New details surrounding one of hip-hop’s most enduring enigmas — the 1996 slaying of rap icon Tupac Shakur — may at long last be brought to light during the impending trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis.

Davis, 63, is accused of orchestrating the drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip that also wounded rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight.

Davis’ jury trial will begin Aug. 10, nearly three years after he was arrested in 2023.

He pleaded not guilty.

On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur occupied the passenger seat of a black BMW piloted by Knight when a white Cadillac drew alongside their right flank and unleashed a hail of gunfire.

Knight sustained wounds yet survived; Shakur succumbed to his injuries a week later, at the age of 25.

Law enforcement authorities and prosecutors contend that the altercation originated from an intense rivalry for supremacy within a particular musical genre, which set East Coast affiliates of a Bloods faction in opposition to West Coast members of a Crips sect—a group that Davis has asserted he commanded in Compton, California.

On that fateful night, three additional occupants accompanied Davis in the Cadillac, yet none of them were ever formally charged in connection with Shakur's assassination prior to their demise.

The identities of the occupants of both vehicles have been established through a confluence of sources: statements from law enforcement authorities, judicial records, testimony delivered before a grand jury, interviews, and the unvarnished disclosures contained within Davis’ 2019 tell-all memoir, “Compton Street Legend.”

Shakur is universally regarded as one of the most seminal and influential figures in the history of rap music.

His discography boasts five chart-topping albums, he garnered six Grammy Award nominations, and in 2017 he was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Further cementing his enduring legacy, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023, and he is slated to make an appearance in the forthcoming video game "Stranger than Heaven."

His demise occurred while his fourth solo album, “All Eyez on Me,” continued to dominate the charts, having amassed approximately five million copies in sales.

He was also known by the stage monikers 2Pac and Makaveli, and in his capacity as an actor, he featured prominently in several cinematic productions.

Born Lesane Parish Crooks in New York in 1971, Shakur's appellation was altered the subsequent year.

His late mother, Afeni Shakur, and late stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, were both profoundly engaged in the Black Panther Party's operations in New York.

Tupac Shakur sustained no intimate rapport with his biological father, William “Billy” Garland.

Two of the rapper’s siblings, Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur and Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur, have castigated the authorities for their inertia and dilatoriness in indicting anyone for their brother’s demise.

Knight established Death Row Records, a Los Angeles-based label that represented Shakur at the time of his demise.

Knight’s sobriquet was abbreviated from “Sugar Bear,” the appellation he bore while coming of age in Compton.

En route to a nightclub, Knight and Shakur came under gunfire in the vicinity of the Las Vegas Strip, whereupon Knight sustained a superficial wound from either a bullet or shrapnel.

Now 61, Knight is serving a 28-year prison sentence in California for running over and killing a Compton businessman outside a burger stand in January 2015.

The case capped the former rap music mogul’s downfall from his heyday as one of the biggest — and most feared — names in the music industry.

Davis recounted that he and Knight had known one another since childhood, having even shared the pitch on the same youth football team in Compton.

Knight subsequently progressed to collegiate football at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and, during the brief interlude of the 1987 NFL players’ strike, served as a replacement player for the Los Angeles Rams.

In his memoir, Davis portrays Knight and himself as the sole surviving witnesses to the veritable sequence of events.

"Like two rams locking horns, Suge and I looked each other dead in the eye," he writes when describing the moments right before the shooting.

Law enforcement authorities had long harbored suspicions that Anderson was the perpetrator of the shooting, at which time he was merely 22 years of age.

Notwithstanding the fact that Davis, being his uncle, was his senior by a dozen years, Anderson characterized their bond as one encompassing the fraternal, the companionable, and even the filial.

Mere moments prior to the drive-by shooting, Anderson had been subjected to a severe beating during a violent altercation at the MGM Grand casino, an incident in which Shakur and his associates—Knight among them—were implicated.

Law enforcement authorities, biographers, and Davis himself concur that the shooting constituted an act of retaliation for the assault perpetrated upon Anderson.

Davis writes in the book that their assault upon my nephew constituted the definitive imprimatur for our subsequent actions.

Davis acknowledged having acquired a handgun from an associate and discarding it onto the rear seat of the Cadillac, yet he remained reticent regarding the identity of the individual who had fired the fatal shots.

Anderson was situated in the back of the vehicle, positioned directly behind his uncle.

Neither the Cadillac nor the firearm utilized in the shooting was ever recovered, as per the account of retired Las Vegas police Detective Clifford Mogg, who had been entrusted with the investigation in early 2018.

“We were never able to ascertain the identity of the individual who rented the vehicle, nor the location from which it was procured, and as for the firearm, we have, to this very day, failed to recover the weapon employed in the commission of the homicide,” Mogg testified before the grand jury.

Anderson, who categorically refuted any complicity in Shakur's assassination, met his demise two years later in what law enforcement characterized as an unrelated shooting at a Compton car wash.

Also known as "Big Dre," Smith was ensconced in the rear compartment of the automobile that evening, situated in immediate proximity to Anderson.

While authorities have professed their unwavering conviction that Anderson was the one who discharged the firearm, the testimony proffered before the grand jury served to systematically erode the credibility of that supposition.

Denvonta Lee, a former associate of Davis, testified before the grand jury that it was Smith who discharged the firearm at Shakur and Knight.

He further stated that Anderson endeavored to reach across Smith but was precluded from obtaining a "clear shot" through the left-rear passenger window.

The former associate, who was not present in the vehicle but recounted a conversation he had held with Smith in the days subsequent to the shooting, asserted that Smith had taken the gun from Anderson, discharged it, and permitted Anderson to assume credit for Shakur's demise.

According to the Los Angeles County coroner's office, Smith, who was 30 years old at the time of his demise in 2004, perished from natural causes.

Brown was at the helm of the Cadillac from which the gunfire emanated.

In his memoir, Davis recounted that on that night they were heading toward Las Vegas Boulevard when they observed Shakur “hanging out of the window” of the BMW, gesturing to his admirers.

Davis instructed Brown to execute a U-turn, and they proceeded at a leisurely pace past the rapper’s entourage until Davis noted that they “found who we were seeking.”

Brown met his demise in a 2015 shooting at a medical cannabis dispensary in Compton.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office stated that his full appellation was Terry Tyrone Brown, notwithstanding that investigative documentation has alternately designated him as “Terrence” and “Terrance.”