He Talked About Killing Tupac for Years. Why Did It Take Three Decades to Bring Him to Trial?

Phoebe interviews journalist and podcast host Joel Anderson about why it took 30 years for prosecutors to bring someone to trial for the murder of Tupac Shakur. Earlier this year, Duane "Keffe D" Davis was convicted of first degree murder in the 1996 shooting death of the rapper - after having talked about his involvement in the crime for years. You can hear Season 3 of Slow Burn - about the murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B. I. G. - here. You can also watch this interview at ⁠⁠youtube.com/criminalpodcast⁠⁠. Phoebe is going on tour this fall! Get tickets and see all of our tour dates at ⁠thisiscriminal.com/live⁠. Say hello on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠occasional newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Follow the show and review us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up for Criminal Plus⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, invitations to virtual events, special merch deals, and more. We also make ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠This is Love⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Phoebe Reads a Mystery⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠our online shop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  I'm Ina Garten and each week on Happy Hour, I invite new and old friends for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. On this week's episode, I'm joined by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. We talk all about attending a fashion show in Paris together, throwing dinner parties, and making her Broadway debut in other desert cities. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  How far would you go to have a healthy baby?

• 0:42Speaker 02

  Embryo editing is very much illegal in the United States. It is illegal in most countries. But there is growing interest as the technology has gotten better.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  This week on Explain It To Me, the ethics of embryo maxing. Listen to new episodes Sundays wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  You know, Keefy D had been really testing the patience of these authorities for years. At a certain point, and if you talk to people involved in the case, it becomes embarrassing to the authorities and prosecutors that, hey, I've said that I've killed this guy over and over and over again. Now I live in your jurisdiction. And so they were inclined to do something about it.

• 1:33Phoebe Judge?

  This is Criminal. I'm Phoebe Judge. Today, I'm joined by Joel Anderson, a staff writer at The Ringer and co-host of the podcast The Press Box. Joel is also the former host of season three of the podcast Slow Burn, which covered the murders of the rappers Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. In August of this year, a man named Dwayne Davis was found guilty for Tupac's murder. Joel, thanks for being here.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  Oh, of course. Thanks for having me.

• 2:01Phoebe Judge?

  So, you know, it's been 30 years since Tupac was killed. He was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. It's been long enough that one of the prosecutors said during the trial that he grew up listening to Tupac's music. Did you ever think you'd see someone actually on trial for Tupac's murder?

• 2:23Speaker 03

  No, and the reason, the reason is the lead investigator into the murders, which Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G., the two rappers who, their careers and lives are linked together forever. The lead detective of that case said, I don't think there'll ever be any judicial closure. Like, he told me that, and that was in 2019. And so if that's the guy, the guy that was at the center of it, saying that there'll never be anybody that will be brought to justice or face a jury, I just had to assume that was true. And so as it all happened, like, once he got, once Dwayne, Keefy D Davis, and I hope I can call him Keefy D after this, got arrested in 2023,

• 3:07Speaker 03

  I was like, well, there's a fair chance that he might get convicted. But everything before that, it just seemed pretty improbable.

• 3:14Phoebe Judge?

  Do you remember when you heard about Tupac being shot?

• 3:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was in college. I was a freshman in college when Tupac was his absolute height. And, you know, I would go to parties. You would hear Tupac all the time. So he was probably the biggest rap star at the time. And I remember I was in a car with my father going to a football game. And we heard it over the radio that Tupac had been shot. And it was just like, wow. You know, it was, it was jarring, but also Tupac had been shot before. He'd been shot before, two years ago in New York. And so it was like, that's scary, that's awful. But they didn't say he was dead. And the fact that he had already survived one shooting,

• 4:01Speaker 03

  I just thought Tupac is gonna be okay.

• 4:05Phoebe Judge?

  Why was he in Las Vegas? And what do we know about the night that he was shot?

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the night, that night in Las Vegas in September, there was a Mike Tyson heavyweight fight in Las Vegas. And at the time, that was one of the biggest sporting events that there was of the 90s. And he was fighting a guy named Bruce Eldon. He was fighting for his heavyweight title. Tupac and Mike Tyson were friends. Mike Tyson invited him. In fact, when Mike Tyson came out to the ring that night, he came out to a song that Tupac had done specially for Mike Tyson. And so, you know, Tupac came with the entire Death Row Records crew. Suge Knight, a lot of the artists, they came, they rolled pretty deep to get there. And so they all were there, sitting, you know, close to ringside and just were there to have a, you know, a big fun night.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  And at the end of the fight, they were all gonna go over to a club called Club 662, which was a club owned by Suge Knight, who was the CEO of Death Row Records. And they were gonna do some performances and have a little concert, a big party, stuff like that. So, you know, it was gonna be, you know, a little business and a little bit of pleasure all at the same time.

