Tupac

Lost your phone at Coachella? You are not alone. A new study from mobile security company Lookout said there was a 37% spike in the number of people who were searching for a lost phone on the festival grounds and in nearby neighborhoods. What a surprise. A spokeswoman for Lookout said the increase was calculated based on phone locates from Lookout's users in the area surrounding the Coachella venue during last weekend's festival. The company mapped its anonymized data with Foursquare's API and compared the findings with the number of locates happening in the area when Coachella isn't in town.

Among the most important rap albums released over the last year or so, one contains a song about Nas' complicated relationship with his teenage daughter. Another has a track in which Killer Mike outlines President Reagan's contribution to the prison-industrial complex. A third disc finds Drake pondering the impossibility of real-life romantic connection in the age of the nip-slip Twitpic. The title of Drake's record, which last week won the Grammy Award for rap album? "Take Care.

Regarding "Teenagers Grapple With Meaning of Shakur's Death" (Metro, Oct. 7), I am a bit dismayed as to teens' confusion over the seemingly obvious hows and whys of Tupac's tragic death. His music--and I mean his entire body of music--was insightful but failed to deliver a concrete or productive message to young teens. His lyrics condemned the pain and despair of the street but simultaneously offered an unrepentant glorification of gang life, misogyny and brutality. Like his music, Tupac was a dichotomy; to a critical audience, he expressed disdain over their portrayal of him as an exponent of violence but nevertheless surrounded himself with a lifestyle that invited such criticism.

Still waiting on Dr. Dre's “Detox”? Well, keep waiting. The rapper is too busy raking in money -- and tons of it. The rapper/producer/entrepreneur will end the year -- which included him bringing Tupac back to quasi-life at Coachella -- at the top of Forbes' annual list of highest-paid musicians . Dre reportedly collected $110 million during the scoring period that ran from May 2011 to May 2012, beating Taylor Swift, Justin...

Still waiting on Dr. Dre's “Detox”? Well, keep waiting. The rapper is too busy raking in money -- and tons of it. The rapper/producer/entrepreneur will end the year -- which included him bringing Tupac back to quasi-life at Coachella -- at the top of Forbes' annual list of highest-paid musicians . Dre reportedly collected $110 million during the scoring period that ran from May 2011 to May 2012, beating Taylor Swift, Justin...

Re "Who Killed Tupac Shakur?" Sept. 6: Why are you wasting so much newsprint and ink on this useless story? The Times has been trying unsuccessfully to make this event into news ever since it happened. With all the significant and newsworthy events happening elsewhere in the world, Chuck Philips has to write about this drivel? And to put it on the front page? Come on! Give me a break. Who really did kill Tupac six years ago? I say Lee Gardner Burbank

Ask anyone who attended both weekends of the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival what the big difference was between the events, and you'll likely end up talking about the weather. The festival, which kicked off April 13 and featured 140-plus artists, expanded from one weekend to two this year for the first time in its 13-year history. Although the lineup of artists - from the Black Keys to Radiohead to Snoop Dogg andDr. Dre - was identical each weekend, the same could not be said of the weather.

The Lakers remain a drag, costing fans free tacos, but for diversion there's still Phil's future, Roger Rabbit, Kobe, Tupac, Colin Cowherd and Damir Doma. And Plaschke wrong again. But first we begin with Phil's steady girlfriend, Jeanie Buss, who said recently, "I know Phil will be coaching next year, somewhere, whether it's here or someplace else." Tuesday night, Phil eliminated the Bulls, saying he had no interest in returning to Chicago although he considers it a good job. Then he went further, well, sort of. Do you envision yourself coaching elsewhere next year, he was asked, and he said, "I really couldn't."

"THE Aviator," an old-fashioned Hollywood epic about Howard Hughes' obsessions, romances and crippling neuroses, captured 11 nominations to take the lead for the 77th annual Academy Awards, including best picture, best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio and best director for Martin Scorsese. Tied for the second-most nominations announced Tuesday, with seven apiece, were "Finding Neverland," a story of "Peter Pan" playwright J.M.

The city's neon lights vibrated in the polished hood of the black BMW as it cruised up Las Vegas Boulevard. The man in the passenger seat was instantly recognizable. Fans lined the streets, waving, snapping photos, begging Tupac Shakur for his autograph. Cops were everywhere, smiling. The BMW 750 sedan, with rap magnate Marion "Suge" Knight at the wheel, was leading a procession of luxury vehicles past the MGM Grand Hotel and Caesars Palace, on their way to a hot new nightclub.

