After 27 years, it seems that the unsolved murder of Tupac Shakur may finally draw to a close. It’s crazy to think that after all this time, this whole thing can be put to rest. But why did it take so long?
I can tell you what I remember where I was at the time of this happening. I was in fifth grade, so I was about 10 years old. Even at that age, because I was exposed to hip-hop early, I remember that Tupac was at the height of his career. Now granted, I didn’t pay too much attention to what had happened at the time like his beef with Biggie, as well as the controversy surrounding Death Row’s working environment. But I remembered that “All Eyez on Me” was a hot seller and many singles came from that album when it was released in early 1996.
Of course, a lot of people know what happened. He went to Las Vegas for a Mike Tyson fight and he, along with Marion “Suge” Knight (the owner of Death Row Records; pronounced “shug”), were riding along the street and then shots were fired. It wasn’t until much later, like in my teens, when I found out more details of what led up to it. I had watched documentaries like “Tupac: Resurrection” and “Welcome to Death Row.” It had been a long time since I had last watched them, but I recall there was a lot covered in them. One thing that I learned when I was in my teens was that Orlando Anderson, a Crip from LA, had gotten into a fight with Suge and some of his entourage in a casino while Tupac walked away from the chaos as shown in security footage at the time. Then when Suge and Pac left the hotel, that’s when it all went down when they stopped at a red light and a car pulled up beside them and then someone opened fire on them.
For nearly 30 years, there had been a lot of theories surrounding the unsolved murder. Many have speculated that Suge Knight had Tupac killed. Some speculated it was someone connected to Orlando Anderson. Okay, let me get into that for a bit. I mentioned that Anderson was a Crip. Suge and some of his boys were Bloods. In fact, back then, it was well known that Death Row had a lot of people with gang affiliations working for them. Sure, I could talk about some of their talent like Snoop Dogg, Kurupt, Daz Dillinger, Nate Dogg (RIP), and others in that crew because they were affiliated with the Crips. However, it wasn’t just talent, as Suge had some guys who were Bloods working as security as well as working other jobs for the label. Given Suge’s reputation, he probably got into some stuff with some Crips which caused them to follow Suge and his crew to Vegas. According to an article from National Public Radio, Anderson was a suspect in the case but was then killed in a gang-related shootout in 1998.
Another speculation was that Sean “P. Diddy” Combs (who was called “Puffy” or “Puff Daddy” at that time) had something to do with it. Tupac was in a widely-known feud at the time with The Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls), who was signed to Combs’s record label, Bad Boy Records. In fact, Tupac had done the well-known diss track, “Hit ’em Up” with his crew, The Outlawz, at that time where he boasted about sleeping with Biggie’s wife and R&B singer, Faith Evans, along with dissing others connected to him like Junior M.A.F.I.A., among others. Their feud was the result of a shooting that took place in a recording studio in New York in late 1994 when Biggie was recording music and Tupac, who was Biggie’s friend at the time, went there to meet up with him but was then cornered, robbed, and then shot by some people, according to an NPR article. Pac thought Biggie had set him up.
So now after such a long time, an arrest warrant was issued by the LVPD to search a home in Henderson, Nevada, according to an article from the Las Vegas Review Journal. In fact, this article really touches on a lot of details related to the murder.
So where do I stand with this? Personally, I would hope that this would draw to a close after nearly three decades. I had watched videos from vladtv and The Art of Dialogue that talked about this subject. One thing that stood out from a Vlad video was one guy implying he knew more but wasn’t going to say who the shooter was. Many murders have gone unsolved and have taken a long time to finally solve them. Hence why they are called “cold cases.” While the investigation may take a long time, give it weeks or months, I just hope that not only does the case end but also that Biggie’s murder could finally be resolved. I remember when I watched the “Biggie and Tupac” documentary that there was a lot of speculation that it was a couple of crooked LAPD cops who were connected with Death Row who had something to do with it but to this day, it is still unsolved.
After 27 years, it’s finally time to put it to rest. It may have taken a long time but at least we are finally getting somewhere.
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