The legend lives on ... Tupac
Shakur: 1971-1996. Photograph: AP
It's 10 years since Tupac Amaru Shakur's untimely death - shot dead after a brawl with the Southside Crips gang in Las Vegas - aged just 25, writes Sarah Phillips. This date has been marked with the standard treatment bestowed on a dead icon when they reach a momentous anniversary.
The news that the rapper's ashes were to be buried in Soweto in a celebrity-studded memorial, reignited the usual barrage of conspiracy theories: Where are Tupac's ashes? Is he, in fact, alive and well? His prolific array of albums from beyond the grave may have prompted allegations of cashing in but the tributes continue to pour in from hip-hop's movers and shakers, all eager to admit their debt to his legacy: "He stood for something and he really talked about life," Outkast's Big Boi said today.
Some say this new league of superstar rappers have cleaned up hip-hop's reputation: Diddy was in court this week losing the rights to his name, the least sinister offence in his list of previous convictions. But that isn't to say that the glamorisation of gun culture embodied by Tupac, and Biggie Smalls, has diminished, as David Cameron is well aware.
Still there is no chance of Tupac's influence dwindling: he is the Guinness Book of Records' top-selling rapper of all time, a regular fixture on Forbes' dead celebrity rich list and there is even a performance arts school named in his memory. Tupac's tragic death is a story that will continue to appeal to each new generation of music fans and guarantee his immortality, with or without another posthumous release planned for this winter.
