Who murdered Tupac Shakur? Only one man knows for sure

News last month of a police raid sparked fresh hopes of solving one of the most infamous killings in US history. William Shaw, an expert on the Los Angeles rap scene, recounts a tragic tale of racism, gangs, toxic masculinity and police incompetence

The 1990s music scene produced two moments of great darkness. If the 1994 death of Kurt Cobain somehow symbolised young white alienation, the murder of Tupac Shakur two years later continues to resonate, not just because it was another deep and painful scar for the African American community, but because no one has ever been prosecuted for it. And it looked, for two decades, like no one ever would be.

It was something of surprise, then, when armoured cars rolled into a quiet suburban street in Henderson, Nevada last month in the sweltering 40C of a July evening and armed officers ordered out the occupants. “Come out with your hands empty,” shouted police. A middle-aged man and a woman exited, walking backwards towards the waiting officers. They were executing a search as part of an investigation into the killing of Shakur. The house belongs to Paula Clemons, wife of 60-year-old Duane Davis, better known as gang leader and former high-profile Los Angeles drug dealer Keefe D.