Shooting of Shakur

November 1994

On November 30, 1994, while in New York, Tupac was recording verses for a mixtape of Ron G.[121] Tupac was repeatedly distracted by his beeper.[121] It was music manager James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond, reportedly offering $7,000 for Tupac to stop by Quad Studios, in Times Square, that night to record a verse for his client Little Shawn.[77][121] Tupac was leery, but needing cash to offset steepening legal costs, took the gig. Tupac arrived with Stretch and one or two others. In the lobby, three men robbed and beat him at gunpoint; Tupac resisted and was shot.[62][125] Shakur speculated that the shooting had been a set-up.[62][125][126]

Three hours after surgery, against doctor's advice, Shakur checked out of Bellevue Hospital Center. The next day, in a Manhattan courtroom bandaged in a wheelchair, he received the jury's verdict in his ongoing criminal trial for a November 1993 sexual assault in his hotel room. Convicted of three counts of sexual assault, he was acquitted of six other charges, including sodomy and gun charges.[127]

In a 1995 interview with Vibe magazine, Shakur accused Sean Combs,[128] Jimmy Henchman,[125] and Biggie, among others, of setting up or being privy to the November 1994 robbery and shooting. Vibe alerted the names of the accused.[129]

In March 2008, Chuck Philips, in the Los Angeles Times, reported on the 1994 ambush and shooting.[130] The newspaper later retracted the article since it relied partially on FBI documents later discovered forged, supplied by a man convicted of fraud.[131] In June 2011, convicted murderer Dexter Isaac, incarcerated in Brookyn, issued a confession that he had been one of the gunmen who had robbed and shot Shakur at Henchman's order.[132][133][134] Philips then named Isaac as one of his own, retracted article's unnamed sources.[135]

Death Row signs Shakur

During 1995, imprisoned, impoverished, and his mother about to lose her house, Tupac had his wife Keisha Morris get word to Marion "Suge" Knight, in Los Angeles, boss of Death Row Records.[77] Reportedly, Tupac's mother promptly received $15,000.[77] After an August visit to Clinton Correctional Facility in northern New York state, Suge traveled southward to New York City to join Death Row's entourage to the 2nd Annual Source Awards ceremony.[77] Already reputed for strongarm tactics on the Los Angeles rap scene, Suge used his brief stage time mainly to belittle Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, boss of Bad Boy Entertainment, the label then leading New York rap scene, who routinely performed with his own artists.[118][136] Before closing with a brief comment of support for Tupac,[137] Suge invited artists seeking the spotlight for themselves to join Death Row.[118][136] Eventually, Puff recalled that to preempt severe retaliation from his Bad Boy orbit, he had promptly confronted Suge, whose reply – that he had meant Jermaine Dupri, of So So Def Recordings, in Atlanta – was politic enough to deescalate the conflict.[138]

Still, among the fans, the previously diffuse rivalry between America's two mainstream rap scenes had instantly flared already.[118][137][136] And while in New York, Suge visited Uptown Records, where Puff, under its founder Andre Harrell, had started in the music business through an internship.[139] Apparently without paying Uptown, Suge obtained the releases of Puff's prime Uptown recruits Jodeci, its producer DeVante Swing, and Mary J. Blige, all then signing with Suge's management company.[139] On September 24, 1995, at a party for Dupri in Atlanta at the Platinum House nightclub, a Bad Boy circle entered a heated dispute with Suge and Suge's friend Jai Hassan-Jamal "Big Jake" Robles, a Bloods gang member and Death Row bodyguard.[118][140] According to eyewitnesses, including a Fulton County sheriff, working there as a nightclub bouncer, Puff had heatedly disputed with Suge inside the club,[118] whereas several minutes later, outside the club, it was Puff's childhood friend and own bodyguard, Anthony "Wolf" Jones, who had aimed a gun at Big Jake, fatally shot while entering Suge's car.[118][141][142]

The attorneys of Puff and his bodyguard both denied any involvement by their clients, while Puff's added that Puff had not even been with his bodyguard that night.[143] Over 20 years later, the case remains officially unresolved. Yet immediately and persistently, Suge blamed Puff, cementing the enmity between the two bosses, whose two record labels dominated the rap genre's two mainstream centers.[118][144] In the late 1990s, Southern rap's growth into the mainstream would dispel the East–West paradigm.[137] But in the meantime, in October 1995, violating his probation, Suge visited Tupac in prison again.[118] Suge posted $1.4 million bond. And with appeal of his December 1994 conviction pending, Shakur returned to Los Angeles and joined Death Row.[118] On June 4, 1996, it released the 2Pac B side "Hit 'Em Up." In this venonmous tirade, the proclaimed "Bad Boy killer" threatens violent payback on all things Bad Boy—Biggie, Puffy, Junior M.A.F.I.A., the company—and on any in New York's rap scene, like rap duo Mobb Deep and obscure rapper Chino XL, who allegedly had commented against Shakur about the dispute.

