Tupac's Handwritten Prison Essay "Is Thug Life Dead?” Sold For $173K

Tupac's 1995 four-page essay written Clinton Correctional Facility has been auctioned off.

BYDanny Schwartz
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Plenty of Tupac memorabilia has been auctioned off in the past year. This month, a particularly valuable item was auctioned off: a handwritten four-page letter called "Is Thug Life Dead?" that Tupac wrote while incarcerated at Clinton Correctional Facility in 1995.

The minimum bid for the letter was $10,000. After 31 bids, it was sold for $172,725. Pac addressed the letter to "young black Americans" and sent the letter to Death Row Records employee Nina Bhadreshwar, but Pac's label blocked the letter from being published.

In the letter, Pac writes of the three stages of life: “Ours begins with a young DustKicker, a ThugNigga then finally a BossPlaya … Each stage has many obstacles and pleasure, but they are all lethal if not played properly … A regular Playa plays women. A Boss Playa plays life. A Boss Playa is a thinker, a leader, a builder, a moneymaker, a souljah, a teacher and most of all, a Man!”

Read "Is Thug Life Dead?" in its entirety here.

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<b>Staff Writer</b> <!--BR--> <strong>About:</strong> President of the Detlef Schrempf fan club. <strong>Favorite Hip Hop Artists:</strong> Outkast, Anderson .Paak, Young Thug, Danny Brown, J Dilla, Vince Staples, Freddie Gibbs