• 5:14Phoebe Judge?

  And what happened?

• 5:16Speaker 03

  Well, so the fight ends pretty quickly. Mike Tyson wins in the first round. Tupac is amped. If you look at videos, because they do have the people that catch him, you know, leaving the arena and going to the casino. And he's just so amped, like, talking about how Mike Tyson had knocked out Bruce Eldon. And he's like, did you see him? Did you see him? You just, you could just see the electricity vibrating off of him. And he gets further into the casino with his crew. And then across the way, they happen to see somebody, a guy named Orlando Anderson, otherwise known as Baby Lane. He's a member of the South Side Compton Crips, okay?

• 5:58Speaker 03

  And the reason this is important is because Tupac's label Death Row and Suge Knight, they were affiliated with the Bloods gang in Compton. And so for people that remember that time in the 90s, that was like really the height of the Bloods and Crips wars. So anyway, they see this guy, Orlando Anderson. And one of the guys in Tupac's entourage says, hey, that guy beat up one of our friends at a mall about a month ago, and he took our chain. He took the guy's chain. And so Tupac, without giving any thought, nope, just throwing caution to the wind, runs over to Orlando Anderson and punches him. And then everybody joins in.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  And basically, what they call a rat pack at the time is that they just, they jump him, kick him, you can see it. They, in fact, there's surveillance video from the casino that you can see right now on the internet. And they're just jumping this guy, kicking him. And then all of a sudden, they all flee. They leave before the security, before police can get there and intervene. And they leave the premises. And the, the police and security ask Orlando Anderson, do you want to press charges? Are you okay? And he says, I'm fine. And then they go on from there.

• 7:09Phoebe Judge?

  And, and later on, what happens?

• 7:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, so after that, so Tupac and Suge Knight and the rest of the crew, they get ready. Like, they're just, they've, they've, they've had their own fight that they won, that they can be excited about now. Tupac goes back to his hotel, changes his clothes. His girlfriend at the time, Kadada Jones, who is the daughter of Quincy Jones, she's in his suite, that he's changing his clothes, getting ready for his performance. And he and Suge are gonna meet up and drive over to the club. Orlando Anderson, on the other hand, he meets up with some of his family members and friends who are members of the Crips. And they, he tells them, hey, these guys beat me up in there. And they're like, immediately, they're like, let's get into action.

• 7:56Speaker 03

  They're ready to exact vengeance. And it just so happens that they run into a guy, a man named Eric Von Zip Martin. And this is according to Davis, Keefy D. He says they happened to run into him while waiting for their car at the valet. And Eric Von Zip Martin gives them a 40 caliber Glock. And he says, now is the time. If I backtrack a little bit, Eric Von Zip Martin was one of Keefy D's clients in his, you know, drug trafficking organization. The reason this is important is because Eric Von Zip Martin is from New York. And Eric Von Zip Martin was an associate of Sean Puffy Combs of Bad Boy Records,

• 8:38Speaker 03

  which is the rival of Death Row Records. And if you followed this trial or followed this case, the accusation has always been, at least coming from Keefy D and other people associated with that case, is that Puffy had put out a million dollars for the Crips to kill Tupac and Suge Knight. Okay? So anyway, kismet. They happened, what a coincidence. They happened to run into Eric Von Zip Martin. He gives them the gun. They all get into their car and they start looking for Tupac and Suge. And they say, well, you know what? Let's go to the club. We'll just wait for them outside of the club. They wait, you know, a couple hours. They get bored, they get frustrated. And they say, well, hey, let's go to a liquor store and let's just move on. And we'll forget about it. And they go to the liquor store.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  And as they're pulling out of the liquor store, they hear some fans screaming for Tupac. And they look and they see Tupac and Suge Knight at an intersection, stopped at a red light. And Tupac's, you know, leaning out of the car, waving at his fans, you know? And so. Keefe D and his crew, they swing into action. They drive up alongside of him. And, you know, Keefe D has been sort of squirrely on exactly who fired the gun into the car. But many people believe that it was Baby Lane, Orlando Anderson, the guy that had gotten beaten up earlier. So they fire four shots into the car. They hit Pock and one of the bullets also grazes Shug. And that's the evening that Tupac gets shot.

• 10:08Speaker 03

  You know, emergency personnel shows up, the ambulance shows up and Tupac is alive at the time. If you listen to the trial, they say, he's like, okay, he doesn't want to say who shot him. He says, we're going to take care of it. And they take him onto the hospital.

• 10:21Phoebe Judge?

  Let's talk a little bit more about Dwayne Davis Keefe D.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 10:26Phoebe Judge?

