2Pac Gets Remixed
Marion “Suge” Knight is incarcerated, but his Death Row Records remains open for business. The gangsta rap label will issue Death Row Presents 2Pac Nu-Mixx Klazzics on October 7th.
The ten-song collection will further clutter a market that features more than twice as many posthumous albums in the name of 2Pac, who was shot and killed in 1996, as the number of albums he released during his lifetime: four. 2Pac is the best-selling hip-hop artist of all time, with nearly 40 million albums sold. In 2001, his Until the End of Time debuted Number One with first-week sales of 427,000 and last December Better Dayz sold 366,000 in its debut at Number Five, despite being a two-CD set.
But unlike Better Dayz and End of Time, Nu-Mixx isn’t being released by Interscope Records, which has been working with the late rapper’s mother to protect his legacy. According to Death Row, which released the rapper’s first recordings in conjunction with Interscope, the new mixes will be provided by the label’s production team, Tha Row Hitters. Death Row is now affiliated with Koch Records.
In other 2Pac news, bidding ends on Saturday for his 1996 Hummer. The vehicle had an opening bid of $500,000; at last count ten bids had been registered with $701,700 the top price. And death won’t keep him from being tied to another obligatory hip-hop venture: the clothing line. The rapper’s mother plans to launch the Makaveli fashion line (named for one of his alteregos) by Christmastime.