Las Vegas police executed a search warrant in connection with the fatal drive-by shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996, the department said Tuesday, reinvigorating the investigation into the unsolved death of a hip-hop legend.
Shakur, who has sold millions of albums and reached No. 1 on the charts, was shot while leaving a Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon award show in Las Vegas when his Cadillac pulled up alongside the BMW he was riding. A week later at the age of 25.
The Las Vegas City Police Department said in a statement that it issued the search warrant in Henderson, Nevada, outside Las Vegas on Monday. He declined to comment further.
Shakur’s “All Eyez on Me” was one of the first double albums in hip-hop. He began acting on screen in the early 1990s, starring opposite Janet Jackson in John Singleton’s 1993 romantic drama Poetic Justice. When Died critic Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times that he “characterised gangs as a vicious cycle, an inevitable response to racism, ghetto poverty, and police brutality”.
His murder has been speculated in books, documentaries, TV series, and movies. For some, the failure to charge anyone with Shakur’s murder — as well as the fatal shooting of the infamous six months later — has become a sign of institutional failure, prompting police to reconsider the case.
Shakur, who was one of the most popular rappers in the world when he was murdered, has seen his legend grow after his death, with dozens of posthumous albums, books, documentaries, and films released. There was a concert featuring Tupac Shakur’s hologram. In 2017, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Part of the investigation over the years involved an altercation involving Shakur and his entourage at the MGM Grand Hotel after a boxing match.
But for more than 25 years, no arrests have been made. Police Department Quote Lack of cooperation from those close to Shakour as a reason for the investigation to be stalled.