Three decades after the drive-by shooting that shocked the music world, the first and only trial connected to the death of rapper Tupac Shakur has opened in Las Vegas. Duane "Keffe D" Davis, 63, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips street gang in California, faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote or assist a criminal gang. Prosecutors do not allege that Davis pulled the trigger, but that he orchestrated the ambush and supplied the weapon. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole. The trial is expected to last four to six weeks.

Tupac Amaru Shakur was one of the defining voices of 1990s hip-hop, his music drawing on themes of street violence, racism, police brutality, and inner-city life in California. He was signed to Death Row Records, founded by Marion "Suge" Knight, and was a central figure in a bitter coastal rivalry between West Coast hip-hop and the New York City-based Bad Boy Records label. On the night of 7 September 1996, hours after attending a Mike Tyson boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Shakur was shot six times from a white Cadillac while travelling to a nightclub. He died six days later, aged 25. Davis was one of four men in that Cadillac, according to authorities. The other three, including Davis's nephew Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson — who had been involved in a brawl with Shakur's entourage earlier that evening — have all since died.

The prosecution's case rests largely on Davis's own words. His 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend, opens on the night of the shooting and describes in vivid detail how Davis obtained a gun, entered the Cadillac, and hunted Shakur and Knight through Las Vegas in retaliation for the beating of his nephew. "No words exchanged, the time for talking had passed," he wrote, before describing the moment the shooting began. He has also given numerous video interviews elaborating on the events of that night, though he has never named who fired the gun. Prosecutors will additionally present evidence from interviews Davis gave to law enforcement in 2008 and 2009, during which he discussed the killing in exchange for immunity from potential drug charges.

Davis has pleaded not guilty. His defence argues that he and his co-author embellished and fabricated details for commercial gain, framing the memoir as opportunistic myth-making around what one court filing called "the entertainment world's JFK assassination." The Nevada judge overseeing the case denied a defence request to exclude the memoir, ruling that Davis had actively promoted it as the truth. Prosecutors plan to call between 35 and 45 witnesses; the defence intends to call only a handful and has not confirmed whether Davis will testify.

For Shakur's family, the trial represents a long-overdue moment of reckoning. His sister, stepbrother, and cousins were present at the Las Vegas courthouse during jury selection last week. "Whoever had anything to do with it, whoever set it up, whoever had any hand in it should be locked up in prison," said his cousin Kendrick Lesane. Knight, who was in the car with Shakur the night of the shooting and was also wounded, is on the witness list but has expressed reluctance to testify, saying he does not "get paid to solve homicides." He is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in California for a fatal hit-and-run incident in 2015.