  Who, who is he and how did he get involved with Tupac in this whole circle?

• 10:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Keefe D is a guy from Compton. He lived in, you know, Compton, you know, dating back to the 60s, right around the time that the white flight happens to Compton, his family and a bunch of other black people move into Compton and they live in this neighborhood. And at that time, not long after that, these gangs, these street gangs start popping up and Crips, the Bloods, other sort of sets that come up. And Keefe D lives in a Crips neighborhood and he becomes one of the OG Crip members. And so he's, you know, does the things that gang members do, you know, they sell drugs, they, you know, have fights with their rival crew members, that sort of stuff. And at some point, Keefe D goes to federal prison.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  He goes to federal prison at least twice for, for selling drugs and trafficking drugs. But, um, Keefe D didn't really have any association with Tupac. His association is with Sean Puffy Combs. And the reason, as I mentioned earlier, is because of his association with Eric Von Zip, who was one of his clients in this drug trafficking organization. And the way they get linked up with Puffy is Puffy needs protection when he comes out on the West Coast. They want to perform, you know, in Anaheim, LA, all these places. Well, they can hire professional security, but one way, if the Bloods are really interested in getting to you or Death Row Records wants to get at you, is that you can hire the Crips to run security at your events.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  And so that's, that's how he gets tied in with Sean Puffy Combs. He had never had any interaction really with Tupac until the night of the murder.

• 12:03Phoebe Judge?

  Do you remember when you first heard that Keefe D had been arrested?

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you know, it happened in, in 2023. By this time, I'd, you know, been following this case pretty closely and, you know, I, I keep in fairly regular contact with the lead detective at that time, Greg Kating and a lot of other people. Uh, if you, also, there's this, this whole Tupac world that exists on YouTube and on social media where people are doing all these rival, you know, YouTube videos, you know, following the developments of people that have survived all these Death Row and Bad Boy wars. Um, and so you're already just primed to keep tabs on what's going on. And Keefe D, for years, by this point, has been saying, I was involved in this case. You know, he writes a book, Compton Street Legend, which lays out in pretty, you know,

• 12:53Speaker 03

  minute detail how they did it, right? And so you're all, the, the, the theory here is that, like, man, Keefe D has been talking about this for, you know, almost a decade about how he had killed Tupac. Is anybody ever going to do anything? Well, it just so happens that Keefe D moved to Henderson, Nevada, like a lot of people from LA, because it's more affordable, no state income tax. Uh, Keefe D, at this point, is, you know, in his 50s and 60s, he's not making the money that he used to. He's suffered from cancer, so they moved to a place in, in Nevada that was a little bit more affordable and the authorities show up at his door. And so, yeah, I remember when he got arrested and I was like, man, I, why now? What happened?

• 13:36Speaker 03

  You know, he's been saying this for years, but, um, you know, Keefe D had been really testing the patience, uh, of these authorities for years. At a certain point, and if you talk to people involved in the case, it's, becomes embarrassing to the authorities and prosecutors that, hey, I've said that I've killed this guy over and over and over again. Now I live in your jurisdiction. Um, and so they were inclined to do something about it.

• 14:00Phoebe Judge?

  Can I say something maybe dumb or naive?

• 14:03Speaker 03

  Oh, sure.

• 14:05Phoebe Judge?

  Now, if you had killed someone,

• 14:09Phoebe Judge?

  would you have written a book about it? Or was there, or is it kind of like the, the mystique and allure of like the, you know, you got to say that you killed Tupac, which was such a big deal that there was some fame to it?

• 14:23Speaker 03

  For sure. No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, uh, admit to killing somebody, uh, publicly. But, um, I think the thing that was different for Keefe D is that when he, so if you go back to about 2008, okay? Uh, at this time, the LAPD and a federal task force, they start looking into the murders of Biggie in LA, because Biggie gets murdered in LA. And so they get assigned, this, this, this task force gets assigned to solve that case. Okay? And in the course of doing that, they come across Keefe D's name. They start following him and they see that he's back to his old tricks. He's selling drugs again.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  And so they go to him and take him into custody and they say, hey, look, tell us what you know about the Biggie murder. And he says, we didn't do that one, which they take to me, well, which one did you do? He says, I did Tupac. And so Keefe D enters a proffer agreement with, with authorities and investigators where if he copped to what happened, they would give him immunity in the case. Okay? So the investigation goes on and in 2010, the lead, the lead detective or one of the lead detectives, Greg Kating, who I mentioned earlier, he retires. Like, he's kind of forced out of the, the force over some stuff that had happened previously in his career, but he takes his retirement.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  At the end of his retirement, about, he starts working on this book that lays out everything that happened, all the investigation stuff that had come up, you know? The, for the first time, somebody that had investigated this case has gotten confessions, has all this documentation about what actually happened. That book comes out, I believe in 2011. Okay? Well, at that point, Keefe D is like, what did you do? Like, I told you this. I didn't think that that information was going to get out. You understand that telling people this puts my life and my family's life in danger, even though it was suspected for a long time that he had something to do with it. But the fact that he cooperated with authorities makes it a whole different deal.

