Three decades ago, Mopreme Shakur found himself driving at breakneck speed down the I-15, leaving his Los Angeles home in the dust. His destination was Las Vegas, and he hoped against hope that the news he had received was somehow mistaken.
In the dead of night, he had been jolted awake by a phone call with devastating news: his stepbrother, Tupac Shakur, who was four years younger than him, had been shot in Las Vegas.
In his recent memoir, Mopreme recalls how disbelief gripped him. “I thought they had it wrong again,” he confides, convinced that the attackers must have targeted someone else.
But sadly, it was no mistake. Tupac had been rushed to the hospital, suffering from four gunshot wounds. The bullets had struck his right arm, thigh, and twice in the chest. Those injuries led to catastrophic internal bleeding and a collapsed lung, resulting in his death six days later, on September 13, 1996, just shy of his 26th birthday.
This week, at the age of 59, Mopreme returned to Las Vegas. His destination this time was not a hospital, but a courthouse. At last, someone stands trial for Tupac’s murder, a moment that has been awaited by Mopreme and his family for far too long.
‘Just think: 30 years,’ he told the Daily Mail, speaking by Zoom from his Los Angeles home on the eve of the trial.
‘I haven’t heard from the Las Vegas homicide police department, and I don’t think anyone in the family has in 30 years.’
He shakes his head in disgust.
Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot in Las Vegas and six days later, on September 13, 1996, he died. He was 25
The rapper was hit with four bullets: one in the right arm, one in the thigh and two in the chest
Mopreme Shakur, Tupac’s brother, feels the family may finally get justice
Tupac (left) was four years younger than Mopreme, seen here in the center with Mike Cooley in Hollywood
‘And that’s just the truth. Now they decided to do something. I’m cautiously optimistic. Hopefully, Pac will see just a smidgen of justice.’
Mopreme was sitting front row on Monday as prosecutors laid out their case against Duane ‘Keffe’ Davis, 63.
Davis, a known drug dealer and Crips gang leader, is accused of orchestrating the drive-by shooting of Tupac in retaliation for Tupac beating up his nephew Orlando Anderson after a Mike Tyson fight in the city.
Tupac was in a car driven by Marion ‘Suge’ Knight, the boss of his West Coast-based record label, Death Row.
Davis was one of four people in the car that pulled up alongside Knight’s vehicle and is the only one of the four still alive. Anderson was named as a suspect in the shooting, before he himself was shot and killed aged 23 in 1998.
‘Duane Davis did not pull the trigger, but what he did do is plan the retaliation for the beating of his nephew,’ said Binu Palal, the chief deputy district attorney, addressing the jury on Monday.
‘You will learn that Duane Davis got the gun. You will learn that he got into a white Cadillac. You will learn when the opportunity presented itself for retribution, Duane Davis made sure that the shooter was armed and ready to execute (Shakur). And remarkably, you will learn that from Duane Davis himself.’
Indeed, Davis was arrested in 2023, following a 2018 documentary in which he discussed the shooting and a 2019 memoir in which he describes ‘tossing’ a gun into the back seat of the car, so another man could open fire.
Knight, the only other person from the two cars still alive, has no love for Davis, but has refused to testify, declaring: ‘Leave me out of it.’
He is in prison for the 2015 murder of a businessman and has repeatedly ruled out taking the stand.
Mopreme is sanguine about the 61-year-old hip hop mogul’s obstinacy.
‘It’s quite typical,’ said Mopreme. ‘He’s a gang member. He’s a loud and proud Bloods gang member. So that tracks for gang rules.
‘He claimed to be Pac’s best friend. You would think he would want to help, but that’s still not how they do.’
Duane ‘Keffe’ Davis, a known drug dealer and Crips gang leader, is accused of orchestrating the drive-by shooting of Tupac
Tupac was in a car driven by Marion ‘Suge’ Knight, the boss of his West Coast-based record label, Death Row
Tupac shot to stardom in the rap scene and had a burgeoning acting career
Palal, the prosecutor, said on Monday that Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs hired Davis as his security guard when he was on the West Coast.
Davis has previously claimed, in a 2008 secret police recording, that Combs, who ran rival East Coast record company Bad Boy Records, offered him $1 million to kill Tupac – something Combs has repeatedly denied.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Combs’s representatives for comment.
Combs called Mopreme in the early 2000s to insist he had nothing to do with his brother’s killing.
Davis’s defense team will insist that their client made much of the book up, for profit, with his lawyer Michael Sanft warning against believing ‘statements that are made for entertainment purposes only.’
Was Tupac – born into poverty in Harlem, raised in a tough neighborhood of Baltimore, living his few years of adulthood in California – always destined to die young?
‘There was always the chance,’ admitted Mopreme. ‘We were young black men in America. There’s always a chance, more than the average, that we would die in a violent death.
‘And Pac himself admitted he had a big mouth. He was always ready to back it up, and he was fearless. He felt like we had a right to be in this game.’
Indeed, both Shakur brothers felt they had earned their stripes.
Mopreme Shakur was born Maurice Harding to Sharan Harding and Jeral Williams, who would later change his name to Mutulu Shakur. Harding and Williams were just 16 years old when their son Mopreme, as he became known, was born.
