MUSIC MUCKRAKER

Reporter Who Probed Biggie and Tupac Murders Dies at 71

Chuck Philips won a slew of awards digging into the music business, but had an acrimonious breakup with the Los Angeles Times.

Chuck Philips, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who investigated the music business, including the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, has died at the age of 71, Variety reported. No cause of death was provided in the family’s death notice. A relentless digger, Philips won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award over the course of his Times career— and one of his former colleagues called him the “most fearless, tireless and honest reporter I met.” He wrote for the Times from 1989 to 2008, when he was pushed out over a blockbuster story on the Shakur case that included documents that were later revealed to be forgeries. Philips insisted the story was still factual and later demanded, unsuccessfully, that the newspaper retract its retraction of the report. “He always sought the truth,” his brother Dan Philips told Variety. “He always went after the real thing. He didn’t like bullshit.”