• 16:34Speaker 03

  Now you're a snitch. Now you've, you're, you know, you've really put in peril, you know, put yourself in legal peril. And so the thinking with Keefe D, uh, if you talk to people who knew him and have interviewed him before, is that, I mean, if the information's already out there, he might as well do what he can to monetize it. Um, because by this time, Keefe D's dealing with cancer. He doesn't have the money that he used to have. And so he's, this is one way to make money. He did interviews for money. He wrote the book, Compton Street Legend, where he, uh, confesses to committing this murder for money. That's what he needed to keep going. And so he thought, I've got this proffer agreement. Nothing is ever going to happen to me. I'm going to be okay.

• 17:19Speaker 03

  But that wasn't the case. And especially once he moved, that put him in a lot more legal peril that he probably could have never envisioned. But, um, you know, so it's, it wasn't smart to go around bragging about killing Tupac in the first place. He had a reason for it and then the circumstances changed underneath his feet and that's how he ended up getting arrested.

• 17:41Phoebe Judge?

  I mean, even though Keefe D kind of explained now, we have somewhat of an idea of what happened that night. In the, in the months after the shooting and after Tupac's death, there was a lot of speculation about who was responsible for, for, for the shooting.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:57Phoebe Judge?

  And, and some of these theories are pretty wild. Some people didn't even believe that Tupac was actually dead.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 18:05Phoebe Judge?

  Can you talk about some of these conspiracy theories?

• 18:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure. Well, first of all, we can always just start off with Baby Lane Anderson. Like, he, from the very beginning, he's the prime suspect because he was the one that had a motive. Like, he got embarrassed and beat up and everybody looked at him and said, that guy probably did it, but we don't know. But some of the other conspiracies were that, look, at the time, um, if you believe the reporting around then, Tupac was preparing to leave Death Row. He was going to set up his own record label. A few days before he went to Las Vegas, he had fired the Death Row attorney, um, a man named David Kenner. And so some people say, oh, Shug wanted to, you know, Shug and all these other people involved in Death Row wanted the exact revenge on him for leaving Death Row, right?

• 18:51Speaker 03

  Um, there's other people that said that he wanted to fake his death to get out of tax trouble. Okay? And he moved to Cuba or Thailand, things like that. Um, and then there's also other theories that he was killed by police, like local police there. A lot of people profit that, that the Death Row Records camp was staffed heavily by cops. The security team was staffed by cops. Cops who were also affiliated with the Bloods. And that there was this huge, you know, conspiracy where they were going to help kill Tupac and, and Biggie, right? And so there was a whole lot of stuff. There were a whole lot of these random conspiracies that are popping up. But all along, anybody that was in Compton, anybody that was in LA, anybody that knew

• 19:36Speaker 03

  the people, the particulars of the people that were involved, it always led back to Baby Lane. The guy that was a known killer in Compton, a guy that was a tough guy, a guy who would not take kindly and wouldn't take it laying down, that he got beaten up in front of everybody in a casino. But, uh, you know, without the arrest, without people cooperating with investigations, conspiracies filled the information void. And so those were some of the things that came up.

• 20:11Phoebe Judge?

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• 21:00Phoebe Judge?

  We did an episode a few years ago about jaywalking. And we talked about when police arrested Tupac for jaywalking. It was in 1991 in Oakland. He was assaulted and beaten during that. And there was a press conference where he said it felt like being in South Africa.

• 21:21Phoebe Judge?

  He was kind of a political person and his mother was in the Black Panthers. Can you talk a little bit about Tupac as the person and how he grew up, his family?

