During 1996, while recording his second album, Wallace became ensnarled in the escalating East

Coast–West Coast hip hop feud. Following Tupac Shakur's murder in a drive-by shooting in Las
Vegas in September 1996, speculations of involvement in Shakur's murder by criminal elements
orbiting the Bad Boy circle circulated as a result of Wallace's public feud with Shakur. On March 9,
1997, six months after Shakur's murder, Wallace was murdered by an unidentified assailant in a
drive-by shooting while visiting Los Angeles. Wallace's second album Life After Death, a double
album, was released two weeks later. It reached number one on the Billboard 200, spawned two
singles that peaked on the Billboard Hot 100: "Hypnotize" and "Mo Money Mo Problems" (featuring
Puff Daddy and Mase), and eventually achieved a diamond certification in the United States.[5]

With two more posthumous albums released, Wallace has certified sales of over 28 million copies in
the United States,[6] including 21 million albums.[7] Rolling Stone has called him the "greatest rapper
that ever lived",[8] and Billboard named him the greatest rapper of all time in 2016.[9] The
Source magazine named him the greatest rapper of all time in its 150th issue. In 2006, MTV ranked
him at No. 3 on their list of The Greatest MCs of All Time, calling him possibly "the most skillful ever
on the mic".[10] In 2020, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.