news archives

September 28, 2002 - Gene Seymour of New York Newsday reviewed the 'Biggie and Tupac' documentary giving it 2 1/2 stars. Seymour said, "One hundred and eight minutes of wandering through the loose ends, fragmented leads and red herrings that make up Nick Broomfield's documentary, 'Biggie and Tupac' leave you with two inescapable conclusions: 1) Something's fishy here. 2) Broomfield is one righteous nerd." Read more.

September 28, 2002 - Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News reviewed the 'Biggie and Tupac' documentary, which profiles dead rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, giving it 3 stars. Weitzman says the Nick Broomfield documentary, "Conducts riveting interviews with a former LAPD officer, Biggie's fiercely protective mother and assorted hangers-on, but the actual thrust of his evidence seems almost irrelevant." Read more.

September 24, 2002 - The new Lycos 50 is out today and it sees Britney Spears rise a spot to #7, maintaining her dominance as the most searched for human. Others on the list include Eminem rising 5 to #19, Avril Lavigne dropping 3 to #23, Nelly jumping 4 to #25, Jennifer Lopez rising a notch to #37, Shakira up 3 to #40, and Tupac Shakur up 5 to #42. 'American Idol' dropped out of the top 50. Read more.

September 23, 2002 - Renee Graham of the Boston Globe weighed in on the controversial story by Los Angeles Times reporter Chuck Phillips who claims the late Notorious B.I.G. was intimately involved with the September 1996 drive-by shooting that mortally wounded Tupac Shakur. Graham said, "For years, many members of the hip-hop community have been suspicious of the mainstream media, and this report will only confirm for the conspiracy-minded their belief in the media's (read: white people's) desire to rid the world of hip-hop (read: black people.) The media and fans have drawn, and will continue to draw, their own conclusions about who killed Tupac, as well as Biggie. Wherever the truth lies, these latest theories should not become an opportunity for hip-hop to return to the poisonous and stupid gangsterism of the mid-1990s that claimed the lives of two of its finest." Read more.

September 18, 2002 - The Lycos 50 is out and interest in September 11 caused Britney Spears to dip to the #8 spot, though she's still the most searched for person. Others on the list include Avril Lavigne dropping 3 to #20, Eminem tumbling 11 to #24, Nelly jumping 11 to #29, Jennifer Lopez dropping 5 to #38, Shakira dropping 19 to #43, Tupac Shakur jumping to #47 after the LA Times report on his death, and 'American Idol' freefalling from the #14 spot to #49. The show's winner Kelly Clarkson jumped though to the #60 spot. Read more.

September 18, 2002 - Cedric Muhammad of BlackElectorate.com writes: "Yesterday, while a panelist on Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's Hip-Hop Braintrust issue forum, at the Congressional Black Caucus convention, I commented on how many were inappropriately describing last week's Los Angeles Times' series on Tupac's murder - which attempts to position the Notroious B.I.G. as the conspiratorial mastermind - as bad journalism and sensationalism. Considering that we have spent tens of thousands of words, over a two-year time, in an 8-part series, describing the real probablility and evidence that the government is involved in destablizing Hip-Hop culture and the industry that it has spawned, and as a result an entire generation and people(s); it is only natural that we would reject the sensational/bad journalism explanation as too superficial, and even, an unintentional trivialization of the murder of Tupac." Read more.

September 14, 2002 - AllHipHop.com chatted with Charli Baltimore about being on Murder Inc. and working with Irv Gotti, the Tupac Shakur story in the Los Angeles Times that implicated Biggie in his death, and the ongoing beef between DMX and Ja Rule. Read more.

September 11, 2002 - MTV News chatted with Notorious B.I.G.'s mother Voletta Wallace for their special tonight on the Los Angeles Times story that named her son as a conspirator in the murder of Tupac Shakur. "My initial reaction?" she said, a tone of rage rising in her voice. "I'm hurt. Somebody's attacking my son. My son who died five and half years ago. How do I feel? I'm downright angry. I'm a mother, I'm a human being and [L.A. Times writer Chuck Philips] is gonna attack my son that's not here to come forward and defend himself. Damn I'm mad!" Read more.

September 11, 2002 - Launch.com reports the Artist Empowerment Coalition (AEC) calls a recent Los Angeles Times story alleging that the Notorious B.I.G. had a hand in the murder of Tupac Shakur "dubious" and "irresponsible." The not-for-profit origination is requesting a federal probe and special investigator to examine the Times coverage, as well as police cover-ups in the still unsolved murder case. Read more.

