He’s been a dominant persona in the world of hip-hop for more than three decades. He also remains the only living eyewitness to the drive-by assassination of Tupac Shakur.
And from prison, Marion “Suge” Knight said he still refuses to cooperate with law enforcement as prosecutors try to convict the only man ever charged in connection with the 1996 shooting of the legendary rapper.
“This trial has nothing to do with me and if somebody brings me there, it’s gonna hurt whoever brings me there. I promise you that,” Knight said in an interview last week with ABC News.
The 61-year-old Knight, now serving an unrelated 28-year sentence in California for voluntary manslaughter stemming from a 2015 fatal hit-and-run in Los Angeles, is well aware that jury selection starts Monday in Las Vegas in the trial of onetime Crips gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis. Nearly 30 years to the day that Shakur was gunned down in the passenger seat of a BMW Knight was driving, Davis is accused of murder for allegedly giving his crew the order to open fire on Shakur in retaliation for a fight.
In the months after Shakur succumbed to his injuries, Knight told ABC News he wouldn’t cooperate with law enforcement in their investigation because “I don’t get paid to solve homicides.”
Now locked up in a state penitentiary near San Diego, Knight hasn’t changed his tune.
“They make me come there against my will, if Keffe D’s lawyers bring me there, it don’t look good for him. If the prosecution brings me there, it don’t look good for them,” Knight said. “Leave me out of it.”
It was the night of Sept. 7, 1996, and Knight and Shakur were in Sin City to see Mike Tyson fight Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand. The bout was a big draw for glitterati, gangs and their entourages — particularly from Southern California.
Also in Vegas that night, according to prosecutors, was Davis, allegedly traveling with his nephew and several others.
When the action in the ring ended, another fight broke out in the casino lobby: Shakur and Knight encountered Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, Davis’ nephew. They were told Anderson had allegedly been involved in trying to steal a Death Row Records pendant months earlier — a major infraction in the hip-hop world.
Knight led Death Row. He and Shakur confronted Anderson and jumped him in a beatdown that was caught on hotel security cameras.
After it was over, detectives have said, Davis and his companions went searching for Shakur, allegedly to exact revenge. Authorities claim they waited at the Las Vegas night spot run at the time by Knight, but he and Shakur didn’t show. Soon after they left, the car in which Davis was allegedly riding wound up alongside the red BMW Knight was driving, according to Davis’ past accounts and prosecutors.
Shakur was hanging out of the car’s sunroof. Screaming fans were trailing them.
At a stoplight at the intersection of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane, Shakur and Knight were shot. Knight was injured in the hail of bullets. Shakur, in grave condition, was rushed to the hospital. He died six days later.
“You have people who wasn’t there, wasn’t in the car, but they’re telling the story,” Knight told ABC News last week.
As years turned to decades with no charges filed in Shakur’s death, many observers thought the case would remain unsolved forever. But then, in September 2023, authorities arrested Davis, a self-confessed longtime leader of the Southside Crips from the Los Angeles community of Compton. He had retired to the Las Vegas suburbs.
Davis was charged with murder with the use of a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He has been in custody ever since.
Through the course of public interviews, statements to law enforcement and even his own memoir, Davis has repeatedly admitted to his alleged role in Shakur’s death. He has pleaded not guilty since being arrested and, in a March 2025 jailhouse interview, told ABC News that his prior confessions were lies and that he is “innocent.” If convicted, the now-63-year-old will likely never walk out of prison a free man.
Once a jury is chosen, the trial is expected to last about four weeks. Knight is listed as a possible witness who prosecutors could call to testify.
In the interview last week, Knight continued to make no effort to hide his disdain for Davis. And still, with his own longstanding ties to the Bloods street gang in Compton, Knight insisted that he’s no rat.
“My loyalty to Tupac can never be compromised. Me as a man, what I believe in, can’t be compromised. I’m not there to help [Davis], and I’m damn not there to hurt him,” Knight said.
“To actually get on the stand, and point somebody out, it’s worse than taking a gun and shooting that man in the head. Because if you shoot a person in the head, they die once. If you get on the stand and you snitch on that person, they die a million times,” Knight continued. “I am not going to be responsible for sending another man to prison for the rest of his life. If God’s forgiving, who am I to think I’m bigger than God and don’t forgive? Because I’m not.”
Davis’ attorney did not respond to an ABC News request for comment on Knight’s statements. The Clark County District Attorney’s Office, prosecuting Davis, also declined to comment for this report.
Noting how many times Davis has admitted to his alleged role in Shakur’s death, Knight said he was amused at the idea Davis’ lawyers would plan to argue he wasn’t even in Las Vegas the night of the drive-by shooting.
“If that’s his defense, he might as well go out with a bang, and walking in, sock his lawyer right in the face because you already put yourself there,” Knight said of Davis’ alibi. “If somebody’s falling off the cliff, and you know this little twig, this little bitty flowers and daisies or whatever is not going to hold you up — but they’re still grabbing and trying. Knowing it’s not gonna hold them up, and that’s what he’s doing.”
Davis’ attorneys have tried — so far unsuccessfully — to keep Davis’ alleged public admissions out of trial. He has argued that he only confessed for profit and because he thought he had immunity from prosecution, stemming from a 2008 interview with a joint LA-federal task force.
“He felt he was untouchable,” Knight mused of Davis. “He wanted to just talk, talk, talk, talk. He kept talking until they put handcuffs on him.”
Knight told ABC News he doesn’t think it matters whether he testifies in Vegas.
“Everything he said and talked about, he already told on himself. So what are you going to do? Erase all the recordings of the interviews he did?” Knight said.
Thirty years after witnessing the killing of the rap star he helped create, Knight said he still misses Shakur.
“There’s not a day that goes by that me, personally, doesn’t think about Tupac, or I miss Tupac,” Knight said. “That’s my brother.”
While Shakur’s mark on music and culture is likely to come up during jury selection this week, it is also a feature in Knight’s own family, the hip-hop impresario said.
“My youngest son, his name is Legend. He plays basketball. He’s great at it. Sports, he’s smart in school, but on his own, he’s an artist. He’s a rapper. He’s only 16, and his favorite rapper is Tupac. His friends’ favorite rapper is Tupac. So this younger generation still believes and loves Tupac, my own son,” Knight said.
“Tupac is not here. Well, I wouldn’t say he’s not here because he’s in everybody’s mind, and the people who knew him, he’s in their heart,” Knight added.
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