• 21:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, Tupac had a very troubled childhood. You're right, his mother, Afeenie Shakur, was a Black Panther who, actually Tupac was born in prison. His wife, his mother was in prison at the time that she gave birth to him. You know, related to some conspiracy, you know, shooting cops and all sorts of other stuff, right? It's also worth noting that Tupac's biological father is a Black Panther. And so you can imagine, you mentioned that he was political. Well, he was steeped in Black Panther lore, right? He was very much into like Black Pan-Africanism. There's even a point in his life where he moves to Atlanta when he doesn't think the rap thing is going to work out.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  He joins the new Black Panthers and he's supposed to start up and help build membership up in Atlanta, right? When he gets frustrated that his music careers are going to happen. But in between, before all that, I mean, he moves around. His mother, you know, struggles with drug addiction and Tupac, you know, moves from New York place to place. They moved to Baltimore briefly and in Baltimore, they really tap into his artistic side. They kind of find out, oh, this guy is a poet. This guy is an actor. He can do a lot of different things, but he's just got this really troubled background. And then his mother moves the family out to the Bay Area, which is another, you know, Marin City is a very tough, poor, poverty-stricken, black area amid tremendous wealth in Marin County.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  And he struggles out there, but he gets connected with some people involved in the rap game. And they connect him with this rap group called Digital Underground. And so he starts going on the road with them. He starts off as sort of as a roadie and then he starts doing some dancing at some of their performances. And then they say, hey, we'll let you rap on this song. And so there's a song, one of, you know, Digital Underground's most popular songs is a song called Same Song. And Tupac gets a verse on that and that helps him to get a record deal. And so he starts off as a rapper. He's not into any of this gang stuff. He's sort of, you know, about talking about police brutality, about black poverty.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  Bridget's Got a Baby, one of his first, you know, singles is about a teenage mother who has a baby and she dumps it into a dumpster. It's based on a real story, actually, that he read about in the newspaper. And so he gets started like that, like, you know, not long after that, again, I mentioned that he was very talented. He gets some acting opportunities. He stars in a movie called Juice. And so his star is really taking off in the early 90s. And things really change when he gets to 1994 and he gets connected while filming another movie. He gets connected with some New York gangsters. You know, that's just kind of how the rap industry worked back then, right? You know, a lot of the seed money came from people that were drug dealers or were involved in gangs.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  And so he gets connected with some other people and the circumstances around his first shooting in New York are still sort of fuzzy. Like, there's no, not a lot of people have taken any responsibility for that. There's some theories about who did it, but it's unclear what actually happened there. But he gets shot while he's on trial for sexual abuse, which was related to his dealings with these other guys. And he goes to prison, he gets convicted in this case. And while he's in prison, he starts thinking like, man, I was going to the top. What happened? Like, why, you know, why, I'm in trouble now, I'm in prison. What happened? Did people set me up?

• 25:10Speaker 03

  Like, was this some sort of conspiracy against me? And so he decides to focus on some of his friends in New York, his rap friends, the Notorious B.I.G., Sean Puffy Combs, other people that he had been dealing with before. He says, hey, you guys must have set me up. Like, you all were there the night that I got shot. You all didn't get shot. Why was I the only person that got shot? Why did anybody come to protect me? And so he fixates on these people and that's when Suge Knight comes in. He's like, when Tupac is in prison, he's paranoid, certainly probably going through PTSD. He's needing money because he's, you know, going to prison, having to deal with attorneys and working out his case.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  His money's sort of tapped out. And so Death Row comes in with promises of making him wealthy and getting him out of prison. And so he goes with Suge Knight. And that's kind of where the second part of his career, where he starts getting involved in, let's say, less political rap, more of the gangster rap stuff, more of the violent imagery and stuff like that that people sort of associate him with now. That stuff starts coming up in the second half of his career. So that is a 180 change from where he gets started. But at the heart of it, I mean, Tupac, even still, in those days when he's with Death Row, he's still just like incredibly magnetic, charismatic person who can walk into any room and be the center of attention.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  And so at that time, he was on his way. Like, he was going to be starring in movies. He was going to have his own record label. Like, he had a lot to look forward to at that time.

• 26:50Phoebe Judge?

  This was a time when his music was being heavily scrutinized in Congress. And in 1994, senators were holding hearings about his music and other rappers. Tell me a little bit about why these senators were holding these hearings. Why did they care? What were they saying was the problem?

• 27:11Speaker 03

  So, you know, rap had started to shift around the mid 90s. Like, first it's like really fun party music, you know? And then it starts to get a little grittier, you know, as different people start moving into the industry. And then some of the music becomes more profane, more violent. There's a point in Tupac's career at which a guy in Houston kills a state trooper and blames that act on Tupac's music. He says, I was listening to Tupac music. So you can imagine, there are a lot of people like, what the hell is going on here? And they start holding hearings and trying to get, trying to get that music banned. Trying to stop the record labels, the record labels from selling it.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  But in lieu of that, they start coming up with these, you know, parental advisory labels, things like that. They label this music, they say, hey, kids should not be listening to this sort of stuff. This is adult music. And his music was really at the forefront of that. So, yeah, you know, a lot of people, Tupac would say, hey, look, they don't like the fact that I've come out of the Black Panthers and I'm talking about black empowerment, fighting back against police brutality, stuff like that. But, you know, also there were plenty of black people along the way. See Dolores Tucker, Reverend Calvin Butts in Harlem, people that were saying, no, what you're doing is beyond the pale and it's encouraging the worst in our youth and something should be done about it.