September 11, 2002 - According to a statement released by the family of the Notorious B.I.G. today, the late rapper was in a New York studio and at his home in New Jersey at the time of the Tupac Shakur killing. "Entertainment manager Wayne Barrow confirms that he was with Christopher on Sept. 7, 1996 in a New York studio recording some vocal tracks. 'You can quote me that I was with him. No way was he in Vegas,' says Barrow." The statement quotes Lil' Cease saying, "After his recording session, I was with him later on in his home watching the championship boxing match between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand Hotel. He was with me all the time. The Los Angeles Times got it all wrong." Read more.

September 10, 2002 - AllHipHop.com spoke with Chuck Philips by phone on his story in the Los Angeles Times that has the rap world buzzing ever since. Philips stood by his story and explained, "I used police affidavits, court documents, I did a year and a half or interviews, man… lots and lots of interviews. I tried to trip people up. Some of those people were gang investigators and some were gangsters. And both gangs – Bloods and Crips. And at the end of the day, this is what conclusively, if you add all that up, this is what I think happened. This is what they say happened. And I wasn’t there. I wasn’t in the car shooting. I wasn’t in the car being shot. And, I’m a reporter. And if you go through my path, I’m an investigative reporter and I’ve done lots of different kinds of investigations. Its not like I’m just making this sh** up." Read the entire interview here.

September 10, 2002 - Launch.com reports Jay-Z told fans during his Sprite Liquid Mix Tour headlining set at Irvine, California's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Saturday that the Los Angeles Times story fingering Notorious B.I.G. as the person that paid Crips gang members $1 million to kill Tupac Shakur with his own gun a "cover-up of the death of two great men."

September 10, 2002 - Russell Simmons and Ben Muhammed of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network challenged what they called the inaccuracies of The Los Angeles Times article concerning Tupac Shakur. The two items in question are that Notorious B.I.G. was in Las Vegas on the night of the shooting of Tupac and that he paid money and supplied the weapon for the murder of Tupac. Read more.

September 10, 2002 - Former LAPD Detective Russell Poole commented on Chuck Philips story in the Los Angeles Times to MTV News. While he agrees with Philips that Crips gang member Orlando Anderson shot Shakur, the part that fingered the blame on Notorious B.I.G. in financing it he disagreed with. "It sounds like the story was written by Suge, who wants to take some heat off of him[self]," Poole said. "I think the real question to ask is how did Philips connect with the Crips? Was it Suge Knight, which I strongly suspect it was? And what would be their motive?" Read more.

September 10, 2002 - Jay-Z raps in the Notorious B.I.G. track 'I Love the Dough': 
You cats is home, screamin the fight's on 
I'm in the fifteen hundred seats, watchin Ty-son 
Same night, same fight 
But one of us cats ain't playin right, I let you tell it 
People place yourselves in the shoes of two felons 
And tell me you won't ball every chance you get 
and any chance you hit, we live for the moment 
Makes sense don't it?
Some are wondering if this is the clue that Biggie was in Vegas the night Tupac Shakur was gunned down. For the complete lyrics, to the track, read here.

September 10, 2002 - MTV will be having a 1 hour special on the Chuck Philips story that Biggie was involved in paying for the death of Tupac Shakur, which was in the Los Angeles Times last week on Tuesday at 10 PM. They'll talk to not only Philips, but others who are disputing the writer's claim.

September 10, 2002 - Sgt. Kevin Manning is defending his department's work in the investigation of Tupac Shakur's slaying after a critical story in the Las Angeles Times said Vegas police bungled the investigation. Manning said his investigative team looked into thousands of tips and interviewed hundreds of people to try to solve the rap star's 1995 shooting death. But police "got no cooperation whatsoever" from those closest to the case. Read more.

September 10, 2002 - Norm Clarke of the Las Vegas Review Journal spoke with author Cathy Scott, an expert on the 1996 slaying of rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas, who says she doesn't buy the story Chuck Philips of the Los Angeles Times is telling saying that Notorious B.I.G. promised $1 million to have Shakur killed. "It didn't happen that way. Biggie was a rapper, not a killer, and he was a mama's boy and not the thug Tupac was," said Scott. "Biggie was accused early on, so that's nothing new... I interviewed Biggie's mother several times at length. She said Biggie was at her New Jersey house the next morning and cried when he heard Tupac was shot." She added, "It would have taken guts to point a finger at Sean (P Diddy) Combs, Biggie's record producer." Read more.

