Christopher Wallace, a.k.a , a.k.a. the , is shot to death at a stoplight in Los Angeles. The murder was thought to be the culmination of an ongoing feud between rap music artists from the East and West coasts. Just six months earlier, rapper was killed when he was shot while in his car in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. Ironically, Wallace鈥檚 death came only weeks before his new album, titled Life After Death, was scheduled to be released.
Wallace was the most prominent East Coast practictioner of 鈥済angsta rap." His 1994 record Ready to Die sold millions. That same year, Shakur, the West Coast鈥檚 leading rapper, was shot several times in a robbery at a recording studio in New York. Shakur claimed that Wallace was partially responsible and later taunted Wallace on one of his songs. He claimed to have slept with Wallace鈥檚 ex-wife, singer Faith Evans, and insulted the overweight rapper for his ample girth.
Wallace鈥檚 raps about violent street life were not completely fiction. He grew up in a poor section of Brooklyn and had many run-ins with the law growing up. Even after he reached stardom in the music world, his legal woes continued. In the summer of 1996 he was arrested when police found marijuana and firearms at his New Jersey home. He also assaulted a pair of admirers with a baseball bat. The murder of Wallace has never been solved, though it has been suggested that either Marion 鈥淪uge鈥 Knight, the former head of Death Row Records, Shakur鈥檚 label, or the Crips gang may be be responsible. Knight was also shot (but not wounded seriously) in the fatal Las Vegas attack on Shakur and is rumored to have engineered a retaliatory strike against Wallace, whom he held responsible for the Las Vegas shooting. Knight has been incarcerated for a fatal hit-and-run since 2018.
