News of April 18, 1997
Afeni Shakur Sues Death Row and Seeks to Secure 152 Recordings
A contract from a cell, a 7.1 million dollar counterclaim, 152 unreleased songs: In April 1997, the dispute over Tupac's estate escalated.
On April 18, 1997, Afeni Shakur and Richard Fischbein, as administrators of the estate, filed a 46-page lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles against Death Row Records and its owner Suge Knight. The allegation: the label had been run like a criminal enterprise and had cheated Tupac out of millions.
A Contract, Three Pages, from Prison
The lawsuit sought to place 152 unreleased recordings into receivership and have the handwritten three-page contract Tupac had signed in his cell declared void. Two weeks earlier, Death Row had demanded 7.1 million dollars back from the estate for cars, houses, jewelry, recordings, and videos, and also demanded 20 percent of Tupac’s earnings over the last 18 months as a management fee. It takes “unbelievable chutzpah” to demand a management fee on money you stole from someone, Fischbein said.
The magazine details the lawsuit: Afeni Shakur Sues Death Row for 17 Million Dollars.
Afeni Shakur: Panther, Mother, Keeper of the EstateSuge Knight