Mark Twain said it, but Tupac Shakur's doing the cover version, according to cyber conspiracy-theorists. They say that Shakur faked his death last September, and, like Elvis and Jim Morrison, he survives today on the fringes of society, waiting for the right moment to make his comeback.
Blame Oliver Stone, blame The X-Files, blame newsgroup speculation, but thanks to the Internet, the conspiracy theory industry is thriving. There are at least a dozen sites dedicated to Shakur's survival. Shakur did not die after a Las Vegas drive-by, these rumor mills maintain, but somehow survived four bullets, long odds and the media microscope. Some posters to various Shakur shrines say the resilient rapper has been spotted in Cuba, Arizona, Montana, Europe and South America.
"Tupac Shakur, is he really dead???" asks one of the most comprehensive pages dedicated to the survival theory. Here you can find a list of 18 reasons, attributed to Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, why Tupac still walks among us. Among the more convincing arguments: Tupac died on Friday the 13th Tupac's posthumous album is pseudonymously credited to Makaveli. The Italian philosopher Machiavelli encouraged duplicity, including faking your death to trick your enemies. On the cover of the disc, Tupac is posed as a Jesus figure, meaning he's planning a resurrection of his own. If you rearrange the letters of "makaveli", you get "mak alive", or make alive. Tupac was cremated the day after he died, before an autopsy could be performed. The public memorial services were canceled Other Tupac-lives proponents have come up with an elaborate numerology explanation. They point to the title of his Makaveli album, The 7-Day Theory, and a long string of sevens surrounding his death that somehow indicates Tupac fooled us.
Of course, when Tupac shows up again is anybody's guess. April Fool's Day and Easter have passed without a trace of the rapper. Some say he'll wait for the one-year--or seven-year for numerologists--anniversary of his death to reappear.
Still not convinced? Then listen to one Webmaster and make up your own mind: "Although there is no specific fact that makes my theory valid, there is nothing that obviously disproves it," he writes. "But it all adds up to something, there must be something funny going on. Don't you think?"