• 28:37Phoebe Judge?

  And what was his response?

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Oh, he thought that they were haters. He thought that they were jealous of his platform, that he was speaking to people and activating people in a way that not very, few other people were. So he thinks that this is all a scheme to stop him from making money and spreading his message to people. But, you know, I mean, I guess it's, it kind of depends on which song you listen to. It's a version of Tupac that you take issue with because he's not the same Tupac in every song. But they really fixated on the music that was violent, that called women names, that was, you know, sexually explicit, that was about taking drugs, it was about shooting people.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  That's the stuff that they took issue with, where this Tupac is saying, hey, what about this other stuff that I talked about? What about all this other music that I make about, you know, black people empowering themselves, rising out of poverty, doing all these other things? And so, yeah, it was, I mean, it was, you know, the duality of man, so to speak.

• 29:41Phoebe Judge?

  We've talked about Notorious B.I.G. throughout this, but, but will you just talk a little bit about the relationship between these two men? And, and how their relationship changed over the years? And, and who, who was Notorious B.I.G., Christopher Wallace?

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure. So Christopher Wallace is a Brooklyn kid, was a really good student as a child. He went to private school. But, you know, late eighties, early nineties, crack starts to move into the inner city and Biggie gets wrapped up in that. And so he starts dealing drugs at a very young age as a teenager. But he's got this gift for words and putting stuff together and telling really good stories. And so he's just kind of rapping around Brooklyn and eventually people take notice in him and realize, hey, we could do something with this guy. We could make a career. You could make a career out of rapping. And he's like, ah, I don't want to do that. I'd prefer to sell drugs. Like, I want this sure thing. I need money.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  And so he gets hooked up with Sean Puffy Combs, who's then launching his new venture, Bad Boy Records, right? And so he's looking for some new artists that he can build around. And Sean Puffy Combs' thing was like fashion and like the presentation and, you know, it was really, it was as much, it was, the music was a big part of it, but it was also sort of like this projection of like black cool, right? And so Puffy gets his hooks into Biggie and it's like, hey, man, I can get you out of this. Like, you don't have to sell drugs anymore. He's like, in fact, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to send you for two, I'm going to send you out to California to produce some performances out there. And while you're out there, I'm going to connect you with some other people. So Biggie goes on this trip to LA.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  And while he's out there in LA, apparently he makes contact with Tupac's weed dealer? And the weed dealer is like, hey, I was just at Tupac's house. And Biggie's like, hey, I want to meet Tupac. Let's go to Tupac's house. And so there's this great story of Biggie going over to Tupac's house with another rapper named Greg Nice, and they spend all day. Tupac makes, makes steaks for them, grills some steaks. They have some drinks and they're rapping all day and Tupac brings out his guns and they're looking at all this stuff. They have like this really great bros day and they decide to be friends. And so a few days later, when, when Tupac is performing, he brings Biggie up. And when Biggie has his own performance, Tupac joins him on stage and that's where

• 32:09Speaker 03

  this friendship is born. And they really liked each other. And at one point, Biggie's looking at Tupac and he's like, well, man, why don't you sign me? I know you're, you're in rap, like, can I be a member of your affiliate group, The Outlaws? And Tupac's like, no, you'll be okay. Like, you're, you know, you should stick with Puffy and do that thing. But they have this really strong bond. They're really friends. They see a lot in each other and they can see the talent in each other. And it all falls apart when Tupac is in New York and he's going to perform in a studio in, in Manhattan one night. He's supposed to perform with a rapper named Little Sean and he was just quick money. He needed the money because he was on trial and, you know, he has to pay his attorneys.

• 32:52Speaker 03

  He's going to, he's going to the studio that night and as he looks up, he sees all of Biggie's friends, you know, Little Caesar, all these other guys, the Junior Mafia, which is Biggie's affiliate group. And he's like, hey, man, I'll see y'all. I'm going to go into the studio. I'll see you in a minute. When he goes into the lobby of that building, he gets robbed. Tupac fights back and gets shot. That's the, this is the first time he gets shot. And somehow Tupac pulls himself off, off the ground, bloody shot, goes to the studio where, where Biggie and Puffy are, and he says, everybody's acting weird. You know, like, what's going on? And so Tupac gets in his head, oh, these guys had something to do with my shooting, which Biggie and Puffy would say, this was crazy.

