrate the devastating holes punctured in the metal. Included with the photos is the envelope postmarked July 28, 1997 in which the photographs were originally mailed. Sent from Las Vegas, the photos were sent to a recipient at Upstairs Records in Brooklyn - ironically Biggie Small's first record label. Also included is a 5" x 7" two-sided funeral card put out by Vibe Magazine as a tribute to Tupac. A very sobering and sad collection depicting the demise of a modern music giant.