A PLAQUE celebrating iconic rapper Tupac Shakur has appeared on a park bench.
The memorial to the LA hip-hop artist has appeared on the bench in Monk’s Rec, Lancing.
Dedicated superfans Neil Whitemore and Graham Staines, who previously demanded that the council install the plaque, have denied putting it there themselves.
Lancing Parish Council said the plaque would be removed.
Either way, Neil and Graham say they are “enormously proud”.
Graham said: “I would like to think that 2pac is looking down at us right now from thug heaven.
“It’s brought people together, like the hip-hop community and the people who like benches.
“Though some have said the link is tenuous, Pac’s killer was never found, so he or she could easily have been from Lancing.”
It comes after a bench in honour of fellow rap star Eazy-E was installed in Newhaven, following a £1,500 fundraising campaign.
Neil and Graham are now calling for a statue of another rapper –Ghostface Killah – to be erected in the car park of Asda.
They also want Worthing Pier to be renamed “Wu-Tang” Pier – a reference to New York rap group the Wu-Tang Clan.
Underneath the plaque are the words “F*** you, Newhaven”.
Graham said: “Hopefully it will set a benchmark for the ambitious plans to overhaul and improve Monks Rec as a whole.
“There’s a trend across Sussex for benches memorialising spiritual figures of the community such as Biggie Smalls and Nate Dogg.
“Sadly some jokers are jumping on the bandwagon, campaigning for irrelevant tributes in backwater areas such as Hangleton or Southwick.”
Tupac is considered one of the genre’s all-time greatest artists.
He was convicted of first-degree sexual abuse in 1994 and spent nine months in prison.
He was murdered in 1996, aged 25, amid the notorious East Coast/West Coast hip hop rivalry.
A Lancing Parish Council spokeswoman said: “This will be getting removed today, there is no permission for it.
“If an official plaque was to be put up, it would need permission and an official request has not been made.
“Even if it could be corroborated that he had a real link to Lancing, his misdemeanours make it unlikely that it would be granted.”
The spokeswoman, who conducted a Google search into Tupac, said the parish council was not particularly impressed with his music.
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