September 10, 2002 - Yeah it's kinda tasteless but someone spent a lot of time putting together a flash animation that fingers Mr. T as Tupac Shakur's killer -- for eating his Cheetos. Check it out here.

September 9, 2002 - Chuck Philips of the Los Angeles Times reported on the family of the late rap star Notorious B.I.G. denying Friday that he played a role in the murder of rival Tupac Shakur, or that he was even in Las Vegas on the night of the 1996 shooting. Philips said, "The Times account was based on court documents and interviews with police investigators and gang members, including witnesses to the crime. It said Wallace was in Las Vegas on the weekend of the shooting, registered at a hotel under a false name." Read more.

September 8, 2002 - Former Vibe writer Kevin Powell has added his name to the list of those commenting on the Chuck Phillips' recent Los Angeles Times article pinning blame on Notorious B.I.G. for paying to have Tupac Shakur killed in Las Vegas. Powell said, "I strongly suggest to members of the hiphop community, especially younger Blacks and Latinos who have the most to lose from this on-going confusion and fear and jagged innuendo, to not believe the hype. At the end of the day the Los Angeles Times wins because these sort of stories sell tons of newspapers, help to spread twisted rumors and fears across the country, and, essentially, keep young people of color at each other's throats simply because we do not know what else to say or do." Read more.

September 8, 2002 - Launch.com reports that Charli Baltimore, who was the Notorious B.I.G.'s girlfriend at the time of his death has denied claims by Chuck Philips of the Los Angeles Times that Biggie was in Las Vegas at the night Tupac Shakur was shot in September 1996. "I mean, I know for a fact that that was not the situation and, you know, I think that it's really sad that someone would say that a dead man was responsible for another dead man's murder," she said. Read more.

September 8, 2002 - Newsday reports that Marc Duvoisin, an assistant managing editor of the Los Angeles Times has responded to denials from the family of the family of Notorious B.I.G. on the Times' story Chuck Philips ran fingering Biggie as the financier of Tupac Shakur's murder. "We stand by the story," Duvoisin said. Bakari Kitwana, a former editor of Source magazine commented that he knew Philips has credible sources in the hip-hop underworld. "It sounds outrageous," Kitwana said of B.I.G.'s reported involvement, "but stranger things have happened in the hip-hop world." Read more.

September 8, 2002 - AllHipHop.com spoke with Lil' Cease yesterday on the report in the Los Angeles Times that his now deceased friend Biggie Smalls was involved in the death of Tupac Shakur. The former Junior Mafia member denied B.I.G.'s involvement, saying he was "in the crib watching the fight." Cease asked, "He used a fake name and nobody seen Big? Especially with that tension situation, Pac was there and Death Row was there, you think nobody would have said, 'Big’s in here. Pac’s in here. Something about to go down.' Why is it coming out now, not a year later or months later?" As for what would motivate a Pulitzer prize winning journalist like Chuck Philips to write something like this, Cease said, "I know its crazy, but it’s somebody with some paper that’s making some moves and just trying to destroy somebody, man. I think its more of a Puff situation, man. I think people are on a guilt trip and just trying to put niggas in the mix and niggas don’t know the [gas] that they are putting on the fire. Its bigger than that situation, putting a lot of people’s lives in danger. This sh** had just died down and now this is going to just rise that shit back up." Read more.

September 7, 2002 - MTV News chatted with writer Chuck Philips on his explosive article in the Los Angeles Times Friday that fingered the Notorious B.I.G. as the man who pledged to pay Crips $1 million to kill rival rapper Tupac Shakur, and was killed himself by Crips when he only paid up $50,000 of the tab. "The revelation of Biggie was shocking to me," Philips told MTV News on Thursday. "When this came up, I was just, ... 'I don't believe it.' So I went about trying to disprove it in various ways with various sources and that's not what happened. What I ended up writing is what happened." Read more.

