He was described as a “‘gangsta’ rapper,” with the quote marks just like that; the story spent nearly as much space on his rap sheet as his career. But the death of Tupac Shakur 20 years ago today, nearly a week after he was shot in a still-unsolved Las Vegas shooting, was a major front page story in The Washington Post.
There was a lot of powerful journalism in the Post that week, as writers grappled with the violent death of a rising young star.
Alona Wartofsky detailed the East Coast vs. West Coast rivalry that had brought bloodshed to hip-hop. (“The 31-year-old [Suge] Knight, who was driving Shakur the night of the shooting and who himself was injured, is a compelling figure. . .” she noted with careful understatement.)
