ELS; MBN360 Entertainment
Mopreme Shakur, the stepbrother of late hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, says no court verdict can undo the pain caused by the rapper’s death, as the long-awaited trial over his 1996 killing gets under way in Las Vegas.
In an interview with the BBC’s Shaimaa Khalil ahead of opening statements in the trial, Mopreme reflected on the night he learned that his younger brother had been shot and the decades of grief that followed.
“I got a call in the middle of the night, personally, but the story was wrong,” he recalled. “I thought Pac might have shot someone else. I was just worried how bad it was.”
Mopreme said he did not know the full extent of Tupac’s condition until he travelled to Las Vegas.
“I didn’t know the status of things until I reached Vegas,” he said.
Tupac, whose real name was Tupac Amaru Shakur, was just 25 when he was fatally shot in a drive-by attack in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996.
He was travelling in a BMW driven by Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight when another vehicle pulled alongside them and opened fire. Tupac was struck several times and died six days later, on September 13, 1996, from his injuries.
The killing became one of the most enduring mysteries in music history and remained unsolved for almost three decades.
‘I want my little brother back’
Mopreme said his family had lived with the pain of Tupac’s death for years and that, ultimately, what he wanted most was impossible to recover.
“The justice I would like, I would never get. I want my brother back. Period. Dot. I want my little brother back,” he said.
The comments came as Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former gang leader, faces trial in Las Vegas over Tupac’s killing.
Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty to murder. Prosecutors allege that he helped organise the attack after an altercation involving his nephew, Orlando Anderson, and Tupac and members of his entourage earlier that night.
Davis has acknowledged being in the vehicle involved in the shooting but has denied being the person who fired the fatal shots. Prosecutors allege that he supplied the gun used in the attack and played a leading role in the events that led to Tupac’s death.
He was arrested in September 2023 after Las Vegas police revived the investigation and executed a search warrant in connection with the case. His own public statements and a 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend, have become part of the prosecution’s case.
Read also:
- President Hichilema re-elected for second term in Zambia
- Doctors remove 3.1kg stone from man’s bladder
- Eight years on, Kofi Annan’s legacy of peace and goodness endures
- Minority Questions BoG role in GOLDBOD Transactions & Demands Accountability
- ‘Your turn will come’: Afenyo-Markin warns GoldBod executives over scarier future bail conditions
The trial is expected to last several weeks and could include testimony from people who were close to Tupac at the time of his death.
A career cut short
Mopreme described Tupac as one of the great talents of his generation, saying his work ethic and determination had already begun to set him apart before his death.
“Pac was one of the great ones. We lost him at the age of 25,” he said.
“He got to show the world his talent, and they’re really going to miss his talent.”
Tupac emerged from the hip-hop scene in the early 1990s and became one of its most influential figures. His music often addressed poverty, racism, violence, inequality, relationships and life in disadvantaged communities.
Albums including Me Against the World and All Eyez on Me helped establish him as both a commercially successful rapper and a powerful cultural voice.
His influence has continued long after his death, with his music, poetry and public image remaining central to conversations about hip-hop and American popular culture.
‘There has been a breakthrough’
For Mopreme, the arrest of Davis in 2023 represented an important development after years in which the case appeared to have stalled.
“There has been a breakthrough in that case that was cold for years,” he said.
But he remained cautious about what the trial might ultimately deliver.
Asked what resolution he hoped for, Mopreme indicated that the process was only beginning and that his family would have to wait for the evidence to emerge in court.
The trial comes nearly 30 years after Tupac’s death and represents one of the most significant developments in the investigation into the rapper’s killing.
For Mopreme, however, the case remains deeply personal.
The courtroom may finally provide answers to some of the questions surrounding Tupac’s death, but, as he put it, no verdict can give him back the younger brother he lost.