At this year's Coachella festival, Tupac Shakur was brought back to life via image-projection technology. But now a force even stronger than death threatens his recent resurrection -- bankruptcy. Digital Domain Media Group, the company behind the Tupac technology, said today in a press release that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from its creditors. The 20-year-old company, which went public only in November, earned international attention for its Tupac project, and had long enjoyed clout in Hollywood for its work on big-budget features such as  "Titanic" and "Transformers.

Rock 'n' roll was never just about music. It was also about the way Jimi Hendrix held a guitar and the look in his eyes when he set it ablaze onstage in 1967. Its essence could be found in the swirl of a mosh pit, in the epic pompadour of James Brown, in the provocative finery of Madonna and KISS. For this, fans have depended on the permanent record captured by generations of rock photography, from the gorgeous black-and-white reportage by Alfred Wertheimer of a young Elvis Presley on the road in 1956 to the vivid portraits of Kurt Cobain and Katy Perry by Mark Seliger for the cover of Rolling Stone.

This post has been corrected. Please see note at bottom for details. Just a few months after wowing Coachella Valley Music Festival audiences with a virtual Tupac Shakur, visual effects company Digital Domain Media Group has announced plans to bring Elvis Presley back to life virtually. Actually, make that Elvis Presleys -- plural. "We are looking to develop several versions of Elvis," said Ed Ulbrich, chief creative officer at Digital Domain, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

A new biographical stage production about the late rapper Tupac Shakur is expected to premiere in January at the Black Ensemble Theater in Chicago. The show, written by Lyle Miller, is titled "Amaru (The History of Tupac Amaru Shakur). " A spokeswoman for the theater company said the show is still in the works and that casting hasn't been announced. She said the production will most likely be a play with sequences featuring Shakur's music. Miller is a member of the Black Ensemble Theater who has appeared in a number of its productions.

In 1985, Los Angeles rapper Toddy Tee released what could be considered West Coast hip-hop's opening salvo against police brutality in black neighborhoods. The electro-grooved "Batterram," named for the battering ram that then-LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates used to smash into homes of suspected drug dealers, was a hit on local radio station KDAY-AM. The track went on to become a protest anthem in minority neighborhoods around the city where the device was often deployed against homes that were later proved drug-free: "You're mistakin' my pad for a rockhouse / Well, I know to you we all look the same / But I'm not the one slingin' caine / I work nine to five and ain't a damn thing changed …" rapped Toddy Tee. The L.A. riots of 1992 arrived with its soundtrack in place.

Ask anyone who attended both weekends of the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival what the big difference was between the events, and you'll likely end up talking about the weather. The festival, which kicked off April 13 and featured 140-plus artists, expanded from one weekend to two this year for the first time in its 13-year history. Although the lineup of artists - from the Black Keys to Radiohead to Snoop Dogg andDr. Dre - was identical each weekend, the same could not be said of the weather.

"WE go until it happens," rap producer Dr. Dre says about all the time he spends in the recording studio searching for hits, once as long as 79 hours in a single stretch. "When the ideas are coming," says the man who is one of the half-dozen most influential producers of the modern pop era, "I don't stop until the ideas stop because that train doesn't come along all the time." Some hip-hop fans, however, must be wondering if this particular train isn't off the track.

Re "Rapper Tupac Shakur, 25, Dies 6 Days After Ambush," Sept 14: It took seven people to write this short article about a rapper's violent and horrible death. "Brilliant but tortured"? What adjectives can now be used to describe Mozart or Beethoven or any other great musician/composer of the past? Will this rapper's melodies linger in our collective memories for 300 years, be listened to with delight by music lovers worldwide? I would be surprised if that happens. "Notorious and controversial, celebrating violence and drugs" would be a better description.

Lost your phone at Coachella? You are not alone. A new study from mobile security company Lookout said there was a 37% spike in the number of people who were searching for a lost phone on the festival grounds and in nearby neighborhoods. What a surprise. A spokeswoman for Lookout said the increase was calculated based on phone locates from Lookout's users in the area surrounding the Coachella venue during last weekend's festival. The company mapped its anonymized data with Foursquare's API and compared the findings with the number of locates happening in the area when Coachella isn't in town.

The late Tupac Shakur rose again last weekend at Coachella -- brought to life by James Cameron's visual production house Digital Domain, and two hologram-imaging companies, AV Concepts and the U.K.-based Musion Systems. The capacity crowd reportedly went silent with shock when Shakur appeared to rise from the stage, shout a profanity filled version of "What's up Coachella?" and then joined headliners Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre for two songs. But that shock value will only last so long as holographic images are poised to increasingly feature in mainstream music performances.