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It's alive!
Italian slapstick master Roberto Benigni stars in "The Monster," an
acclaimed Italian farce about a bumbling window dresser who is falsely
accused of being a serial killer. The movie will be showing at the
Michigan Theater during the next week. Tonight's screening is at 7
o'clock and, as always, student tickets are a mere $5.

Monday
September 16, 1996


No third

chances

.0.

Shot for the second time in two years, rapper Tupac Shakur dies at 25

LAS VEGiAS (AP) - Tupac Shakur, the rapper
whose raw lyrics drew on the rage of a coarse urban
1stence an4 I seemed a blueprint of his own violent
le, died Friday from wounds suffered in a drive-by
shooting. He vas 25.
Shakur, wIse right lung was removed after he was
shot Saturday in Las Vegas, was pronounced dead at
4:03 p.m. at tha University Medical Center in Las Vegas.
Known as 21 'ac, he was one of the most successful -
and scorned -"gangsta" rappers. Fans bought millions
of records; othfrs denounced him and his lyrics for glo-
rifying violence and drugs and degrading women.
Shakur was hit by four bullets Sept. 7 as he rode
r the Las V :gas Strip in a car driven by the head of
Death Row Records, Marion "Suge" Knight, who was
slightly wounded.
It was the sec nd time Shakur had been gunned down
in less than two years. In November 1994 he was shot
five times duriMn; an apparent robbery in the lobby of a
Manhattan recorr ling studio.
Arrested repel itedly in recent years, he was released
last year on ball pending app'al after serving eight
months in a Nev York prison for sex abuse.
The Las Veg4 is attackers got away. Knight; with
#ee lawyers, talked to investigators four days after
Sshooting but was of no help, police said.
There had bedwn trouble earlier that night. Shakur
and associates vAere in a fight outside a Las' Vegas
hotel just before t he shooting. And at the recent MTV
awards in New York, police broke up a confroritation
between Shakur's entodrage and six other men. But
then there always seemed to be s'dmething brewing.

Shakur was upfront about his troubled life in the
1995 release "Me Against The World," a multi-mil-
lion-selling album that contained the ominously titled
tracks "If I Die 2Nite" and "Death Around The
Corner."
"It ain't easy being me - will I see the penitentiary,
or will I stay free?" Shakur rapped on the album, which
produced the Grammy-nominated "Dear Mama"
Yet Shakur was not just the fury, expletives and
anger of songs like "F--- the World" He could be
poignant ("It was hell hugging on my mama from a
jail cell") and both sympathetic and critical of young
black men trying to become "gangstas."
The Las Vegas shooting occurred as Shakur's fourth
solo album, "All Eyez on Me," remained on the charts,
with some 5 million copies sold. The song "How Do
You Want It - California Love" was a top 20 single
on Billboard magazine's charts.
The rapper had a more hopeful outlook on "All
Eyez." In a comment released by his label, Shakur had
described the making of the album: "I just said what I
wanted to say, and it liberated me. I let go of the
anger."
A fledgling actor, Shakur had recently completed
filming a role as a detective for the Orion picture
"Gang Related." He previously appeared in "Above
The Rim" in 1994, with Janet Jackson in John
Singleton's 1993 release "Poetic Justice," and in the
1992 Earnest Dickerson film "Juice"
Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in 1971 in New York
City. His mother, Afeni Shakur, is a former Black
Panther activist. He moved to Baltimore to attend its

High School for the Performing Arts, where he began
writing rap. He then moved to Marin City, Calif., near
San Francisco, and continued to write and record.
As a member of the Grammy-nominated group
Digital Underground he appeared in 1991 on the track
"Same Song" from "This is an EP Release" and on the
album "Sons Of The P."
That same year Shakur achieved individual recog-
nition with the album "2Pacalypse Now," which
spawned the successful singles "Trapped" and
"Brenda's Got A Baby."
The album, with references to police officers being
killed, drew notoriety when a lawyer claimed a man
accused of killing a Texas trooper had been riled up by
the record. Then-Vice President Dan Quayle targeted
"2Pacalypse Now" in his 1992 battle with Hollywood
over traditional values.
Shakur followed up in 1993 with the strong selling
album "Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. ... ." That year he
was nominated for an American Music Award as best
new rap / hip-hop artist.
The next year he appeared with the group Thug Life
on the "Above The Rim" soundtrack and on the
group's album "Volume 1." In a photo on the album
liner he framed his face between his two extended
middle fingers.
While in prison last year he indicated he was
rethinking his lifestyle.
"Thug Life to me is dead. If it's real, let somebody
else represent it, because I'm tired of it," Shakur told
Vibe magazine. "I represented it too much. I was Thug
Life."

Tupac, pictured in 1995, when his career was well on Its way. Controversy fol-
lowed the popular rap artist for much of his career.

