I don't think it was Biggie Smalls as many people claim - Biggie was a misogynist and loved living the high life and wasn't really a thug as his music might have suggested.

Rap was becoming very commercial around that time and the thug image was very popular and it lead to what many call "studio gangsters" and I think Biggie definitely played up whatever criminal activities he'd done to fit that image. I'm not calling Biggie Smalls a fake, but even if we consider the fact that he smoked marijuana all day, manufactured crack cocaine, drank a lot of champagne and had sex with a lot of women, it doesn't make him a killer. So I think that takes Biggie out of the question as Tupac's killer.

Between hot women, champagne, drugs, the high life vs. ordering shady hit men on people, which life would you choose?

Tupac wasn't really a gangster either - his debut album talked about issues such as race, police brutality, teenage pregnancy and there wasn't a lot of gangbanging going on his early music. Compare it to his last album, where he talked about being a thug more and used words such as "Now you know how we do it like a G". Notice how he says like a gangster. Tupac is remembered best as a poet and not a thug, which is telling of his image.

Now that we've established Tupac and Biggie Smalls as not "true" gangsters, than it's obvious their deaths didn't really have do with gang rivalry or their gang affiliations because they weren't truly gang members.

Tupac got in a fight with an actual Crip gang member then they retaliated with a drive-by shooting and the rest is history. Tupac was a victim and didn't die because he was a gang banger, though he died as one of the greatest ever known in hip hop and as an extremely loyal friend.