Former hip-hop mogul Marion “Suge” Knight was evasive when he spoke with an investigator in 2024 about the shooting that wounded him and killed rapper Tupac Shakur, but he suggested that money changed hands in connection with the killing, according to a newly released audio recording.
The recording captures Knight discussing Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, who was convicted Aug. 31 of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon in Shakur’s 1996 slaying. It also includes Knight’s impressions of the night of the shooting near the Strip and his willingness to provide some information while also refusing to be a witness at Davis’ trial.
“I’m not going to be telling you who did this and you dragging me to court and all but put me in the middle of it,” Knight said.
Details of Knight’s interview were first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal during the trial, based on a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The recording of the interview was provided by the district attorney’s office in response to a public records request.
‘If money didn’t change hands’
Clifford Mogg, a former Metropolitan Police Department detective working as a contractor for prosecutors at the time of the March 2024 interview, tried to push Knight to identify the people behind the shooting.
“So who’s the person that’s supposedly paying to have Tupac killed?” Mogg asked.
“You already know who that is,” Knight replied.
“I want to hear it from you,” Mogg said.
“He’s a dancing dude, the guy who’s going around raping everybody right now,” Knight said, laughing.
The trial featured similar allegations about Sean “Puffy” Combs, who was convicted of prostitution-related offenses in New York last year and received a sentence of over four years in federal prison.
“Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs supposedly had given money to Zip Martin to give to Mr. Davis for payment of the Tupac murder,” former Los Angeles Police Department Detective Daryn Dupree testified.
“So Keefe knew that you knew that this money was put up by Puff,” Mogg said in the interview with Knight.
“Of course, he doubled down on it, you know,” Knight said.
“So who do you ultimately blame for Pac’s death?” asked Mogg.
“If money didn’t change hands, it never would have happened,” Knight said.
Combs’ company has not responded to requests for comment about the allegations.
At another point in the interview, Knight also said an accountant hired people to kill him.
Biggie shooting
Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo said at a Sept. 1 news conference that prosecutors decided not to bring Knight to the trial because he was not credible and could have invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.
“My first question to Mr. Knight would’ve been (to) ask, ‘Why did you have Biggie killed?’” he said. “And so I imagine he would have invoked and never wound up in front of the jury anyways.”
Knight, a former UNLV football player who is serving a 28-year sentence for running over and killing a man in 2015, did not respond to a request for comment via a messaging system for the California prison system Friday. He previously sent a message that said “What’s good” in response to a reporter’s inquiries.
Attorney David Chesnoff, who has represented Knight, declined to comment on DiGiacomo’s remark about rapper Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace, who was also known as Biggie Smalls.
Some investigators, including Mogg, have suggested that the killing of rapper Wallace was related to the killing of Shakur.
Both hip-hop icons were slain in drive-by shootings six months apart.
Asked about violence in the aftermath of Shakur’s death, Knight told Mogg: “That ain’t never be my style.”
Comments about Davis
DiGiacomo said at the news conference that Knight was uncooperative, but that Knight confirmed Davis was involved in the killing.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal said in his opening statement that Knight was grazed in the head during the shooting that led to Shakur’s death.
Knight told Mogg that a bullet entered his skull and that he is blind and deaf on one side of his body.
“I’m bitter about this s—-,” he said.
But he expressed no ill will toward Davis. “I’ve never had a problem with him,” Knight said.
He also discussed Davis’ prior statements about being at the scene of the shooting.
Asked if he thought Davis was lying, Knight said, “You know the answer to that. He said he was there, (former gang member) James (McDonald) said he was there, everybody else said he was there.”
“Why would he lie?” Knight later added.
Davis was accused of being a leader in the South Side Compton Crips during the 1990s.
According to prosecutors, the Bloods-associated Mob Piru gang had ties to Knight’s Death Row Records, and the South Side Compton Crips were associated with Bad Boy Records, a label owned by Combs.
Knight on Orlando Anderson: ‘He didn’t shoot nobody’
At the trial, Palal described a fight involving Davis’ nephew Orlando Anderson and rival gang members in which a chain was pulled off Mob Piru member Trevon Lane’s neck.
Knight disputed that narrative. “Nobody took a chain,” he told Mogg. “Nobody lost a chain.”
Prosecutors have said Davis was the “shot-caller” who came up with the plan to exact revenge on the rapper and Knight in retaliation for an attack by Shakur and his entourage against Anderson at the MGM Grand earlier on the night of the shooting.
Knight suggested the fight stemmed from Lane pointing Anderson out to Shakur as a lookout for people who were paid to kill Shakur.
Davis indicated to law enforcement in a 2008 interview that his nephew Anderson was the shooter.
“He didn’t shoot nobody,” Knight said of Anderson, who was killed in 1998.
Mogg told Knight he agreed that Anderson was not the shooter.
Knight said he believed Frank Alexander, who provided security for Shakur, “was in on it” and blocked Knight’s car from behind, making it hard to maneuver at the time of the shooting. Alexander reportedly died in 2013.
Knight confirmed to Mogg that someone from his entourage fired during the shooting and said he believed there were multiple shooters, something Mogg disputed.
“This wasn’t no gang-banging s—-,” said Knight. “This wasn’t no street s—-. This was more professional.”
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com.