'Suge' Knight remains rap's

king of the heap

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Marion
"Suge" Knight emerged from the 'hood
in Compton, where gang strife between
Bloods and Crips was the crucible in
which "gangsta rap" was forged. By age
30, he had built a $125 million empire as
chief executive of Death Row Records,
one of the most popular rap labels.
But he didn't leave the streets far
behind.
Last Saturday night, Knight was
grazed in the head in a drive-by attack
that left Tupac Shakur, one of Death Row
Records' biggest stars, fatally wounded.
The attackers opened fire on Knight's
black BMW near the Las Vegas Strip.
Knight, who was driving, and other
witnesses from his caravan of at least 10
cars have given little cooperation to
detectives still trying to determine the
motive for the attack. But Las Vegas
police spokesman Phil Roland said it is
certain that Shakur, not Knight, was the
target.
The attack was not entirely a surprise
in the world of gangsta rap, often criti-
cized as glorifying violence and
degrading women.
The 6-foot-3, 315-pound record
executive grew up in gritty Compton,
the city on the south edge of Los
Angeles that was also home to rap stars
Dr. Dre and Eazy-E.

A truck driver's son, Knight was the
youngest of three children and spent his
youth pursuing sports, later excelling at
football at the University of Nevada at
Las Vegas.
"Suge," as he was known - short for
Sugar Bear, and pronounced like the
first syllable in "sugar" - "showed
those qualities that you knew he was
going to make it," said former UNLV
coach Wayne Nunnely, now a coach
with the NFL's New Orleans Saints.
"He always worked hard, he had
good work habits, and then also he got
the other guys going. I thought he did a
great job talking to the other guys, a lit-
tle bit of the rah-rah and that kind of
thing."
After failing tryouts with the Los
Angeles Rams, Knight formed a small
music publishing company that got its
first big break, ironically, when flash-
in-the-pan white rapper Vanilla Ice
recorded seven of its songs.
In 1992, Knight and Dr. Dre founded
Death Row Records, whose logo shows
a man strapped to an electric chair, a
sack over his head. The company claims
it has sold 18 million records, with
gross receipts of $125 million, since its
founding.
Cultivating a boy-from-the-'hood-
made-good image, Knight claims he

works to protect rap's superstars from
the exploitation historically faced by
black musicians.
But Eazy-E, his former rival at
Ruthless Records, sued Knight in 1992,
claiming Knight used muscle and
intimidation to do business.
Eazy-E, born Eric Wright, accused
Knight of being part of a group that
threatened him with baseball bats and
pipes to force Wright to sign papers
releasing Dr. Dre from his contract with
Ruthless. Wright died of AIDS in 1995,
and it was not immediately clear
whether the lawsuit was resolved.
Authorities said Knight had a rela-
tively clean record.
In 1992, he received probation on a
nine-year suspended sentence for assault
with a deadly weapon, according to Los
Angeles County prosecutor Larry
Longo. He said the charges stemmed
from a minor incident in which two men
entered a studio uninvited and Knight hit
one in the head with a gun. Longo said
he researched Knight's background
before prosecuting the case and found no
drug or gang connections.
Knight also received probation in a
case in Nevada involving taking a
weapon across state lines, and last year,
he was sentenced to 30 days in jail and
3 years' probation after pleading guilty

to conspiracy to commit a drug-related
offense, authorities said.
Death Row Records refused a request
for an interview with Knight.
Knight, in a biographic sketch issued
by Death Row, describes himself as "12
o'clock."
"That's a street saying," Knight says.
"It means that I'm straight up and
down. If I promise you I'm going to do
something, you can believe it's going to
happen. Mark my words, Death Row is
going to be the record company of the
decade."
Things have not gone entirely accord-
ing to plan. A political outcry against
gangsta rap led Time Warner to sever ties
with Death Row's distributor, Interscope
Records, last year, and Dr. Dre left Death
Row this year to start his own label.
Death Row is showing incredible
staying power. It is expanding into
rhythm and blues, reggae and jazz. In
addition to Shakur and Snoop Doggy
Dogg, its roster includes Tha Dogg
Pound, Nate Dogg, Hammer, Sam
Sneed, Hug, K-Solo, CPO and YSG.
Its successful releases included Dr.
Dre's "The Chronic," Snoop Doggy
Dogg's hit "Doggystyle," Dogg Pound's
"Dogg Food" and the multi-artist
albums "Murder Was the Case" and
"Above the Rim."



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The University of Michigan
School of.Music
Friday, September 20
The Chamber Music Ac Brahms- Concert No. I
. Clarinet Trio, Op. I 14
" Piano Quartet in G nijnor, Op. 25
Anthony Elliott, cello; Anton Nei, piano; Fred Ormand, clarinet;
Yizhak Schotten, viola; Stephen Shipps, violin
RctlHallI, 8 p.m.
Monday, September 23
Faculty and Guest Recital
Contrasts-Music for Ftute and Harp
Leone Buyse, professor of flute

scheduled for
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release dates subject to change without notice, sorry.
"*~ 0 0

ARE YOU A
LEADER?
Here is your chance to get involved!
We are looking for:
*MSA Representative
*LSA Student Government Representative
-develop communication and teamwork skills
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eCurriculum Committee
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drop-add deadline
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and plagarism
LSA Student Government is located on the third floor of the Michigan
Union in the MSA office. Appointments applications are available on
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soon~to beeea~d musc Irom si~ne top atz-sagan, dates coutochange (record companes tend to do tat)
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