Video of Tupac and Biggie freestyling in the video above has been popping up all over my Tumblr dashboard today. It appears as though someone rediscovered it and posted it to YouTube, which is kind of weird since just the other day I was thinking of possibly re-watching “Biggie and Tupac” — the investigative documentary by Nick Broomfield, the same guy who did the compelling “Kurt and Courtney” doc back in the late 90s. If you’ve never seen them, they’re both so very fascinating, and if you’re unfamiliar with Broomfield’s hypothesis behind Biggie and Tupac’s murders, Roger Ebert lays it out neatly in the glowing review he wrote in 2003.
Broomfield assembles a case charging that Shakur was ordered killed by Knight because the executive owed the singer unpaid royalties and had heard Shakur planned to jump to another record label. Then he ordered B.I.G.’s death in order to make the two murders seem like part of a fictitious East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry. The film observes that Suge Knight had 30 to 40 LAPD officers on his payroll for off-duty bodyguard and other duties. And he produces an LAPD detective whose own investigation into the Shakur murder was stonewalled, leading to his resignation from the force. If nothing else, Broomfield proves that the LAPD bent over backward to avoid questioning the most obvious suspects.
Suge Knight! I’m telling you, this is the man who can end the brutal Mexican drug war. Meanwhile, R.I.P. Biggie and Tupac.
(HT: Lacefaced)