So it seems the doubters were right all along – Tupac Shakur isn’t dead, and he just headlined Coachella.
Brought back to life as a hologram by Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg, the performance has already caused shockwaves. The set was reported in almost every country across the globe, with Coachella managing to grab a slice of action at even the most high-brow broadsheet.
For many, the set is a watershed moment. Sure, it’s been done before – notably by Gorillaz and Madonna at the 2011 Grammy awards – but to pull something off on this scale, with a tragically deceased performer, seems to have gone further than anyone thought possible.
Yet perhaps it’s been an inevitability. Tupac Shakur’s back catalogue has been picked clean, with the rapper famously responsible for more full length albums after his death than he ever completed when alive. The rapper’s legacy has been carefully nurtured, with his posthumous image retaining a rare potency.
Which is why it isn’t particularly surprising to see Tupac Shakur ‘onstage’ at Coachella. The artist’s image, his music, his message have been appropriated, re-appropriated, uploaded and downloaded to the point of losing their meaning. Tupac is the perfect person to apply this treatment to: an iconic performer whose image has long ago been surmounted by the demands of the public and an eager industry.
More worrying, though, is the nature of the act itself. Tupac’s career, his potency is reliant on a short, extremely sharp burst of energy. To wilfully resurrect the rapper for a one off show undermines the strongly felt decisions he made during his career – it demolishes the independence he so embodied in life.
No matter how well-intentioned Dr Dre was in making this decision, turning Tupac Shakur into a hologram is not resurrection but re-invention. It’s the true death of the author, the denial of any kind of artistic intention for the demands of the audience. The rather obvious potential for economic use, for an image, a legacy to be appropriated by multi-national brands is worrying and – if we’re honest – rather sinister.
But that would simply be using money to exploit holes that already exist. In the past few hours, reports have emerged that Dr Dre is considering bringing the Tupac hologram out on tour whilst the company responsible have begun to explore new concepts.
“You can take their likenesses and voice and … take people that haven’t done concerts before or perform music they haven’t sung and digitally recreate it,” AV spokesperson Nick Smith told MTV yesterday. But isn’t this the total victory of the retro-zone? Our impulses towards the past fused with technology, allowing the work of an artist to be twisted, pulled in any direction our desires allow us to. Slowly but surely, technology supplants the artistic culture it supposedly supports with the means of distribution taking centre stage.
Tupac’s performance at Coachella may well be a watershed moment, opening the music world up to new possibilities. Whether those directions are worth travelling down is another matter.
