Tupac Shakur‘s vault of expression continues to fetch major money. A handwritten letter that he addressed to Black youth while serving time behind bars in 1995 has hit the auction block again.
While the well of new Tupac music has seemed to run dry 20 years after his death, memorabilia and other items continue to circulate. The latest being a handwritten letter that was penned by Shakur while he was serving time at Clinton Correctional Facility for sexual assault.
The letter titled “Is Thug Life Dead?” was originally addressed to former Death Row Records publicist Nina Bhadresher. In it Tupac talks about the three stages of his life: “a young DustKicker, a ThugN*gga then finally a BossPlaya.” He also addresses living with depression and wanting Black youth to know they have options to how they want to live their lives.
He wrote the letter at time when major media outlets were vying to tell his story. Instead of granting interviews at the time, he sent this letter showing his transformation and told Bhadresher that she could do whatever she wanted with it because he trusted her.
At this time last year, the letter was being auctioned for $255,000. But now it is up for the more reasonable $10,000. Could the price drop could have something to do with the All Eyez On Me biopic set to release soon, which essentially tells the story that this letter does. Or maybe the demand for Tupac memorabilia has gone down. That’s hard to believe since a Hummer he drove just sold for $300k and his handwritten lyrics are still going for the price of a car.
So far the “Is Thug Life Dead?” letter has two bids with the highest being $11,000. Continue reading to see previews of the letter and decide if you want to bid or not.
Click here to peep the rest of Goldin Auction’s Tupac Shakur collection that also features signed contracts for work on the Poetic Justice soundtrack and the movie Juice.
Photo: WENN.com
