OK 2 random Pac questions been bugging me:
Who owns his music now (is there more unreleased)
What happened to his centre of arts in Georgia?
The centre doesn't exist anymore. The story partially answering those questions is briefly covered here:
What Happened to the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts? – Rolling Stone
Personally, I think it doesn't begin to scratch the surface as his legacy has been grossly mismanaged. Not out of malice, they failed at making money out of fucking 2pac! I think it's just that nobody had a clue what they were doing or what they should be doing and were just throwing punches in the dark. They also closed their doors in front of people who actually knew how to help and really wanted to! I heard stories before about no-names with original 2pac recordings that they wanted to sell back to the estate and rumors were the estate wouldn't budge and would try to sue them for the recordings instead, which sent a message to small time rappers or producers who had 2pac tapes that it's not worth doing anything about them - this likely led to some original tapes being sold as bootlegs or worse, just rotting away forgotten in someone's old collection. After all bumping the only copy of a cool 2pac track you recorded with him back in 94 can at least get you laid, which is a better alternative than losing that and getting sued the shit out of.
There's a lot of unreleased Tupac music still. Heck the songs I'm aware of could make at least three or four perfectly good albums. Plus there are so many discarded verses when they actually released his remixed posthumous music too - I have no idea how they're planning to release these, I kind of assume it would be really difficult at this point to tell people that the parts they used for Ghetto Gospel made up for less than a fourth of what 2pac actually recorded, and that there are three more amazing verses altogether, with a completely different vibe and pacing, and that they were making for a whole nice story meant for children with mental and physical disabilities. It was a song he recorded for the actual special olympics, it was rejected because his music wasn't exactly well perceived at the time. He was passionate about it and there's an interview where he's going on and on about it. It's just I somehow doubt the people who managed his legacy even had any understanding of such powerful meanings and stories behind his songs. They were just broken down into scraps and put together into something without much of its original meaning or soul.
As for the unreleased music, legally I believe the Estate has the RIGHT to all or most of it. Except the suspects they could enforce it from aren't happily screaming "sue me, I've got unreleased tapes", and means of obtaining them again are dwindling as time passes. Most of the posthumously released songs were big-time tracks that were serious contenders for big album releases when Tupac was still alive. Such masters were definitely by far the easiest to obtain - the labels had them. Little of his collabs and leaks that we know of that he just casually recorded for others actually made it, meaning they may not even have these masters.
I somehow suspect that the estate may not even have many remaining masters at all, and worst of all I wouldn't be all that surprised if they were unaware of the existence of many of the songs we play mp3s of on a daily basis, lol. Snoop Dogg played "Street Life" live on the fucking radio, it's a potential banger, and my level of confidence in the estate is so low that I wouldn't be surprised if nobody even reached out to him about it. I'm sure Daz has some rare 2pac shit making for his weed-smoking soundtrack that he wants just to himself.
I bet the estate also hears a song like "Till my Dyin Day" on Youtube wondering "wtf did that come from, who's got CDQ of that?!". I remember the CDQ being sold for a couple of grand long ago, but I somehow doubt the estate ever discovered that, let alone obtain it, and I wouldn't be surprised if the best they got was that shitty tape rip. It will be much harder to get that CDQ in the future, heck I have no idea how to get it at this point. Then even if they got a song like that, it's not impossible that they just wouldn't release it as it's difficult to make that particular song represent the image of 2pac they want to present. They already censored or removed much softer lyrics, in particular in his post-2000 albums. They made 2pac into something he's not in the latest albums, and what sells is the true 2pac which they haven't been too keen on showing lately, pumping out a watered down and heavily mutated new vision they had instead.
I'm also not sure if there are still people out there who know, care and are paid and empowered to do anything about the situation. In my mind it's a couple of people with a specific but limited vision who aren't really in the know at this point, represented by some disconnected lawyer. Which is a terrifying thought actually. Fuck, Rukas recently posted that Tupac's Spotify library isn't even managed by his Estate but by DJ King Assassin profiting off of it instead. Assuming it most likely hasn't gotten anyone's green light, how little attention they must be paying to let it fly?
The information about Tupac's music and stories is also heavily scattered across the few remaining forums, and some is dying completely offline with people in Oakland or Marin City. I bet there is information we have amongst the few of us here on Streethop (regulars or former regulars) that nobody or very few people are aware of, that we will die with, lol.
Then there's the fact that some of his darkest and most aggressive Death Row stuff is probably being sat on by.. Hasbro, who indirectly bought the Death Row vaults.. lol.