Death

Main article: Murder of Tupac Shakur

East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane, where the murder occurred

On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur was in Las Vegas, Nevada, to celebrate his business partner Tracy Danielle Robinson's birthday[145] and attended the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson boxing match with Suge Knight at the MGM Grand. Afterward in the lobby, someone in their group spotted Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, an alleged Southside Compton Crip, whom the individual accused of having recently in a shopping mall tried to snatch his neck chain with a Death Row Records medallion. The hotel's surveillance footage shows the ensuing assault on Anderson. Shakur soon stopped by his hotel room and then headed with Knight to his Death Row nightclub, Club 662, in a black BMW 750iL sedan, part of a larger convoy.[146]

At about 11 pm on Las Vegas Boulevard, bicycle-mounted police stopped the car for its loud music and lack of license plates. The plates were found in the trunk and the car was released without a ticket.[147] At about 11:15 pm at a stop light, a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac sedan pulled up to the passenger side and an occupant rapidly fired into the car. Shakur was struck four times: once in the arm, once in the thigh, and twice in the chest[148] with one bullet entering his right lung.[149] Shards hit Knight's head. Frank Alexander, Shakur's bodyguard, was not in the car at the time. He would say he had been tasked to drive the car of Shakur's girlfriend, Kidada Jones.[150]

Shakur was taken to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada where he was heavily sedated and put on life support.[9] In the intensive-care unit on the afternoon of September 13, 1996, Shakur died from internal bleeding.[9] He was pronounced dead at 4:03 pm.[9] The official causes of death are respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest associated with multiple gunshot wounds.[9] Shakur's body was cremated the next day. Members of the Outlawz, recalling a line in his song "Black Jesus," (although uncertain of the artist's attempt at a literal meaning chose to interpret the request seriously) smoked some of his body's ashes after mixing them with marijuana.[151][152]

In 2002, investigative journalist Chuck Philips,[153][154] after a year of work, reported in the Los Angeles Times that Anderson, a Southside Compton Crip, having been attacked by Suge and Shakur's entourage at the MGM Hotel after the boxing match, had fired the fatal gunshots, but that Las Vegas police had interviewed him only once, briefly, before his death in an unrelated shooting. Philips's 2002 article also alleges the involvement of Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace and several within New York City's criminal underworld. Both Anderson and Wallace denied involvement, while Wallace offered a confirmed alibi.[155] Music journalist John Leland, in the New York Times, called the evidence "inconclusive."[156]

In 2011, via the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI released documents related to its investigation which described an extortion scheme by the Jewish Defense League that included making death threats against Shakur and other rappers, but did not indicate a direct connection to his murder.[157][158]

November 1994

On November 30, 1994, while in New York, Tupac was recording verses for a mixtape of Ron G.[121] Tupac was repeatedly distracted by his beeper.[121] It was music manager James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond, reportedly offering $7,000 for Tupac to stop by Quad Studios, in Times Square, that night to record a verse for his client Little Shawn.[77][121] Tupac was leery, but needing cash to offset steepening legal costs, took the gig. Tupac arrived with Stretch and one or two others. In the lobby, three men robbed and beat him at gunpoint; Tupac resisted and was shot.[62][125] Shakur speculated that the shooting had been a set-up.[62][125][126]

Three hours after surgery, against doctor's advice, Shakur checked out of Bellevue Hospital Center. The next day, in a Manhattan courtroom bandaged in a wheelchair, he received the jury's verdict in his ongoing criminal trial for a November 1993 sexual assault in his hotel room. Convicted of three counts of sexual assault, he was acquitted of six other charges, including sodomy and gun charges.[127]

In a 1995 interview with Vibe magazine, Shakur accused Sean Combs,[128] Jimmy Henchman,[125] and Biggie, among others, of setting up or being privy to the November 1994 robbery and shooting. Vibe alerted the names of the accused.[129]

In March 2008, Chuck Philips, in the Los Angeles Times, reported on the 1994 ambush and shooting.[130] The newspaper later retracted the article since it relied partially on FBI documents later discovered forged, supplied by a man convicted of fraud.[131] In June 2011, convicted murderer Dexter Isaac, incarcerated in Brookyn, issued a confession that he had been one of the gunmen who had robbed and shot Shakur at Henchman's order.[132][133][134] Philips then named Isaac as one of his own, retracted article's unnamed sources.[135]

Death Row signs Shakur

During 1995, imprisoned, impoverished, and his mother about to lose her house, Tupac had his wife Keisha Morris get word to Marion "Suge" Knight, in Los Angeles, boss of Death Row Records.[77] Reportedly, Tupac's mother promptly received $15,000.[77] After an August visit to Clinton Correctional Facility in northern New York state, Suge traveled southward to New York City to join Death Row's entourage to the 2nd Annual Source Awards ceremony.[77] Already reputed for strongarm tactics on the Los Angeles rap scene, Suge used his brief stage time mainly to belittle Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, boss of Bad Boy Entertainment, the label then leading New York rap scene, who routinely performed with his own artists.[118][136] Before closing with a brief comment of support for Tupac,[137] Suge invited artists seeking the spotlight for themselves to join Death Row.[118][136] Eventually, Puff recalled that to preempt severe retaliation from his Bad Boy orbit, he had promptly confronted Suge, whose reply – that he had meant Jermaine Dupri, of So So Def Recordings, in Atlanta – was politic enough to deescalate the conflict.[138]

