Considering that he has released more than a half-dozen posthumous albums and has performed in concert as a light projection, Tupac Shakur’s latest news is perhaps not all that surprising. But today, after the rapper’s much-talked-about holographic — or, rather, 2D-illusion — set on Sunday at Coachella, his fans have a hope that is even more alive than the rapper appeared to be (or is, according to the many conspiracy theories that have followed him since his death in 1996).
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The Wall Street Journal reported last night that, according to an unnamed source, there are already talks afoot for a tour that would star Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and the high-tech trick of the light. The tour is “likely,” but still unfinalized, and it might even pull in other big-name rap acts like Eminem and 50 Cent.
But before that can happen, there will have to be even more work than usually goes into a musical tour: according to the Journal’s interview with Ed Ulbrich, an executive at Digital Domain, the company that produced the Coachella illusion, the preparation for just two songs (“Hail Mary” and “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted”) took four months of work. It’s also expensive — in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range — but MTV reports that, according to the president of AV Concepts, the group that managed the projection aspects at Coachella, it’s cost effective compared to putting together live shows with artists in Tupac’s echelon.
(MORE: Tupac Shakur and Everything Else You Missed at Coachella This Weekend)
Reactions to the possibility have ranged from dubious (Jason Lipshutz at Billboard worries that the hologram may mean the end of truly live music) to calls for more (Thought Catalog’s Gaby Dunn has already compiled a list of other artists who could pull off the holographic zombie act). Either way, while it may be a bit more literal than what the rapper meant when he asked audiences to “picture” him rollin’, now, more than a decade after his death, all eyez are once again on him.