Chuck Philips to unveil new rap story on Twitter

Chuck Philips is the former LA Times staff writer who left the paper shortly after editors fully retracted his 2008 story naming names in the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. He has continued to pursue the case and to say the Times was wrong to retract the story. On Thursday, he says, he will unveil "an exclusive 1200-word news scoop" entirely via 140-character tweets on Twitter. The entire story will then be posted, with official documents, on his new website to launch that day: chuckphilipspost.com. Says Philips:

The article will focus on pop wunderkind Sean Combs (who has recently started referring to himself as Ciroc Obama) and the passing of his old Harlem drug dealing buddy, Eric “Von Zip” Martin. Zip’s death sparked a solemn funeral procession (led by a horse-drawn carriage carrying his ornate casket) through the streets of Harlem. A crowd of rappers, including Lil Kim and Cameron, showed up for Zip’s wake, as did Combs.

Zip is the guy police say hooked Combs up with the Compton Southside Crips, the gang that provided security for his Bad Boy Entertainment during the so-called East Coast/West Coast rap war with Suge Knight’s Death Row Records. The Crips shot 2Pac in Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1996. He died six days later.

Chuck tweets as @chuckphilips