Still, among the fans, the previously diffuse rivalry between America's two mainstream rap scenes had instantly flared already.[118][137][136] And while in New York, Suge visited Uptown Records, where Puff, under its founder Andre Harrell, had started in the music business through an internship.[139] Apparently without paying Uptown, Suge obtained the releases of Puff's prime Uptown recruits Jodeci, its producer DeVante Swing, and Mary J. Blige, all then signing with Suge's management company.[139] On September 24, 1995, at a party for Dupri in Atlanta at the Platinum House nightclub, a Bad Boy circle entered a heated dispute with Suge and Suge's friend Jai Hassan-Jamal "Big Jake" Robles, a Bloods gang member and Death Row bodyguard.[118][140] According to eyewitnesses, including a Fulton County sheriff, working there as a nightclub bouncer, Puff had heatedly disputed with Suge inside the club,[118] whereas several minutes later, outside the club, it was Puff's childhood friend and own bodyguard, Anthony "Wolf" Jones, who had aimed a gun at Big Jake, fatally shot while entering Suge's car.[118][141][142]

The attorneys of Puff and his bodyguard both denied any involvement by their clients, while Puff's added that Puff had not even been with his bodyguard that night.[143] Over 20 years later, the case remains officially unresolved. Yet immediately and persistently, Suge blamed Puff, cementing the enmity between the two bosses, whose two record labels dominated the rap genre's two mainstream centers.[118][144] In the late 1990s, Southern rap's growth into the mainstream would dispel the East–West paradigm.[137] But in the meantime, in October 1995, violating his probation, Suge visited Tupac in prison again.[118] Suge posted $1.4 million bond. And with appeal of his December 1994 conviction pending, Shakur returned to Los Angeles and joined Death Row.[118] On June 4, 1996, it released the 2Pac B side "Hit 'Em Up." In this venonmous tirade, the proclaimed "Bad Boy killer" threatens violent payback on all things Bad Boy—Biggie, Puffy, Junior M.A.F.I.A., the company—and on any in New York's rap scene, like rap duo Mobb Deep and obscure rapper Chino XL, who allegedly had commented against Shakur about the dispute.

Death

Main article: Murder of Tupac Shakur

East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane, where the murder occurred

On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur was in Las Vegas, Nevada, to celebrate his business partner Tracy Danielle Robinson's birthday[145] and attended the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson boxing match with Suge Knight at the MGM Grand. Afterward in the lobby, someone in their group spotted Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, an alleged Southside Compton Crip, whom the individual accused of having recently in a shopping mall tried to snatch his neck chain with a Death Row Records medallion. The hotel's surveillance footage shows the ensuing assault on Anderson. Shakur soon stopped by his hotel room and then headed with Knight to his Death Row nightclub, Club 662, in a black BMW 750iL sedan, part of a larger convoy.[146]

At about 11 pm on Las Vegas Boulevard, bicycle-mounted police stopped the car for its loud music and lack of license plates. The plates were found in the trunk and the car was released without a ticket.[147] At about 11:15 pm at a stop light, a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac sedan pulled up to the passenger side and an occupant rapidly fired into the car. Shakur was struck four times: once in the arm, once in the thigh, and twice in the chest[148] with one bullet entering his right lung.[149] Shards hit Knight's head. Frank Alexander, Shakur's bodyguard, was not in the car at the time. He would say he had been tasked to drive the car of Shakur's girlfriend, Kidada Jones.[150]

Shakur was taken to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada where he was heavily sedated and put on life support.[9] In the intensive-care unit on the afternoon of September 13, 1996, Shakur died from internal bleeding.[9] He was pronounced dead at 4:03 pm.[9] The official causes of death are respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest associated with multiple gunshot wounds.[9] Shakur's body was cremated the next day. Members of the Outlawz, recalling a line in his song "Black Jesus," (although uncertain of the artist's attempt at a literal meaning chose to interpret the request seriously) smoked some of his body's ashes after mixing them with marijuana.[151][152]

In 2002, investigative journalist Chuck Philips,[153][154] after a year of work, reported in the Los Angeles Times that Anderson, a Southside Compton Crip, having been attacked by Suge and Shakur's entourage at the MGM Hotel after the boxing match, had fired the fatal gunshots, but that Las Vegas police had interviewed him only once, briefly, before his death in an unrelated shooting. Philips's 2002 article also alleges the involvement of Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace and several within New York City's criminal underworld. Both Anderson and Wallace denied involvement, while Wallace offered a confirmed alibi.[155] Music journalist John Leland, in the New York Times, called the evidence "inconclusive."[156]

In 2011, via the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI released documents related to its investigation which described an extortion scheme by the Jewish Defense League that included making death threats against Shakur and other rappers, but did not indicate a direct connection to his murder.[157][158]