It is a crime that has remained unsolved for almost thirty years. A suspect has been charged with the 1996 murder of rap legend Tupac Shakur, a prosecutor announced to a Las Vegas judge on Friday (September 29).
The man arrested is Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former gang member who has long admitted that he was in the car from which the shots were fired that caused the death of the American rapper. In a book published in 2019, however, he assured that the shots had been fired from the rear of the vehicle while he was in the front.
According to the new elements of the investigation, which experienced a sudden boost this summer, there is a “strong presumption” that Mr. Davis is “responsible for the murder of Tupac Shakur”, explained prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo.
Search of a Las Vegas house
After nearly thirty years of mystery, the case returned to the forefront in July, with a search of a Las Vegas house linked to Duane Davis. Police in this Nevada metropolis are scheduled to give a press conference at 12:30 p.m. (10 p.m. in Paris) to provide more details.
Hip-hop legend, Tupac had become an essential artist on the American west coast after a career as brief as it was dazzling, before being shot dead in September 1996 in Las Vegas, in circumstances which remain unclear. He was 25 years old. The rapper, behind the hits “California,” “Changes,” “Dear Mama” and “All Eyez On Me,” has sold 75 million albums. Tupac had become a key figure in the famous rivalry between the west coast and east coast rap scenes of the United States.
Although a New York native, he epitomized “West Coast” hip-hop after moving to California as a teenager with his family. His murder was followed six months later by that of his East Coast rival, Christopher “The Notorious BIG” Wallace. Many link their deaths to the rivalry between their labels Death Row, based in Los Angeles, and Bad Boy Entertainment, based in New York, but music historians say that this opposition was amplified for commercial reasons.
