2Pac 2.0
Tupac Shakur was probably the most famous of the gangsta rappers of the 1990s. Apart from Biggie, but I'm from Cali. Though I think maybe I'm really more East Coast, really. Anyway, Tupac was a real human being who was murdered in a drive-by shooting in 1996, having enjoyed a meteoric but decidedly short career as a hip hop star. In many of his songs he rapped about the early violent death he expected and was ready for. After he survived one shooting, his later lyrics were full of quasi-Christian imagery involving resurrection, and many projects (albums, documentaries, tributes) that have been brought out since his death take inspiration from the idea of his rebirth. (There was also at one point a craze of speculation that he is really still alive, as had happened earlier with Elvis Presley.)
Posthumous albums abound and, like Michael Jackson, Tupac remains one of the highest-grossing musicians out there, even though he is dead. For a while there, he was being constantly " reborn" in documentaries, remixes and mashups, newly discovered unreleased tracks, remixes, sampling, fan art, and a disappointing biopic.
But certainly the most spectacular example of Tupac's posthumous existence was the "resurrection" of the rapper as a "hologram" at the 2012 Coachella music festival. Using not hologram technology but in fact a souped-up version of a technique that is over 100 years old, known as "Pepper's Ghost," a seemingly three-dimensional version of the dead performer shimmered on the stage and even rapped in tandem with his (still living) former friend Snoop Dogg.
The illusion is technically stunning:
But for me this event raises soul-shaking questions about personal identity. In "All Eyez on Me," Shakur had bragged, "Live the life of a thug until the day I die / Live the life of a boss playa." And perhaps Tupac really did just as he said. But what about after the day he dies ...? There was talk for a while of taking the Tupac hologram on the road for a world tour. "Michael Jackson" has already done one.
Would Tupac have gone on this tour if he had lived? Would he still be doing duets with Snoop if he had been alive in 2012? Who owns the Tupac hologram? (Dr Dre put up the money to develop the stunt and Tupac's mother gave her permission - is this really satisfactory from a legal perspective, though?) Who owns Tupac's identity after he is dead? If Dr Dre finds himself broke and sells the hologram to Budweiser or Colgate Palmolive one day, will we suddenly find ads like these?
Maybe I'll even be able to buy my own home version of the hologram. Tupac, can you please sing that new Taylor Swift song? Laughter all around. In the terms of Moeller and D'Ambrosio, Tupac still has a profile persona, but he is no longer a person, and can no longer control his persona (if he ever could).
You may be aware of Kanye's 2020 birthday present to Kim Kardashian, a "holographic" representation of her deceased father, speaking to her from beyond the grave. Or as she described it "A special surprise from heaven."
It's hard to know where to begin with an analysis of this gesture. It's literally a life-like simulation of her father speaking to her. But where did the words come from that he is saying? Whose voice is actually saying them? Would her father have said these words to her, behaved in this way, if he were still alive, or if he were actually able to speak to her from heaven?
Whose message is this really? "You married the most most most most most genius man in the whole world - Kanye West." Hmm.
Kardashian's father's image is recreated here. But whose identity is being expressed through it?
As our identities become more virtual, and our virtual realities become more real, what happens to the realness of identity? In the future, anyone even have an identity? Who will control it? If you become famous, will there be a home version of you sitting on the couch as a holographic projection or a life-size robot? Will you appear in commercials for products you might have despised in real-life, as has happened with countless dead celebrities (Audrey Hepburn dancing for The Gap to the music of AC/DC, brilliantly but brutally lifted from the 1956 movie Funny Face, for instance)?