Yesterday in Las Vegas, the same city where he passed away almost 10 years ago, a clay sculpture of Tupac Shakur was unveiled at the famous wax museum chain Madame Tussauds. The $200,000 sculpture stands not far from where the rapper was gunned down in 1996. His murder remains unsolved.

An interview with the artist, Jeni Fairey, appears here.

The details are flawless down to the recreation of every tattoo. After 700 hours of labor, the sculpture may go on a world tour to galleries in New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London. Then it will be exhibited at the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts (TASCA) in Atlanta for a full month.

On a personal level, since age 14, Tupac inspired my past music more than any other artist. Like many others like me, I found his passion contagious and his music motivating. The mark he left on hip-hop music, now the mainstream music of choice, will be felt so far and deep into the future, his legacy may be compared to the likes of Elvis and The Beatles. Rightly so.