Under Tupac Shakurs sista år i livet var det en tillvaro fylld med hot, rykten och uppgörelser som slutligen kulminerade med att han blev skjuten i Las Vegas i september 1996.

En av de journalister som lyckades komma Tupac in på livet var VIBE-skribenten Kevin Powell som skrev hela tre s.k. “cover stories” på rapparen under 90-talet. I hans nya bok betitlad “The Education of Kevin Powell ” beskriver han ett av sina sista möten med Tupac på fängelset Rikers Island 1995. I samtalet reflekterar Tupac om de illvilliga krafter som försökte röja honom ur vägen, främst gällande händelsen på Quad Studios i Manhattan (New York) när han blev skjuten:

“I wasn’t thinking. ‘Why they want me here so bad?'” Tupac says. “We got lost looking for the studio in Manhattan. We lost like, ‘Where the hell the studio at?’ He’s like, ‘Where you at?’…I knew he was from the streets. I knew he was trying to get legitimate, so I thought I was doing him a favor. He was like, ‘I don’t have the money, though.’ I said, ‘You don’t have the money, I ain’t coming.’ He kinda let the phone, called me back, he said, ‘I’ma give you the money outta my pocket.’…We got there, parked the car in the garage. We walkin’ up to the building. Somebody screamed from up the top in the studio, it’s Lil Cease. He’s like Biggie‘s sideman. That’s my homeboy. I’ve been knowing them since before they came out. So I was like, ‘What’s up, yo?’ He’s like, ‘I’m coming downstairs. I’m coming downstairs. ‘Pac, what’s up we going to kick it.’ He had been calling me at the hotel, wanted to kick it and everything, so this was like the champ. So as soon as I saw him, all my inhibitions about, this could be a set-up, was relaxed.”

Powell har i intervjun dolt flera namn och personer som nämns. Han förklarar:

“People are still alive. People have to understand, it got so crazy during that time, not only did Tupac and Biggie get killed, if people actually did their research, a lot of folks got killed over a course of a couple of years. People got death threats. I got death threats as a journalist because people knew I had a lot of information. He said everyone’s names in the interview. So even if you go back and look at the cover story, we actually changed the names of everyone and ‘Pac was mad about it.”

Kevin Powell uppger att hans nästkommnade bok blir en biografi om Tupacs liv, ett projekt han initierat med Tupacs mamma, Afeni Shakur.

Se även en intervju från Complex med Kevin Powell:

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