• 33:36Speaker 03

  You pulled, you're shot, you're bleeding everywhere. Like, they were shocked at the state that he was in. But anyway, from that point on, you know, Tupac goes to the hospital. The next day, he shows up in court, gets convicted and has to go to prison. And he never gets a chance to reconcile with those guys. And so over that time, he just builds up all these conspiracy theories of like, man, Biggie and, Biggie and Puffy were jealous of me and that's why they had me shot. And so the friendship never really, I mean, obviously it never really gets repaired because they never had a chance because Tupac went to prison. And by the time he gets out of prison, he's locked in with Death Row. And Death Row is in, you know, a war, so to speak, the East Coast, West Coast rap war with Bad Boy at the center of it.

• 34:21Speaker 03

  And so they never really got a chance to reconcile. But yeah, when, the way that this all got started out, they were very good friends. They hung out together a lot. And you could argue that Tupac had a lot to do with bolstering Biggie's career in the first place.

• 34:33Phoebe Judge?

  Do you think if the, if this massive rivalry hadn't started between Death Row Records and, you know, Bad Boy, East Coast, West Coast, that maybe they could have repaired their relationship?

• 34:44Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if, well, yeah, I mean, if Tupac hadn't got shot, like, I mean, that's the, that's the thing, right? If there's some sort of other way in which Tupac is able to get upstairs and do a song that night or whatever, or he doesn't, you know, Biggie and Puffy get a chance to intervene and talk to him, yeah, I definitely think that they would have been able to make it up. Because I think that's actually why the enmity was so deep and why the anger ran, ran so hot with Tupac is that you were my friend and you betrayed me. And Tupac was a, you know, a very loyal person, a very fiery person. And so if you became his enemy, you became his mortal enemy. But yeah, I absolutely believe that if they had had a chance to reconcile, if, if none

• 35:29Speaker 03

  of that stuff had happened and if Biggie and Puffy had been able to talk some sense into him, then maybe none of this ever happens. Absolutely.

• 35:35Phoebe Judge?

  In 1997, a year after Tupac was killed, Biggie was also shot and killed. What, what happened to him?

• 35:43Speaker 03

  So Biggie, by 1996, he's one of the biggest rappers in the world, right? Like, his album is taking, his first album is out, it went platinum, and he's working on a second album. And as part of that second album, Sean Puffy Combs says, we need to do a West Coast tour with Swingman. And it's going to coincide with this Soul Train Music Awards. And so he's going to do these performances, do, go to all these radio stations up and down California, you know, from the Bay Area on down. And, you know, Biggie is a little bit hesitant, but he's like, this is what I got to do. This is, you know, this is the way to get to the money and to try to also bridge over a lot of these concerns.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  They sort of had this thought that if we go to California, first of all, it shows that we're not scared, but also maybe we can win fans over and say to them, hey, we had nothing to do with this. Like, obviously we're sorry that Tupac got, was killed, but we had nothing to do with this. We just want to make good music. So Biggie is out there and he goes to the Soul Train Awards one of those nights. And the reception is pretty warm. They go to a party, after-party after that. And he's, all these celebrities are coming over to his section and he's really living the life of a superstar, you know? Like, he's like, oh, man, like, this is the next phase. Like, he's going to be the guy. And then, as he leaves the party that night and gets in his car and they're going to

• 37:11Speaker 03

  go to a party in the Hollywood Hills, and as he's waiting at an intersection, somebody pulls up and shoots into his car and kills him. So, yeah, it's very similar circumstances. It's just like they were on their way to do something else at the height of their career and it gets cut down.

• 37:26Phoebe Judge?

  I mean, because they were so close, their murders were so close together, I mean, it feels like it was just, it had to be looked at as linked.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. If you, if you were to believe the investigators in this case, they absolutely are linked, that Tupac's, so it's unclear and nobody has ever proven that Puffy had anything to do with Tupac's death, okay? And Puffy has adamantly denied that he had anything to do with this. They never gave this guy any money, that he never paid any money for Crips to do security for him. And there's no real evidence of this other than Keefy D, okay? He's the person that says that, so he's the, the stand-in witness here. But the investigation after that, like, once Biggie gets killed, it fixates on the

• 38:20Speaker 03

  people who had the most reason to be mad that Tupac got killed, which is the people that were affiliated with Death Row Records. And if you read Greg Kading's book, if you read some of the investigation stuff, Suge Knight and Death Row Records had the most reason to want Biggie dead. And they've got evidence that points to them as the people that were involved in that, that Suge Knight, via his girlfriend at the time, paid to have one of the Bloods that he was close to, to kill Biggie. And he went and did it. But again, that guy that is alleged to have killed Biggie was shot and killed, you know,

• 39:03Speaker 03

  seven years later in Compton. And something totally unrelated, he was a Blood. It was probably some gang stuff. And so he gets killed and nobody else, there's not, there's not many people, the, Suge Knight's girlfriend, if you were to believe Greg Kading, was offered immunity for confessing to this stuff. And Suge Knight is currently in prison. And he has no, he has no reason to ever admit that he had anything to do with this and never has admitted that he has anything to do with this. And so people looking for a similar resolution in Biggie's murder, like there was in Tupac's, it's probably not going to happen. And a major reason being, Biggie's alleged killer is dead right now anyway.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  So there probably will never be a similar sort of justice or trial that plays out in that case.

