Tupac's Letter Explaining 'Thug Life Is Dead': $225K

Rambling, emotional letter is up for sale
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 5, 2015 10:03 AM CDT
Tupac's Letter Explaining 'Thug Life Is Dead': $225K
This 1993 file photo originally provided by Columbia Pictures shows rap musician Tupac Shakur is shown in a scene from, "Poetic Justice."   (AP Photo/Columbia Pictures, file)

After Tupac Shakur declared from jail in 1995 that "Thug Life ... is dead," he explained himself in an emotional letter to Nina Bhadreshwar, a staffer at his record label, Death Row Records. That five-page letter is now for sale for $225,000 from Moments In Time, the New York Post reports. He opens by noting that he's replying to a letter from Bhadreshwar, who worked for Death Row Uncut magazine and her own publication. "I am not granting this information to any other publication, not even Time & Rolling Stone so please represent it as it is layed," Shakur wrote. "I trust u."

He went on to explain that black males in America grow from "young dustkicker" to "thug n---a" to "boss playa" and that "many n----z never survive the second level of thuglife." He wrote that he himself almost didn't. "A regular Playa plays women, a Boss Playa plays life. A Boss Playa is a thinker, a leader, a builder, a moneymaker, a souljah, a teacher and most of all, a Man! I want all my homiez to know there is another level, it takes heart and courage 2 stand alone face the demons and make a change!" So, since "in my heart the thug n---a has advanced to be a Boss Playa," he wrote, "Thug Life is not dead but in my heart it is." Read it in full here. (More Tupac Shakur stories.)

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