Description:
Rest In Peace.
There are many rumours surrounding Yaki Kadafi's death. It has been reported that Yaki Kadafi was visiting his girlfriend in New Jersey when he was struck dead by a bullet, and that Tha Outlawz member Napoleon had admitted to hiphop magazine The Source that his cousin 'Roddy' had shot Yaki Kadafi whilst the two of them were intoxicated with alcohol and drugs. There is also the rumour that Yaki Kadafi's murder was in-fact over money. Another popular rumour suggests that he was killed because he said he could identify the person that ended the life of Tupac Shakur. On September 7, 1996, Shakur attended the Mike Tyson - Bruce Seldon boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. After the boxing match, Shakur spotted 21 year-old Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, a member of the Southside Crips in the MGM Grand lobby. Shakur rushed him and knocked Anderson down, and Shakur's entourage beat him. The incident was captured on the hotel's video surveillance. Anderson and a group of Crips had beaten up a member of Death Row's entourage in a Foot Locker a few weeks earlier, precipitating Shakur's attack. After the fight with Anderson, Shakur met up with Suge Knight to go to Death Row-owned Club 662 (now known as restaurant/club Seven). Shakur rode with Knight in Knight's 1996 black BMW 750i sedan as part of a larger convoy of cars including some of Shakur's friends, The Outlawz, and bodyguards.
At approximately 11:10 PM, Suge pulled over to an intersection by another vehicle so Shakur could exchange words with the two unidentified women in the other vehicle and invite them to go to the club with them. At approximately 11:15 p.m., while stopped at the intersection of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane, Shakur was shot several times in a drive-by shooting. Shakur was struck by four bullets out of the twelve shots that were fired at him; he was hit twice in the chest, and once each in his left arm and thigh, while Knight was grazed in the head by a piece of flying glass.
At the time of the shooting, Shakur was riding alongside with Suge Knight, with his bodyguard following behind in a vehicle belonging to Kidada Jones, Shakur's then-fiancée. The bodyguard, Frank Alexander, stated that when he was about to ride along with the rapper in Suge Knight's car, Shakur asked him to drive Kidada Jones' car instead just in case they were too drunk and needed additional vehicles from Club 662 back to the hotel. Shortly after the shootings, the bodyguard reported in his documentary, Before I Wake, that one of the convoy's cars drove off after the assailant but he never heard back from the occupants.
After arriving on the scene, police and paramedics took Shakur and Knight to the University Medical Center. Shakur was placed on life support until his death six days later, on September 13, 1996, at 4:03 PM PDT at the age of 25. The official cause of death was respiratory failure and cardiac arrest. After his death, Shakur's body was cremated. His ashes were spread over Los Angeles, the Pacific Ocean, Shakur's aunt's land and his mother's land in North Carolina, and some has been mixed with cannabis and smoked by The Outlawz. Family and friends plan to spread the remaining ashes during a ceremony in Soweto, South Africa. The ceremony has been delayed from September 13, 2006, to June 16, 2007, which would have been Shakur's 36th birthday.
Due largely to the perceived lack of progress on the case by law enforcement, many independent investigations and theories of the crime have emerged. Because of the acrimony between Christopher Wallace and Shakur, there was speculation from the outset about the possibility of Wallace's involvement in the murder. Wallace vehemently denied involvement. However, in a notable 2002 investigation by the Los Angeles Times, writer Chuck Phillips claimed to have uncovered evidence implicating Wallace, in addition to Anderson and the Southside Crips, in the murder. In the article, Phillips quoted unnamed gang-member sources who claimed Wallace had ties to the Crips, often hiring them for security during West Coast appearances. Phillips' informants also state that Wallace gave the gang members one of his own guns for use in the attack on Shakur, and that he put out a $1 million contract on Tupac's life. By the time Phillips' specific allegations were published, however, Wallace himself had been murdered.
Wallace's family and associates have vehemently denied Wallace's involvement in Shakur's death. In support of their claims, Wallace's family submitted documentation to MTV indicating that Wallace was working in a New York recording studio the night of Shakur's murder. Wallace's manager Wayne Barrow and rapper James "Lil' Cease" Lloyd made public announcements denying Wallace's involvement in the murder and claiming further that they were both with Wallace in the recording studio the night of the shooting.
The high profile nature of the killing and ensuing gang violence caught the attention of British filmmaker Nick Broomfield who made the documentary film Biggie & Tupac, which examines the lack of progress in the case by speaking to those close to Wallace, Shakur, and the investigation. Shakur's close childhood friend and member of the Outlawz, Yafeu "Yaki Kadafi" Fula, was in the convoy when the shooting happened and indicated to police that he might be able to identify the assailants. He was killed shortly thereafter in a housing project in Irvington, New Jersey.
In the first few seconds of the song "Intro/Bomb First (My Second Reply) on the album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, Shakur can be heard saying "Shoulda shot me". Many theorists mistook the statement as "Suge shot me" or "Suge shot 'em" until confirmation by multiple audio tests and confirmation from members of The Outlawz. This, along with reports of Knight's strong-arm tactics with artists and other illegal business tactics including involvement with the Mob Piru Bloods street gang gave rise to a theory that Knight was complicit in Shakur's murder, as it was reported that Suge Knight owed Tupac up to seventeen million dollars in back royalties, but no evidence has been provided to support this theory.
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