Tupac Shakur would have turned 51 years old today if he hadn't been gunned down in a drive-by shooting in 1996.
Aged just 25, fans were devastated when the rapper was shot four times outside Las Vegas' Club 662 as he pulled up in a black BMW owned by Death Row Records boss Suge Knight.
With wounds to his chest, arm and thigh, Tupac was rushed to ER, where he fought for life for six long days before he died from respiratory failure and cardiac arrest after having a lung removed.
During that nail-biting time, his entourage maintained a constant vigil, fearing that the gunmen could return to take another pop.
But that week in hospital is as shrouded in mystery as the murder itself. And conflicting reports about his condition have breathed fresh life into conspiracy theories that claim he faked his own death.
For a long time, fans have argued that there are way too many holes in the story.
Case in point, officials stated he was unconscious the entire time, while friends have insisted he was laughing and joking in bed shortly before his death.
According to the first officer who arrived at the scene, Chris Carroll, a retired sergeant with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Tupac lost consciousness after he pulled him from the car.
"I kept asking over and over, ‘Who did this? Who shot you?’ And he basically kept ignoring me," Carroll recalled.
"And then all of a sudden in the snap of a finger, he changed. And he went from struggling to speak, being non cooperative, to an 'I’m at peace' type of thing. And that’s when I looked at him and said one more time, 'Who shot you?'
"He looked at me and he took a breath to get the words out, and he opened his mouth, and I thought I was actually going to get some cooperation. And then the words came out: 'F*** you.'
"After that, he started gurgling and slipping out of consciousness. At that point, an ambulance showed up, and he went into unconsciousness."
Carroll rode with him in the ambulance to the University Medical Centre of Southern Nevada, but said he never woke up.
However, in glaring opposition, Death Row Records boss Suge insisted Tupac was in fine fettle in hospital - so much so that he couldn't understand how the rapper could have deteriorated to such an extent.
"I mean, when I left that hospital, me and Pac were laughing and joking," he told documentary Who Shot Biggie & Tupac.
Hinting that Tupac could have pulled a fast one, he continued: "I don’t see how somebody can turn from doing well, to doing bad."
Asked if he thinks the rapper could still be alive, he replied, "I’m gonna tell you that with Pac, you never know."
Tupac's finacee Kidada Jones also the rapper woke up when she played Don McLean’s Vincent on a CD player next to his bed.
Describing how his eyes were swollen and filled with mucus, she told Vanity Fair she heard him moan and saw his eyes open.
“If you can hear me, move your feet," she told him before the sheets started rustling at the bottom of the bed.
“Do you know I love you? Do you know we all love you?” she said before he nodded.
