By Joseph Etsevi
Nearly three decades after the fatal drive-by shooting of hip-hop iconic rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur, alleged suspect and orchestrator, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips, is set to face trial over the September 7, 1996, killing of the 25-year-old legendary rapper.
Davis, 63, has been accused by prosecutors of orchestrating the attack and providing the firearm used in the drive-by shooting that claimed Shakur’s life. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Shakur, widely known as 2Pac, was shot while riding in a BMW driven by Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight after the pair had attended a Mike Tyson boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
According to prosecutors, the shooting was an act of revenge. Earlier that night, Shakur and Knight were involved in a physical confrontation with Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a member of the South Side Compton Crips and Davis’s nephew. The confrontation reportedly followed an earlier dispute involving a Death Row associate. Later that night, prosecutors allege, a white Cadillac carrying Davis, Anderson and others pulled alongside Shakur’s vehicle. Gunmen inside the Cadillac opened fire, striking Shakur multiple times.
The rapper died six days later, on September 13, 1996.
For years, the investigation failed to produce an arrest, turning Shakur’s murder into one of America’s most famous unsolved celebrity killings.
The case took a dramatic turn following the publication of Davis’s memoir in 2019. In the book, Davis acknowledged that he was sitting in the front of the Cadillac on the night of the shooting and said he handed a firearm to people in the back seat. He did not identify the person who allegedly fired at Shakur. Those statements, prosecutors argue, helped breathe new life into the investigation.
Davis was eventually arrested in September 2023, more than 27 years after Shakur was killed. He has since rejected the prosecution’s account and pleaded not guilty.
In a 2025 interview from prison, Davis maintained that he was innocent and argued that investigators had no evidence directly connecting him to the murder. He also claimed that although he provided information about his life to his memoir’s co-author, the published account was largely developed by the writer and that he had never properly read the finished book. His defence lawyers unsuccessfully sought to prevent prosecutors from introducing the memoir and statements Davis made to police in 2008 as evidence.
Beyond the courtroom, the trial is expected to revisit one of the most bitter rivalries in American music history.
At the centre was the rivalry between Los Angeles Death Row Records and New York Bad Boy Records as Shakur became the face of the West Coast side of the feud, while The Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace, emerged as one of the leading figures associated with the East Coast.
Wallace himself was murdered in Los Angeles in March 1997, only months after Shakur’s death. The killings helped transform the rivalry from a music industry dispute into one of hip-hop’s most enduring mysteries.
Now, 30 years after Shakur’s death, prosecutors will attempt to convince a jury that Davis played a decisive role in setting the murder in motion, even if they cannot establish that he personally fired the fatal shots. The trial begins with jury selection, which is expected to take about a week, while the full proceedings could last roughly a month. Whatever the outcome, the case is unlikely to close every chapter of the Tupac mystery.
In May, Shakur’s stepbrother, Maurice Shakur, filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that other people involved in the rapper’s killing have still not been held accountable.
Three decades after the gunshots rang out in Las Vegas, the courtroom will now attempt to separate the evidence from the mythology that has surrounded Tupac Amaru Shakur’s death for generations.
