Tupac Shakur’s Private Life Goes Up for Sale at Sotheby’s
The legendary rapper Tupac Shakur is getting the masterpiece treatment Sotheby’s, as poetry, letters and personal memorabilia valued at over $350,000 go up for bid online. An icon even before his 1996 murder in Las Vegas, Nev., at the age of 25, the musician has been granted his own gallery, Picasso-style, at the auctioneer.
It’s dominated by a towering floor-to-ceiling image of the rapper and a video of readings of his poetry. Cabinets filled with love letters he wrote as a teenager flank the room. The centerpiece is a book of poems and drawings Shakur sent to his godfather, Black Panther Jamal Joseph, while Joseph was incarcerated in Leavenworth Prison. The book alone carries an estimate of more than $200,000.
Shakur’s possessions are one component of Sotheby’s ambitious 120+-item auction seeking to document “the art and influence of Hip Hop culture.”