It’s been possibly the biggest mystery in music, and the most famous death in a genre plagued by violence: who killed Tupac Shakur?
The iconic rapper was shot and killed in a drive-by back in 1996, but until now nobody has had anything to say about the identity of the shooters, including Death Row Records honcho Suge Knight, who was with the rapper on the night of his murder but has kept his mouth firmly shut on the topic.
It seems, however, that with Suge currently awaiting trial for his own accusations of murder, he’s let the cat out of the bag, pinning the murder on Death Row Records security chief Reggie White Jr and Suge’s ex-wife Sharitha, Music News reports.
The allegation was prompted by the release of a new documentary covering the incident, Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton, co-directed by Richard Bond and Michael Douglas Carlin. The former claims that he holds a signed affidavit from Thaddeus Culpepper, Knight’s criminal lawyer, stating that the story in the doco is an accurate account.
“When our book, Tupac: 187 The Red Knight, came out and we were working on the movie, we gave the salient points of the book to Thaddeus Culpepper, who read them to Suge Knight,” Music News quotes bond as saying. “Suge’s initial response was, ‘Who the hell are these guys?'”
Supposedly, Bond claims that Knight is ready to speak on Shakur’s murder in an effort to portray himself as a target of gang violence, something he alleges was the case during the vehicular hit-and-run he currently finds himself accused of.
Meanwhile, an undisclosed spokesperson for the film elaborates on the situation, touching on the aforementioned incident and strongly endorsing Knight’s own assertions of self-defense.
“Culpepper told Carlin individually that not only did Knight confirm the events as portrayed in Compton, which portray Knight was the intended target and Shakur as collateral damage, as true, but also goes on to allege that these 1996 events may have been the first in a history of attempts on Knight’s life, culminating in the recent attempted killing of Knight at the 1OAK Club in Los Angeles, where Knight was shot six times,” they state.
“When Knight was not being shot at, he has been the target of allegations that he was responsible for the shooting of Shakur rival Christopher ‘Biggie Smalls’ Wallace in 1997. In fact, even now Knight is held pending trial, where he stands accused of running over a man with his truck in what he contends to be yet another attempt on his life.”
“He admitted to Culpepper that the theories in the movie were true,” they add. “Bond had met with Knight’s private investigators, who were interested in how this information was collected, and Bond and Carlin stand by their insistence that Knight was a victim in Vegas, at One Oak and in the Compton incident Knight is currently pending trial for.
“The hope is Knight’s confirmation of the story laid out in Compton (the film) may put a final stamp to close this mystery, after 20 years.”
So, perhaps Suge has finally revealed Tupac’s true killer, or maybe he’s just using the film and its depiction of events in an effort to lesson his culpability when his own trial comes around, with the filmmakers going along for the ride (and subsequent publicity).
What we do know for sure is that the car that Tupac was killed in recently went on sale for $1.5m USD, demonstrating that people are nowhere near done profiting off the star’s untimely death.
