

"I was in Pathmark and was staring at me. It wasn't the first time somebody would see the connection, but as Garcia found a deep faith in the message of Tupac's life and music, Tupac's life started seeming like it was reaching out to him.

A high school friend told Garcia that if he shaved his head, he would look exactly like Shakur. But it was during that time when he truly found his calling by embodying Tupac.

At 17, Garcia had dropped out of high school and was on his own.

Both Garcia and Tupac were raised by single mothers, often moving from one place to another. Like Tupac, Garcia had a tumultuous upbringing. Slowly, though, his life has merged with Pac's own in strange and powerful ways. For him, it's an act of personal devotion, a way to prolong a life that was cut unjustly short.
IS 2PAC ALIVE PROFESSIONAL
But he isn't only a professional impersonator. He rarely does gimmicky appearances as 'Pac, and he doesn't think of it as his career. Garcia has devoted much of his life - and body - to preserving the message at the core of Tupac's music. "It's not just the birthday, but the upbringing." "I enjoy doing the things that I do because I can share my image," Garcia told Mic. And as he grew up, it turned out that the two shared far more than a birthday. Richard Garcia was born on the same day, just four years later. Meet Richard Garcia: Tupac Shakur was born on June 16, 1971. The footage was of Richard Garcia, a 39-year-old substitute teacher living in New Jersey and working part-time at the local supermarket, who has devoted his life to becoming Tupac. It caused a stir - the video was removed from YouTube soon afterwards due to a " copyright claim" that the brief shot may have been an actual autopsy picture of Tupac.īut it wasn't Tupac - not exactly. Suddenly, Tupac's body appears on the gurney in shocking detail. Jean's brother, Sedeck, is performing autopsies on two women. K.A little way into Wyclef Jean's music video for " April Showers," there's a scene in a morgue. Plus, rearranging the letters of “Makaveli” spells out “Am alive. The album artwork features the rapper as Jesus Christ, who was believed to have resurrected seven days after his death. The posthumous album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory was released under the stage name of Makaveli (named after Niccolò Machiavelli, the Italian thinker who believed in faking one’s death as a tool against enemies). But the last known photo of him, riding alongside Suge Knight, is dated September 8, 1996! This is before Photoshop, folks.ĢPac himself loved to fuel rumors about his death. Pac's somewhere else.”ĢPac was shot on Septemin Las Vegas. he retired and left." Suge fanned the conspiracy flames by throwing in, “"Maybe the question is. and next thing I know I never heard from the guy or seen him again. In 2012, Death Row honcho Suge Knight (who was with Pac in the car when he died) said, “The person who supposedly cremated Tupac. 2Pac back? Maybe so, according to these conspiracy theories.Īfter 2Pac was shot and killed in 1996, he was cremated. Like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, fans refuse to believe that the “California Love” rapper is actually dead. Rumors about Tupac secretly being alive-and living on an island somewhere- have circulated for years. This isn’t the first time fans have revisited his death based on real or imagined events. This week, a retired cop supposedly claimed that he helped the beloved star fake his own death. It’s been almost 20 years since Tupac Shakurwas murdered, but the rapper has hardly been able to rest in peace.
