Inside the hip-hop community there are many fans of the late rap icon Tupac Shakur. Some hang on every word the west coast rap legend spoke in his songs. Mostly die hard fans dissect his material to ‘find’ proof to support their ‘alive’ theories.

Theorists have been coming up with their theories of how Tupac could be alive and is alive for over 8 years now. And now it seems the mainstream press still can not leave Tupac alone; even in death.

On Tupac’s album ‘All Eye’z on Me’ the song ‘I Ain’t mad at Cha’, Tupac speaks about change, he said “Change, sh*t, I guess change is good for any of us, Whatever it take for any of y''all niggaz to get up out the hood, Sh*t, I''m wit cha, I ain''t mad at cha, Got nuttin but love for ya, do your thing boy.”

I doubt if CNN needs to ‘get up out of the hood’ so what is their reason for this April 2, 2005 post on the late great rap icon Tupac Shakur being alive?

An article supposedly from CNN Entertainment section of CNN.online reads: ‘Unexpected twist: Tupac Shakur alive and well” by CNN Entertainment writer Robert Spencer (with credits also given to CNN Bureau Chief Aaron Nichols contributing to this report); ( http://www.cnnonline.co.nr/tupac.htm ).

Being known as a creditable news source this article could have been meant as an April fools joke, but then why post it the 2nd of the month without any disclaimer? CNN as a major media outlet should have known what kind of consequences running a story like this would have among the hip-hop community, so why would they post it?

Researching this ‘CNN’ page this is on we found out why CNN would have posted this – THEY DIDN’T.

It appears that someone took a CNN page and copy and pasted their info onto it and thought this was a funny thing to do. The tip off was none of the links work and when you source the page you see that it is not a CNN page it is a free domain host site and the url of the site is posted there to. I will not advertise for a site that would use the good name of CNN in such a manner.

I hope CNN looks into this and takes the action that should be taken to make sure these kinds of ‘funny things’ are not associated with their name in the future.

The story uses pictures of earlier in Tupac’s life, and the captions lead one to believe these are recent photos of the late slain rap icon.

So to all who have been flooding our email and quoting this article as proof of Tupac being alive; I am sorry to say that we lost Tupac A. Shakur on September 13, 1996 in Las Vegas.

It is time for some in the hip-hop community to move on. Love and respect Tupac and support his legacy, but enjoy the talent we have now. Always remember our legends; Tupac, Eazy-E, Notorious B.I.G., Lisa Left Eye, Big Pun and all the others we have lost, but as Tupac said “I guess change is good for any of us”.

So to those who tried to use the good name of CNN for this cruel joke, I just hope CNN sets you straight and for those who think Tupac is still here; I am sorry also that he is not.