2Pac’s death was an early demise that saw the loss of a legend who is still considered one of the best MCs to this day. The Death Row icon was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in 1996 and died shortly after.
However, few know that he made a rather strange request before his death. While Shakur was signed to Death Row, he formed his own crew, The Outlawz. Comprised of Napoleon, Young Noble, E.D.I. Mean, Kastro, Yaki Kadafi, Hussein Fatal, the collective were on a roll before 2Pac’s murder cut it short.
The group looked up to Shakur, and many of the members were his close friends. As such, they had a tremendous amount of respect for him and were keen to honour him after his murder. However, the way in which they paid tribute to the emcee was unorthodox.
In an interview with DJ Vlad for Vlad TV, the surviving members of the collective Young Noble and E.D.I. Mean addressed a well-known rumour that, following the cremation of Shakur, they decided to smoke his ashes in a blunt.
When asked by DJ Vlad if there was any truth to the rumour, Young Noble (real name Rufus Cooper) unveiled that they simply honoured the lyrics of ‘Black Jesus’, in which he had rapped about how he wanted his ashes smoked after he was gone.
The song hears Shakur rap, “Major league n*ggas pray together / Bitches in they grave while my / Real n*ggas play together / We die clutchin’ glasses / Filled with liquor bomblastic / Cremated, last wish is niggas smoke my ashes.”
Explaining this to Vlad, Cooper stated, “Yeah, it’s definitely true. I think it was the night of, we had a little memorial for him, with his mom, his family and sh*t. We hit the beach, do a lot of the sh*t he liked on the beach. Some weed, some chicken wings, he loved orange soda and all that kind of sh*t.”
He continued, “Pac loved that kind of sh*t, so we were giving him our own farewell that night… I forgot which one of us came up with it, like we need to go and do that, but we twisted up some of that great granddaddy California kush and mixed the big homie with it.”
Although it may seem strange, to Young Noble, it was a form of paying respect. You can hear the rapper explain the process in the video below.
