I bet you're still a sucker...

"California... the state where you never find a dance floor empty."
~ 2Pac, California Love

Ok, ok, I admit it. I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next 21-year-old record label intern... at least when it has to do with a musician.
I read a book a few years ago called "The Walrus Was Paul" about the alleged death of Paul McCartney. I don't know how well-known the theory was back in the day, but the book argued more or less that Paul had died (probably in a car wreck) during the Beatles' heyday, immediately prior to the release of "Let It Be." After his death, because the record label and the rest of the band didn't want to quit recording, they found someone that looked like him and faked that he was still alive. The book had all kinds of awesome "proofs" of the theory, some of them believable, some of them ridiculous, and some of them just creepy.
After I read the book, I had nightmares for a week. I don't know why, it wasn't a ghost story. But it completely freaked me out.

Conversely, there's a theory now that Tupac Shakur is still alive. Tupac, in case you don't know, was a rapper killed in the mid-90's in a drive-by shooting. Not known for his pacificity, he was in a car with the owner of his record label (Suge Knight, a known gang member) when he was shot in the head and killed. Or at least that's what most everyone thinks. Two months after his death, a rival rapper, Biggie Smalls, was killed in a similar fashion, and there has always been [logical, likely true] theories that his death was retribution for Shakur's. Neither death was very well investigated, which is odd, because I think if it happened today (eleven years later) it would be the center of news for weeks.

Things like that just don't happen now, and it seems odd that only eleven years ago, it was considered par for the course and no big deal. Maybe it has more to do with the rise of rap as a legitimate genre of music than anything else, but today the hiphop industry is not looked at as legit, to coin an MC Hammer phrase. No one thinks that famous people are actually part of gangs, or actually deal drugs, or whatever, primarily because it's been proven that artists like Vanilla Ice and Ja Rule came from middle-class backgrounds and never set foot on the other side of the tracks. But back in the 90's... Suge Knight and his henchmen beat up artists trying to get off their label; kidnapped rival record label owners; and killed each other in gang-related shootings. The only ones left still famous today that really were around back then are Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, but Dr. Dre (as everyone knows) is dead and locked in Eminem's basement, so really that leaves Snoop, who coaches a little league team somewhere in California, which means he's kind of a sellout.

The LAPD, never known for its righteous officers, had been exposed over and over as having connections with Tupac, Dre, Knight, and the rest of the Death Row Records crew, so is it really so much more farfetched to think that they could help him fake his death? I'm not saying I believe it, but I am saying this theory has a lot more validity than a lot out there.
You know the saying about protesting too much? It's not directly related to this, but when most famous people die, there are not photos of them on the autopsy table available online. But there have always been photos of Tupac widely available on the internet, even on posters and t-shirts, which is the only way I knew they existed. It seems like the whole situation was orchestrated to be easy to "prove" his death.
Again, I'm not saying I believe he's going to show back up on Saturday, but after reading through the "proofs," all of which revolve around the number 7 (hence the Saturday return-- it's 7/7/07). Most of them are fairly coincidental, BUT thanks to computer music programs like ProTools, it's easy now to listen to music played backwards. I've never believed in the validity of those, mainly because I've never listened to anything backwards. But after listening to "This Life I Lead" recorded backwards on WavePad, the words "Yeah, I am alive" are so obvious it's creepy. And the fact that he's come out with more albums since his death than he did while he was alive? Weird.

I don't think it's true. I don't think he's coming back. But the theory is creepy and weird to me, and if he were to show back up, it would be a little bit nuts.

Plus, let's look at this logically. Faking your own death is not legal, so if he shows back up now, he'd be immediately arrested, so if, somehow, he has managed to stay alive and under the radar for ELEVEN years, why not keep it up and stay on permanent vacation, collecting royalties from his "posthumous" albums and chilling on a beach in Jamaica?

Phoo, it still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Thug Life,
B