small Chinese restaurant in New York (Ro 228). It was after this that Biggie made the switch from drug dealer to rapper. He signed with Puffy's new label; Bad Boy Records, after his first record deal fell through. The change for Biggie was very hard because he was used to making thousands of dollars in a single day selling drugs, and now he had just been signed to a record deal worth only $20,000. Things eventually picked-up and Biggie "blew-up" changing the face of East coast rap and the way the world viewed gangster rap. His unheard of lyrics brought respect and fame to the often-criticized rap world and formed a competition to who could out-duel each other, the East or the West.On Friday, September 13, 1996, at 4:03 P.M., Tupac Shakur was pronounced dead from respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest, he was 25 years old. (Ro 298) The public was shocked to hear of his death, but the rap world was not. Fellow rapper RBX was quoted as saying: I felt it was going to happen, rappers can't keep talking trash. You ain't really out there gangbanging, so why you gonna promote that *censored*? You got to grow up. If you're thirty and still talking like you're sixteen, you might be retarded. You might need to get your *censored* checked (Ro 298-299). After Tupac's death the war continued, but this time it was on the streets and it wasn't rappers, but rather gang members. The body count continued to increase as "six Crips from over here died and five Bloods over there died" (Ro 310). "The feeling out there about Tupac's murder is that it's one of two things: that it was the Southside Crips-'cause Biggie would kick it in the Southside when he was out there-or that it was Suge himself, which doesn't make sense" (Ro 311). This quote came from an unidentified Blood who was supposedly close to Tupac and who vowed to exact revenge for his fallen friend. The police quickly became involved in all these murders, especially the man...
