TUPAC RESURRECTION:
The Man, The Myth and The Hologram
by Mark Anthony Neal | Ebony.com
By now you've likely seen footage of Tupac's "performance" at the recent Coachella Music Festival. The rapper and actor, who was murdered in September of 1996, is the only hip-hop artist to have generated the kind of full service mythology that surrounds dead icons such as Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. No matter how much we may miss them, there have been no reports of folks claiming to have seen Ol’ Dirty Bastard or the Notorious B.I.G. on a subway in New York. Some of this has to do with the lack of closure experienced by Shakur’s family, friends and fans thanks to his still-unsolved murder, but also the other-worldly aura that Shakur had a hand in crafting during his brief life. The mythology that accompanies Tupac in death—the son of the Black Panther Party, who many believed represented the leading light of his generation of Black youth—was very much present when he was alive.
Audiences gasped when the hologram of Shakur showed up on stage performing “Hail Mary” and later “2 of Amerika’s Most Wanted” opposite Snoop Dogg (who, honestly, looked like more of a ghost than the holograph did). For some, the performance might have been perhaps too authentic. The Tupac who strutted on stage looked as he might have anytime during the last year of his life, and his demeanor was much the same.
Tupac had indeed been resurrected, but sounding like a throwback to an era that was distinctly out of sync with the young people that have shaped hip-hop culture—for better or worse—since his death. One would be hard pressed to think of a contemporary rap artist of Tupac’s stature (okay, maybe Weezy) that would address a crowd, like that assembled for the hologram performance with “What the f*ck is up Coachella?” It was subtle reminder of the extent that the commercial rap industry has become invested in the mainstream, where lawyers and publicists matter more than ever. Can a holograph have a publicist?
