I was just waiting for the weird (and admittedly pretty cool) Coachella hologram of 2Pac to spawn more 2Pac-is-alive rumors, and sure enough, we’ve got one.  Not so reputable Suge Knight, who was sitting in the car next to 2Pac when he was killed–and took a bullet fragment himself–has just claimed that he thinks 2Pac never died.  He’s nowhere near the first to say this; for 15 years now, the Internet has been buzzing with various rumors that 2Pac faked his death (with some comical readings of his lyrics that reveal “clues” to his fake-my-own-death plan).  And while it’s pretty certain that he died, it’s also true that the murder raises all kinds of questions about who did it, who was watching him when he was murdered (pretty likely he was under police surveillance of some sort at the time), and why the murder of someone so famous and constantly watched by the police could possibly go unsolved.

All legitimate questions, and perhaps similar ones can be raised about the unsolved murders of Biggie, Jam Master Jay, and Big L.  After all, we know that rappers have for years drawn more than their share of attention from law enforcement, which should at least mean that they are more likely to have their own murders solved!  Whether fair or not, it’s hard for police to escape accusations that they are omnipresent when they want to contain rappers but invisible when those rappers need help.  Actually, come to think of it, you could replace “rappers” with “African Americans” and the accusation would be equally tough to escape.  And that’s what’s irritating about Knight’s claim–by saying that 2Pac never died in the first place, he does nothing to raise the larger questions about the policing of minorities in the U.S. and instead diverts attention to himself with a new iteration of this tired theory.