Tupac Shakur was resurrected at the Coachella Music Festival in California.
The late rapper, slain in a hail of bullets in 1996, seemingly returned to life Sunday night to perform alongside fellow hip-hop icons Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.
While the shirtless Tupac, dressed in jeans and Timberland boots, might have looked real to the 100,000 stunned music fans, it was actually a hologram.
Dre, who also produced the performance, tapped a company called AV Concepts to pull off the concert stunt, which is estimated to have cost nearly $400,000.
But first he sought — and got — permission from Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, who watched the performance live on the Internet,
The performance had fans abuzz.
“It was eerily realistic,” says Jessie Goldberg, a 25-year-old New Yorker who works for GoTryItOn.com, a photo fashion site, who was at the concert.
“The screens had Tupac performing, which made you think it was an old performance. But then you actually saw the hologram on stage with Snoop, who was performing with him.”
On Twitter, one fan wrote: “Was completely freaked out by the Tupac hologram and I’m fairly certain I was one of five people out of 100,000 not on drugs.”
The faux Tupac, whose murder at age 25 remains unsolved, performed two of his hits, “Hail Mary” and “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted.”
He even addressed the crowd.
“What the f— is up, Coachella?” the rapper asked upon taking the stage.
Having previously created concert holograms for Janet Jackson, Celine Dion and the Black Eyed Peas, AV Concepts took Dr. Dre’s visualization of Tupac and made it a reality.
“Dre’s company produced the content with their partners and we consulted with them on how to create it for this technology,” says Nick Smith, president and original founder of AV Concepts.
“It’s basically an old theatrical trick that utilizes a glass-like surface made out of a Mylar material. Think of it as a large giant plastic sheet that has to be stretched out the length of the stage.”
Unbeknownst to audience members, the 30-foot-by-13-foot screen descended to the stage mere seconds before Snoop’s set. A high-definition 3-D holographic projection system then simultaneously blasted three stacked 54,000-lumen images of Tupac on the see-through screen. (For reference, a 75-watt incandescent light bulb emits 1,100 lumens.)
The late rapper, slain in a hail of bullets in 1996, seemingly returned to life Sunday night to perform alongside fellow hip-hop icons Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.
While the shirtless Tupac, dressed in jeans and Timberland boots, might have looked real to the 100,000 stunned music fans, it was actually a hologram.
Dre, who also produced the performance, tapped a company called AV Concepts to pull off the concert stunt, which is estimated to have cost nearly $400,000.
But first he sought — and got — permission from Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, who watched the performance live on the Internet,
The performance had fans abuzz.
“It was eerily realistic,” says Jessie Goldberg, a 25-year-old New Yorker who works for GoTryItOn.com, a photo fashion site, who was at the concert.
“The screens had Tupac performing, which made you think it was an old performance. But then you actually saw the hologram on stage with Snoop, who was performing with him.”
On Twitter, one fan wrote: “Was completely freaked out by the Tupac hologram and I’m fairly certain I was one of five people out of 100,000 not on drugs.”
The faux Tupac, whose murder at age 25 remains unsolved, performed two of his hits, “Hail Mary” and “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted.”
He even addressed the crowd.
“What the f— is up, Coachella?” the rapper asked upon taking the stage.
Having previously created concert holograms for Janet Jackson, Celine Dion and the Black Eyed Peas, AV Concepts took Dr. Dre’s visualization of Tupac and made it a reality.
“Dre’s company produced the content with their partners and we consulted with them on how to create it for this technology,” says Nick Smith, president and original founder of AV Concepts.
“It’s basically an old theatrical trick that utilizes a glass-like surface made out of a Mylar material. Think of it as a large giant plastic sheet that has to be stretched out the length of the stage.”
Unbeknownst to audience members, the 30-foot-by-13-foot screen descended to the stage mere seconds before Snoop’s set. A high-definition 3-D holographic projection system then simultaneously blasted three stacked 54,000-lumen images of Tupac on the see-through screen. (For reference, a 75-watt incandescent light bulb emits 1,100 lumens.)
