As Hip-Hop fans saw earlier this week with Kanye West’s auctioned off Ford Raptor, popular culture memorabilia is extremely valuable. Today, news has broken that another Hip-Hop artifact has hit the auction market, and it offers an invaluable glimpse of Tupac Shakur’s life and artistry.
According to TMZ, an 83 GB hard drive that was owned by Pac’s former bodyguard Frank Alexander contains a vast amount of rare Tupac memorabilia, including behind-the-scenes photographs of Pac and his friends, unseen footage of the iconic rapper, legal documents from lawsuits that Alexander and Shakur were both named in, and unreleased music. Frank Alexander was with Tupac on the night he died, and the former bodyguard passed away in 2013, six years after producing the Tupac Assassination: Conspiracy or Revenge documentary.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
The insanely rare hard drive is being auctioned off by Gotta Have Rock And Roll, and you can read its full description of the item below:
This one-of-a-kind artifact comes straight from Tupac Shakur’s personal friend and body guard Frank Alexander. The 83GB computer archive contains unreleased music, videos, photographs, and items relating to 2Pac during the height of his career. This Archive contains songs from the Rap icon that have never been heard by the public, as well as materials compiled and curated by the people closest to him. Whether you want to enjoy highly personal and never before seen media of all kinds or if you want to get lost in the labyrinth of files surrounding a truly larger than life figure this is the perfect piece for you.
Some of the highlights on the hard drive include a 35 second clip from a never released song — which is incredibly rare in Tupac’s recording history. The photos and videos bring you right into Tupac’s life in the mid to late 90’s and are some of the most intimate media that exists of him. Each file in this archive has been hand picked by Alexander himself, and included in our photographs above is Alexander’s work experience and resume. Frank Alexander was of course with Tupac the night he died, and was a key witness in the shooting. There are few people who could better document the life of Rap’s biggest star.
Bids for the auction start at $10,000, but the auction website estimates that the rare 83 GB hard drive is worth anywhere between $600,000 and $1,200,000. According to TMZ, 10% of the proceeds from the auction will go to the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation.
You can place a bid on the Hip-Hop artifact or check out the sample photos of the content on Frank Alexander’s hard drive here.
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