September 7, 2002 - Chuck Philips of the Los Angeles Times posted the second part of his story on the killing of Tupac Shakur and why the case still hasn't been solved. While Las Vegas police say their investigation stalled because witnesses in Shakur's entourage refused to cooperate, the Times review found that police committed a string of costly missteps. Nothing in today's story made mention of Notorious B.I.G. and his role, whom Philips fingered in part one of the story. Read more. [Requires free subscription]

September 7, 2002 - The Smoking Gun has the search warrant affidavit filed by Compton police in September 1996, just weeks after Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas that pinned the crime on Orlando Anderson. Detective Tim Brennan's affidavit noted that there "is an ongoing feud between Tupac Shakur and the 'blood' related Death Row Records with rapper 'Biggie Smalls' and the East Coast's 'Bad Boy Records'." Read more.

September 7, 2002 - Craig Seymour of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution talked with Randall Sullivan, author of 'Labyrinth' and Nick Broomfield, who was behind the new documentary 'Biggie & Tupac', and both question the story out today by Chuck Philips of the Los Angeles Times. "The facts, as I have researched them, are not presented in their entirety here," said Broomfield. Meanwhile, Sullivan questioned, "Everything in the story has appeared multiple times except that small section that says the Notorious B.I.G. provided the gun. That seems to come entirely from unnamed alleged members of the Crips gang. I hope people are going to ask, 'Who set [Philips] up with these Crips and why would they agree to confess to this murder?' What would be their motive?" Read more.

September 7, 2002 - The article in the Los Angeles Times also has an accompanying PDF file that diagrams the area of Las Vegas where the shooting of Tupac Shakur took place and how the vehicles were positioned. Check it out here.

September 7, 2002 - A friend of the late Christopher Wallace, Junior M.A.F.I.A.'s Lil' Cease, called in to Los Angeles radio station KPWR-FM Friday morning to offer an alibi for Biggie. "We was home, watching the [Mike Tyson] fight on pay-per-view in Teaneck, New Jersey," Cease told Power 106 radio personality Big Boy. "Two days later he was arrested and in a car accident in New York. How can he be at two places at one time?" He asked Big Boy, "Big Boy, for somebody to be in Vegas as big as you, how can you miss that? Biggie is too big a celebrity to go under a fake name. The place was full of celebrities, stars, boxers, all types of people. Nobody seen Biggie that day. Biggie was not there." Read more.

September 7, 2002 - A Los Angeles Times investigation into the murder of Tupac Shakur finds that his killer was probably a gang member who used a gun provided by Notorious B.I.G. Check out a video report from KTLA, including comments from writer Chuck Philips here.

September 6, 2002 - Chuck Philips of The Los Angeles Times reports the 40-caliber Glock pistol used to kill Tupac Shakur was supplied by Notorious B.I.G., who agreed to pay the Crips $1 million for killing Shakur. The man firing the fatal shots was Orlando Anderson, the Crip whom Shakur had attacked after the Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand Hotel on September 7, 1996... the same night 2pac was later shot. Biggie was later murdered after only paying $50,000 of the $1 million bill as he sat in his Chevrolet Blazer at a traffic light on Wilshire Boulevard after the Soul Train Music Awards. Read more. [Requires free registration]

September 6, 2002 - For those not familiar with Orlando Anderson, Vibe magazine chatted with him in 1997, where he not only said he didn't kill Tupac Shakur, he denied even being a Southside Crip. He was never questioned by Vibe on whether Biggie bankrolled the killing. Read more.

September 6, 2002 - AllHipHop.com chatted with EDI, a member of Tupac’s group the Outlawz, on word that the LA Times plans to name the killer of Tupac Shakur in a matter of hours. The site claims that the Times will claim that Biggie hired Southside Crips to murder his West Coast counterpart and then was killed because he failed to the pay gang members. As for what might happen if Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs is implicated, EDI said, "First he is going to probably deny it, he probably going to want to sue the LA Times, because this is damaging to his career right now. He’s on a serious upswing right now. If Puff did have something to do with it, I don’t want to see no type of retaliation-thing like that. I’d rather God just deal with him the way God deals with people like that." Read more.

September 5, 2002 - According to the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times plans on naming the killer of Tupac Shakur to mark the rapper's 6th anniversary of his unsolved murder. The paper is planning front-page stories for tomorrow and Saturday detailing the results of a yearlong investigation into the rapper's shooting in Las Vegas in 1996. The paper's Chuck Phillips says he interviewed cops who worked on the case and gang members who have never spoken to anyone before. Phillips says, "We're going to name the killer, and there's a definite East Coast connection."

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