Tupac Shakur Video Director Seeking Funds for Rapper Biopic

Movie will feature actors as well as never-before-seen footage of the rapper

By Kory Grow

Rolling Stone, May 18, 2015 — A filmmaker who was with Tupac Shakur at the time he was shot is now seeking funds to make a movie about the rapper’s final week. Director Gobi M. Rahimi – who helmed the music videos for “I Ain’t Mad at Cha” and “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted,” among others – wants to raise $300,000 to prevent his movie, 7 Dayz, “from becoming another watered down Hollywood film,” according to the project’s IndieGogo page. The feature film will also incorporate rare, actual footage of the rapper.

Rahimi, who claims to have penned a letter for Shakur in which he fired Suge Knight, wrote on the website that since he bore witness to the rapper’s final days, he owed it to Tupac and the world to tell the story now, nearly two decades after the rapper’s death. The filmmaker sat sentry for the rapper, who was in a coma following the shooting, until his death. Producer Preston L. Holmes – who worked on Juice and Gridlock’d, both of which featured Tupac Shakur – will produce 7 Dayz.

“This isn’t a documentary,” he said in the video on the crowdfunding page. “It’s not a hologram and it’s not a repurposed album. This is my experience; my story. 7 Days is a narrative feature film about the week I sat security for Tupac in the hospital. The script incorporates never-before-seen footage of ‘Pac that I shot weeks before his demise.”

Funding rewards include everything from copies of the movie and a branded bandana to an 18-karat gold replica of the rapper’s “euphanasia” chain, the latter of which is going for $50,000. The campaign runs through July 2nd.

“One of the last things that Tupac said to me was, ‘In six months, no one is going to recognize me, ’cause I’m going to be done with all the bullshit,'” Rahimi tells Rolling Stone of a personal recollection of the rapper. “‘In fact, I may run for mayor of L.A. someday, ’cause it’s the politicians and the police force that are the biggest gangs in this country.'”

7 Dayz is a separate entity from the long-rumored Tupac Shakur biopic that director John Singleton just left. Filmmaker Carl Franklin is now helming that picture.