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LIVING DANGEROUSLY : Rap star Tupac Shakur is gunned down again—this time in Las Vegas Lh GOEENFIELOVErGMa Though Shakur renounced the “thug life” in 1995, violence caught up with the rapper and producer Knight (above left, in Las Vegas last January) near the Vegas Strip (rigtst). O ONE CAN SAY THAT TUPAC Shakur hasn't experienced firsthand the gangsta life he raps about. Two years ago, while awaiting the verdict and his eventual imprisonment on rape charges, he was beaten, robbed and shot five times outside a Manhattan recording studio. Shakur, now 25, sur- vived the attack—and even bragged about it on his latest album, this year’s All Eyez on Me (“‘five shots and they still couldn't kill me”). Last week in Las Vegas, after he attended a Mike Tyson fight, danger came calling again. At 11:15 p.m. on Sept. 7. Shakur and Marion “Suge” (pronounced Shoog) Knight, the head of Shakur's Death Row Records label, stopped for a light near the Strip while riding in Knight’s black BMW 750. A late-model! white Cadillac pulled up alongside them, and someone unleashed a hail of bullets into the passenger side of Knight's car before speeding away. The 31-year-old record executive suffered only minor injuries, but Shakur was severely wounded in his chest, pelvis and hands, He was taken to Las Vegas's University Medical Center, where doctors performed three emergency surgeries to repair internal tajuries and to remove his right lung. Four days later, Shakur was sll bleeding internally as doctors searched frantically for the source. At midweek he remained in critical condition, and his prognosis was guarded. But there was no doubt about the support the singer, whose Ail Eyez has sold more than 5 million copies, was receiving from other black celebrities, his family and friends. In 922/96 PEOPLE TO X66A-LA- Qos $07 ~-'/4F SEARCHED INDEXED SERIALIZED "SE FILED NOV - 5 1996 Fel. nla