• 39:56Phoebe Judge?

  Do you think that people are feeling any kind of closure? I mean, I know we can't have this with biggies, but with, but with the Dwayne Davis conviction?

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Absolutely not. You know, it's, it's really interesting because it seems like the people, you know, so if you watch the trial, there's just a lot of people that were, you know, old gangsters, people that used to work for Death Row, old Crips that showed up, old investigators, all these people, they relived all these events of the last 30 years on trial, right? And when it was over, Tupac's family said, hey, you know, we're, you know, we're happy that there's been some justice, but this isn't the end. And a lot of people take that to believe that, hey, there's somebody else out there

• 40:48Speaker 03

  that is responsible for Tupac's death that has never faced any consequences for it, right? And so that's a piece of it. So there's a piece of it. It's a big milestone in the case that Keefy D has, has been convicted and might go to prison for it. But for other people that are involved in this, they say, hey, look, there's still the, the person that Keefy D alleges paid him to do it. He's still out there. He's never been brought to justice. But for instance, Tupac's biological father, he doesn't buy it at all. Like, he thinks, ah, there's still a conspiracy out there. Death Row had my son killed. You know, Keefy D is just a bit player in a much larger conspiracy.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  So, you know, if you follow this case like I have for years and you visit the same YouTube channels, talk to the same people, they're all the same little wars, all the same little beefs are still as active as ever. You know, Keefy D probably will go to prison and may spend the rest of his life in prison, but I don't think closure is what anybody that has any stake in this would think, would call it and just say that, you know, Keefy D is going to go to prison, but it will never really truly be over. There will never be closure in this case.

• 42:02Phoebe Judge?

  Why do people care so much? I mean, you know, just to have the, the YouTube channels and to have, of course, their unsolved murder cases, many of them, but what is it? Is it, is it that, is it just that Tupac was so famous? Or was there, is there some allure? Is there some mystery around it?

• 42:18Speaker 03

  I think that the people enjoy the allure of the mystery around it. I mean, it's also profitable. People make money off this stuff. Like, you know, the YouTube channels, they generate a lot of views, right? There's a, there's a cohort of people, like real diehards. And what interesting place to go is like the Tupac Reddit page, right? Like, there's people every day that are asking random questions about Tupac. Like, do you think that he would have gone to Cuba? Or what do you think Tupac would have thought about this? So people are like fascinated with this guy, right? So that's a big piece of it, too. And I would also say that, you know, something that I've talked about with people is that

• 42:57Speaker 03

  Tupac, man, a 55-year-old Tupac would have been an incredible person, given how smart he was, how magnetic he was, how influential he was. Like dudes got back tattoos of, you know, the crucifix on their back because Tupac did. Like, that wasn't something you saw a lot of once upon a time. But because Tupac did it and he, you know, got his whole body tatted up, got nose rings, did all this stuff, like, he moved a lot of people, man. A lot of people could relate to the pain in his music. Like, he was a vessel for that. He could speak to a lot of people. He, I mean, that's why he was, you know, briefly a Black Panther and he was going to help with recruiting there because people could follow him, right?

• 43:42Speaker 03

  And so I think a lot of people just don't want to accept that Tupac died over something so trivial as a gang battle, right? That he punched somebody who wasn't going to take that line down. That seems beneath the station of somebody as famous and influential as Tupac. And they just don't want to accept that it was just some basic street stuff as opposed to a larger conspiracy. It's more alluring. It's more, it's, it, it makes more sense if you say the government, Tupac was so powerful, the government had to have him killed, right? That, that, that sounds a lot better than Tupac was out of his mind, punched a Crip,

• 44:26Speaker 03

  and that guy went and got revenge as soon as he could. It, it, it seems beneath a guy that had so much ahead of him.

• 44:33Phoebe Judge?

  Well, Joel, thank you very much.

• 44:35Speaker 03

  Oh, Phoebe, anytime.

• 44:39Phoebe Judge?

  In addition to listening here, you can watch all of these Tuesday episodes on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. You'll find lots of other videos there, too, including clips from our chat show, Please Continue, and our favorite episodes from the Criminal Archives. We hope you'll subscribe to our channel while you're there. I'm Phoebe Judge. Thanks for listening.