#1: The Murders Of Notorious B.I.G. And Tupac
Sex, murder, conspiracy, police corruption, bi-coastal gang warfare, Diddy - this scandal has it all. The rivalry between the east and west coast rap scenes may have begun with minor east coast rapper Tim Dog’s amusing 1991 hit “Fuck Compton,” but thanks to big money and short fuses, the battle soon grew as epic and violent as the gangster movies rappers referenced, climaxing with the unsolved shooting deaths of Tupac “2Pac” Shakur and Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace in 1996 and 1997. Their murders turned the rap superstars into tragic icons, and a battle of words into The Greatest Celebrity Scandal Of All Time.
Shakur was already a successful recording artist (Dan Quayle had even blamed his music for the death of a cop) when he met and befriended Wallace before the release of the aspiring NY rapper’s debut album, Ready To Die. Their mutual admiration soon turned sour after Shakur accused Wallace and his producer, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, of instigating a 1994 robbery and assault that left him with five bullet wounds. Wallace and Combs swore they were coincidentally recording in the studio where Shakur was attacked outside, but for whatever reason, Shakur refused to believe the pair was not involved.
While Shakur recuperated and went to prison for sex crimes, Wallace’s career thrived as Combs’ label Bad Boy drew attention away from the LA gangsta rap scene, led by Dr. Dre and Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight. Nine months into Shakur’s sentence, Knight, a former football player previously accused of threatening NWA’s Eazy-E with a baseball bat and holding Vanilla Ice out of a window, signed the embattled rapper to Death Row in exchange for paying his $1.2 million bail while he awaited appeal. Soon after, Knight mocked Combs from the stage of the 1995 Source Awards, with the NY audience responding by booing several Death Row artists, inspiring Snoop Dogg to yell “the east coast ain’t got no love for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg?”
Tensions continued to escalate. Knight was accused of making a friend of Combs’ drink urine from a cup when he wouldn’t give the address of the east coast mogul’s mother. Knight also blamed Combs’ for the shooting of a Death Row employee during a fight in Atlanta. Shakur publicly claimed to have slept with Wallace’s wife, and the label’s entourages had an armed standoff following the MTV Music Awards in March 1996. Combs repeatedly attempted to make peace with Knight, even inviting Louis Farrakhan’s son to mediate. Knight declined, claiming he would deal with the drama “his way.”
Before Knight could clarify, Shakur was mortally wounded in Las Vegas on September 7, following the public beating of gang member Orlando Anderson by Death Row employees after a boxing match. Despite multiple suspects, including Anderson and Knight himself (he owed back royalties to Shakur, who allegedly considered leaving Death Row), charges were never filed either due to a lack of evidence or police indifference. Shakur’s mother Afeni sued Knight for the unpaid royalties soon after, inspiring the label’s other artists to leave, claiming similar financial issues (as well as fears of violence).
Bad Boy, which had made a point never to respond to Death Row’s insults on record, released a public statement mourning the loss of Shakur. But when Wallace was shot and killed following a Soul Train Awards after-party in LA on March 9, 1997 (15 days before the release of his second album, Life After Death), many assumed it was a retaliatory gesture. No criminal charges have been filed, but recent civil suits from Wallace’s family argue that crooked police officers on Knight’s payroll were responsible for orchestrating his death, and that the LAPD, suffering from widespread corruption in their anti-gang units, refused to investigate the possibility.
More than a decade later, all the major figures are still in the news. After countless lawsuits, arrests and failed restarts Suge Knight was finally forced to sell Death Row and declare bankruptcy. In March, LA Times writer Chuck Phillips claimed to have proof that Combs (best known as Diddy today) was involved in the 1994 assault on Shakur, but retracted the story when his source was revealed to be a con artist. Notorious, a biopic based on Wallace’s life, is scheduled for a 2009 release, and Tupac’s eighth posthumous album is planned for release by the end of the year. With both murders re-opened and the Wallace family’s civil suit still in motion, it would seem this scandal is far from over.
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November 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
1st of all the Biggie and Tupac are known worldwide. I was in the Marine Corps from 1996 - 2000, and was overseas for 9 months and EVERY country we went to (Eritrea Africa, Jordan, Hong Kong, %`@`!`*(_#@^^~)) ket Thailand, Guam, Australia, etc.) knew EXACTLY who these 2 guys were. They were playing BOTH of their music in each and every club I went to. The notation that they were and are only known in America is flat out wrong.
2ndly the fact they were the top 2 megastars of the top money making music genre of this ,and any other generation, who were good friends but let money and ignorance drive them apart, makes this the most intriguing scandal of all time to me. Not knowing if one had anything to do with the others death will forever make this the most talked about story EVER!! Its sad it will be but it is, especially with other important deaths like MLK & JFK still unsolved.
3rdly, neither Pac or Biggie were thugs or gang members. They were actually brilliant, business saavy men who got caught up in all the hoopla and bullsh*t of the media and there respective Label heads. Especially Tupac, who began to try to live his lyrics instead of letting his lyrics be his life.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Putting two thugs that were virtually unknown outside of anyone who listened to cRAP (and definitely not outside of the states) at number one - before John Lennon or Princess Diana is beyond ridiculous.
Two wannabe gangsters that sang (if you can call it that) about killing, murder, drugs, etc…? It’s no surprise they ended up the way they did. I’m not saying they deserved it, but it’s definitely not shocking. A man who spoke of love and peace murdered by a lunatic who had asked for an autograph only hours before or a woman who was so loved (by everyone but her royal husband and his mother) and loved so many - now those are true tragedies. Shocking doesn’t even cut it.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:45 pm
i would have put them no. 1 as well
October 20th, 2008 at 12:56 am
OJ is one major scandal after another, that continued until recently. I’d put Princess Di as #2, then John Lennon and Clinton/Lewinski. I’d put Tupac and B.I.G.’s deaths neck and neck with Dave Chappelle’s going off-grid from a multi-million contract lower than OJ, Di, Lennon, and Clinton/Lewinski. People of ALL ages, ALL cultures, and even many countries talked a lot more about those scandals than they did about Tupac/B.I.G. No disrespect to them, their loved ones and fans, but their following — in life, and in the media after their deaths — was a much smaller percentage than the others I listed.
October 11th, 2008 at 5:59 am
The nr. 1 on the list of 100 greatest sex scandals ought not to be on that list at all. There is no significance at all with these two guys. They are virtually unknown outside of the USA (maybe outside of the editorial room?) and people are shot in the USA all the time. John Lennon, of whom I am not a fan, was “more famous than Jesus” and had a message that still rings with people after 30 years and seems to become more relevant with each new Republican on the American throne. To put these two already forgotten blurters, with no lasting message or impact at all, above people like Pincess Diana and Lennon is absolutely ridiculous, to put it kindly.
The only thing that is conveyed now, is that the list has something to do with race or with idiosyncrasies of a, no doubt black, chief editor. Stuff and nonsense.
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:04 am
RIP BIGGIE.
Pac is still alive.