Mopreme was around five when his father became involved with Afeni, mother to the then one-year-old infant, Tupac.
The two boys were close, despite spending some of their teenage years apart – Mopreme with his mother in Queens, and Tupac with his mother in Harlem.
Tupac was 17 when his mother kicked him out of their Baltimore home, and he relocated to California.
About a year later, Mopreme found himself living nearby, in Oakland, having recently completed a stint in the army.
Mopreme and his little brother soon reconnected – with music and showbiz a unifier.
‘We were theater geeks,’ Mopreme said, describing how the siblings would drive through California singing along to the soundtrack to the musical Les Miserables. ‘People now are familiar with Pac’s early days, at the Baltimore School of the Arts, where he was doing his thing. I was vice president of my drama department.’
In his memoir, out in February, Mopreme writes that his brother was ‘a superstar you think you know but don’t.’
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs – who ran rival East Coast record company Bad Boy Records which included Tupac’s rival artist, The Notorious B.I.G. – claimed he had nothing to do with Tupac’s killing
The two boys were close, despite spending some of their teenage years apart
Tupac spent most of his life with his mother Afeni in Harlem
Mopreme was around five when his father Mutulu Shakur became involved with Afeni
What is the biggest misconception about Tupac?
‘People try to act like Pac wasn’t a thinking person,’ said Mopreme. ‘He was just a young, wild rapper – undisciplined and up against the rock. As history dictates: Heavy is the head that wears the crown. And he was wearing it at 20. How much do any of us know at that age?
‘Another misconception is that they don’t understand the extent of the poverty that we grew up in. We were refusing to be poor any more, so we busted our ass trying to make something for our generation.
‘Our culture was the new rock and roll. We were young guys, having success and having influence. Learning how to use that success and influence and still keep the haters at bay.’
Mopreme’s favorite image with his brother is from the video of the 1991 song If My Homie Calls – the two are walking side by side, with Tupac grinning broadly and then fist-bumping Mopreme.
Mopreme, who had a hit song before his brother, sidelined his own solo career to join and support his mercurial sibling.
‘It made sense to rock with my little brother,’ he said. ‘My successful little brother. We had been through a lot and we had been poor, and those days were turning around. So, we had to make it for the family, for everybody.’
He admits his brother was quick tempered, violent and, at times, maddeningly chaotic.
‘Pac became a lot, a lot,’ he writes in his memoir, of his brother’s growing fame. ‘He had always been a lot. S***, we called him King Lear years before, because of how extra he would get with those of us closest to him.’
Still, he sees his sibling as a creative genius, who cared about his community.
‘A lot of our efforts, especially Pac’s efforts, were to try to look out for the young black male,’ said Mopreme. ‘Young people in general, Pac championed them, because he felt the youth was often overlooked and disrespected – people wouldn’t fully listen to their ideas.
‘It’s why people love Pac today.’
But what about the violence? His brother is one of the key figures in the East Coast-West Coast rap wars of the 1990s, that cost many young men their lives. It was a vicious, grim time. Has it changed?
‘A bit,’ said Mopreme. ‘It’s changed some. It’s nothing like the 90s. Unfortunately, our communities are too familiar with violence. We’re all a work in progress.
‘If we fix these things, we could be a powerful force. You know, gangs look out for their own in their neighborhood, they take care of the old folks in their neighborhood – but the other s*** is also there.
‘Those are the communities that are also neglected. So they appreciated getting some attention. And, you know, there’s a lot of those type of entertainers that doesn’t touch the hood, doesn’t address the people. So that’s another reason why Pac was loved.’
What would he be doing if he were alive today?
‘You mean if his head wasn’t exploding?’ he said. ‘He would be doing more international things, to help communities around the world.
‘I used to think he might want to be a lawyer, because often he thought like that, but I don’t think he had the patience or the temperament to do law.’
Mopreme himself is still making music and working on documentaries about his family’s story.
‘People try to act like Pac wasn’t a thinking person,’ said Mopreme
‘Young people in general, Pac championed them, because he felt the youth was often overlooked and disrespected – people wouldn’t fully listen to their ideas,’ Mopreme said
If Tupac were alive today, Mopreme said his brother ‘would be doing more international things, to help communities around the world’
His brother’s death was ‘devastating,’ and still haunts his family to this day, he said.
Tupac’s mother died in 2016, aged 69. His biological father Billy Garland is still alive, age 77: the two were not close, and Tupac thought his father was dead until he was in his 20s.
Mutulu Shakur, Mopreme’s father and Tupac’s stepfather, died in 2023, aged 72, after serving 37 years in prison for the murder of two police officers during a robbery.
‘We need justice for my guy, for me, for the family, for Pac’s fans who’ve been with me on this ride,’ Mopreme said. ‘Because of the lack of anything done on the case, I’ve been part of several documentaries over the years, trying to dig and find out what happened. Find that last piece.’
He said he feels a responsibility to his brother and to their associates – many of whom have died from gun violence, drug overdoses and suicide.
‘The guys that came up with Pac and I – there’s maybe like four of us left out of 20,’ he said. ‘It’s been rough. I gotta do it, you know.
‘We’ve got a saying over here: “till the wheels fall off.” And I’m still here, so the wheels ain’t fell off yet.’
