Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chuck Philips is either a severely under appreciated asset to the Hip Hop community or a vulture feasting on what remains of the stories surrounding the murders of Tupac and Biggie. The L.A. Times writer may be single-handedly responsible for keeping both legends’ stories alive in the mainstream media via his consistent investigative reporting into their deaths. He may also be responsible for maliciously distorting information for those reports to conveniently craft impressive pieces boasting new insight into the circumstances of two murders that have remained unsolved for nearly a dozen years.

Chuck Philips may be a liar. Or he may not be. And it was with the latter possibility in mind that this writer requested to speak with Mr. Philips [click here to read] following his controversial investigative report in 2002 that claimed Biggie was involved in the murder of Tupac.

Once again the justifiably skeptical eyes of the Hip Hop community are focused on Mr. Philips reporting  [click here for more details], and so once again this writer reached out to allow Mr. Philips an opportunity to take his case for the worthiness of his work to the readers of HipHopDX.

Is Chuck Philips an unflinching truth teller unfairly dismissed by biased Hip Hop media outlets who refuse to fathom the possibility that P. Diddy and/or Biggie might have been involved in the assault and/or murder of Tupac? Or is he just a desperate journalist attempting to cover up flawed reporting with even more distorted half-truths.You decide.

HipHopDX: I’m sure the readers of this piece won’t know this, but back in 2003 I was maybe the only Hip Hop scribe that provided you a platform to elaborate on your then controversial piece in the Times that suggested Biggie provided the weapon and a bounty for the murder of Tupac [click here to read], one of the few in the Hip Hop media that didn’t immediately condemn the piece. So are you feeling a little bit of déjà vu all over again following the immediate condemnation of your latest report on the Shakur case?
Chuck Philips: Yeah, it’s kinda… I got ready for it again. I mean, some people aren’t gonna back you and that’s the way it is.

DX: And I just have to ask this on behalf of the entire Hip Hop community, are your intentions in your reporting of the Shakur and Smalls’ cases pure? Is your current report slanted towards a narrative that you need to keep alive to make credible previous reports, or are you genuinely just going where your research takes you?
CP: I hadn’t even tried to find this one. I’m working on a story about who murdered Biggie. I've been working on it for quite some time. I was out in New York last year a lot [working on it]. And while I was out there I stumbled onto the names of the alleged assailants in this case, two of the names of the three guys. I wrote them all down and then wrote down some other information this individual who knew some things about Biggie had told me. And then when I got back [to Los Angeles] I started looking at it and thinking, If I could find these guys it wouldn’t be that hard of a story to solve. So I started looking… I didn’t have their real names, so I called around. I was out in New York a few times, and every time I was working on the Biggie thing I’d spend a couple days out there working on this. I eventually tracked down the three assailants, and then through them got to one of the people who helped orchestrate the thing. And then kinda got most of the story through them and some other people I visited at the Quad [Studios] – there was somebody who was there that night. And I visited some other people that were familiar with the incident. And then after that I found the documents, which kind of substantiated most of what I had been told already by other people. That’s how I got [this story]. So I wasn’t trying to extend anything. I was actually working on something else when this came along.

DX: Now the last time we spoke you told me you believed Southside Crips were behind the murder of Tupac. Considering your latest report, are you in any way suggesting that Jimmy Henchmen and/or James Sabatino contracted Southside Crips in Compton to kill Shakur?
CP: No, not at all. I don’t think they had anything to do with Tupac’s killing.

DX: Sabatino later allegedly had ties to Suge Knight, do you believe he may have murdered Tupac on Suge’s request?
CP: No, I don’t think he had anything to do with it. And I don’t think Suge had anything to do with murdering Tupac.

DX: Now I presume you’re aware of Jimmy Henchmen’s connections to the Black Mafia Family. BMF has reportedly been affiliated with other organized crime syndicates in Mexico and possibly the Russian mob [click here for more details]. Are you in any way suggesting in your piece that the Black Mafia Family also had ties to the Colombo Crime Family via James Sabatino?
CP: No, not at all. You have to [remember], this is a long time ago. I don’t even think at that time the Black Mafia Family existed in 1993, but I could be wrong about that. The ones that got busted up recently, I don’t think they were around then. Continued on page 2 »