"Everybody's at war with different things...I'm at war with my own heart sometimes."
Shakur began his career as a roadie, backup dancer and MC for the alternative hip hop group Digital Underground, eventually branching off as a solo artist .
Shakur was also an actor, starring in six films and one TV show in the 1990s.
On September 7, 1996, Shakur was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was taken to University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, by Suge Knight; he died from his injuries six days later. He was 25 years old.
What happened?
Tupac Shakur attended the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson boxing match with Suge Knight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
After leaving the match, one of Knight's associates spotted Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, a Crips gang member, in the MGM Grand lobby.
Earlier that year, Anderson and a group of Crips had robbed a member of Death Row's entourage in a Foot Locker store.
Knight's associate told Shakur.
Shakur asked Anderson if he was from the South and punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground.
Shakur's entourage, as well as Knight and his followers, assisted in assaulting Anderson.
It was broken up by hotel security.
After the brawl, Shakur went with Knight to the club that he owned, Club 662.
At 11:05 p.m. Shakur and Knight were halted on Las Vegas Boulevard by officers from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Bike Patrol for playing the car stereo too loudly and not having license plates.
The plates were found in the trunk of Knight's car.
The party was released a few minutes later without being cited.
At 11:10 p.m., they were stopped at a red light at the intersection of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in front of the Maxim Hotel, a vehicle with two women pulled up on their left side.
Shakur, who was talking through the window of his BMW sedan, exchanged words with the two women, and invited them to go to Club 662.
At 11:15 p.m., a white, four-door, late-model pulled up to the sedan's right side, rolled down a window, and rapidly fired gunshots at Shakur.
He was hit four times, twice in the chest, once in the arm, once in the thigh.
One of the bullets went into Shakur's right lung.
Bodyguard Frank Alexander stated that when he was about to ride along with Shakur in Knight's car, Shakur asked him to drive Jones's car instead.
Yaki Kadafi was riding in the car behind Shakur with bodyguards at the time of the shooting, and along with members of the Death Row entourage, refused to cooperate with officers.
Despite the vehicle having a flat tire, Knight's was able to drive Shakur and himself a mile from the site, to Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue.
They were pulled over by the Bike Patrol, who alerted paramedics through radio.
Police and paramedics took Knight and Shakur to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada.
They were pulled over just steps away from the MGM Grand.
Gobi Rahimi, while at the hospital, received news from a Death Row marketing employee that the shooters had called the record label and threatened Shakur.
Gobi told the Las Vegas police, but said they claimed to be understaffed.
Shakur said he was dying while being carried into the emergency department.
Shakur was heavily sedated, placed on life support machines, and was ultimately put under a barbiturate-induced coma after repeatedly trying to get out of bed.
He was visited by Jones and regained consciousness when she played Don McLean's "Vincent" on the CD player.
Shakur moaned and his eyes were filled with "mucus and swollen." Jones told Shakur that she loved him.
Knight did not speak until September 11.
He told officers he "heard something, but saw nothing" the night of the shooting.
Sergeant Kevin Manning said during the week that officers did not receive "a whole lot of cooperation" from Shakur's entourage.
Rahimi and members of Shakur's group Outlawz guarded Shakur.
While in the critical care unit, on the afternoon of Friday, September 13, 1996, Shakur died of respiratory failure that led to cardiac arrest after the removal of his right lung.
Doctors supposedly attempted to revive him, but could not stop the hemorrhaging.
He was pronounced dead at 4:03 pm
Later
Kadafi was involved in a scuffle with officers two days following the shooting.
They pulled over a motorist he was acquainted with and he protested.
Kadafi left Las Vegas days after Shakur's death.
He traveled to Atlanta and Los Angeles before settling in New Jersey, where his relatives lived.
Compton investigators assembled mug shots of several gang members, which included Anderson, and hand delivered them to Las Vegas.
Manning said detectives called Kadafi's lawyer to set up a meeting with the rapper.
The calls were not returned.
Officers did not try to locate Kadafi, who was fatally shot in a housing project in Irvington, New Jersey in November 1996.
Despite the two having observed the shooting and having seen the men in the car from which the shots were fired, Mean and Alexander told the Los Angeles Times in early 1997 that they had never been asked by the Las Vegas police to view photos of possible suspects in the case.
In an interview with Alexander conducted by Las Vegas Metro Police on March 19, 1997, he was shown a series of eight photo lineups, but was unable to identify any suspects from them.
E.D.I. Mean claimed to have seen all four men in the vehicle, while Alexander reported seeing the face of the suspect who shot Shakur.
Alexander said that he only saw the occupants of the shooter's car in "more of a profile."
Las Vegas police disputed the pair's account of what they had reported to the officers the night of the shooting.
The rapper, The Notorious B.I.G., denied playing a role in the murder.
His family produced computerized invoices suggesting that Wallace was recording a song in a New York City recording studio the night Shakur was shot.
Wallace's manager, Wayne Barrow, and rapper Lil' Cease publicly denied that Wallace had a role in the crime and said they were with him in the studio the night of the shooting.
Six months later, B.I.G. was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting by an unknown assailant on March 9, 1997, and died at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
One year after the shooting, Sgt. Kevin Manning, who headed the investigation, said that Shakur's murder "may never be solved".
He said, as few new clues came in and witnesses clammed up.
E.D.I. Mean, a member of Outlawz, said he was positive law enforcement knew "what happened" and added, "This is America. We found bin Laden."
In 2002, A two-part story by Chuck Philips, titled "Who Killed Tupac Shakur?" based on a year-long investigation.
He reported that "the shooting was carried out by a Compton gang called the Southside Crips to avenge the beating of one of its members by Shakur a few hours earlier. "
Orlando Anderson, the Crip whom Shakur had attacked, fired the fatal shots.
Las Vegas police considered Anderson as a suspect and interviewed him only once, briefly.
Anderson was killed nearly two years later in an unrelated gang shooting.
His article also implicated East Coast rappers, including The Notorious B.I.G.
The second article in Philips' series assessed the murder investigation.
His article stated that missteps of the Vegas police were .....
Discounting the fight that occurred just hours before the shooting.
Failing to follow up with a member of Shakur's entourage who witnessed the shooting.
The entourage member had told Vegas police he could probably identify one or more of the assailants, but was killed before being interviewed.
Failing to follow up a lead from a witness who spotted a white Cadillac similar to the car from which the fatal shots were fired and in which the shooters escaped.
Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reported in 2011 that the FBI released documents revealing its investigation of the Jewish Defense League for extorting protection money from Shakur and other rappers after making death threats against them.
In 2014, a police officer claimed he witnessed Shakur's last moments said Shakur refused to state who shot him.
When the officer asked Tupac if he saw the person or people who shot him, Shakur responded by saying, "Fuck you" to the officer as his last words.
In 2017, Knight claimed he might have been the target of the attack that killed Shakur, arguing that it was a hit on him as a staged coup to seize control of Death Row Records.
This year, 2018, 22 years later, Orlando Anderson’s Uncle Duane “Keefe D” Davis, confessed that he was directly involved in the Murder of Tupac Shakur.
He wouldn’t say who shot him from the back of the Cadilliac.
Years earlier in a tape sting from the DEA, he stated that Orlando pulled the trigger.
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