Record Executive Breaks His Silence on Shakur’s Death

The record executive who was with Tupac Shakur when the rap star was gunned down this month spoke publicly on Wednesday for the first time--not to shed light on the gangland-style murder, but to promise fans that his friend’s death would not go unremarked.

Marion “Suge” Knight, the Compton-born head of Death Row Records in whose BMW Shakur was fatally shot, refused to comment on the particulars of Shakur’s slaying, citing an ongoing police probe.

Nor would he respond to police allegations that he was an uncooperative witness after the incident, except to say that he delayed talking to detectives for several days because he needed time to collect his thoughts and to recover from a minor head wound.

He did say, however, that he has not stopped mourning since Shakur died Friday.

“If I could change things,” Knight told The Times, “I would give up Death Row, I would give up this lifestyle, I would give up a life to bring him back. . . . Me and Tupac was joined at the hip.”

Knight, a 6-foot-4-inch, 315-pound former football star from Compton who built Death Row into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, is a central figure in the Shakur case.

Like Shakur, Knight cultivated a tough public image that resonated in the wake of the attack.

It has never been clear with either man, acquaintances have said, how much their reputations were based on their ferocity, and how much was simply good P.R.

On the legal front, however, the 30-year-old Knight has a reputation that goes beyond gangland lore: He has been accused in court documents of once threatening another record executive with baseball bats and pipes in order to get a rap star released from a contract so the rapper could sign with Death Row.

And in the constellation of conspiracy theories that has arisen since Shakur’s death, Knight’s star has been prominent. Various rumors have had it that Shakur died in a gang war that involved Knight’s old neighborhood, that Shakur took a bullet meant for Knight, that he was killed by someone trying to damage Knight’s pocketbook--even that Knight ordered Shakur’s death in an inside job.

Police reiterated Wednesday that they have no new leads, and that witnesses to the attack have offered little useful information.

All that is known for certain, they say, is that Knight was in the driver’s seat of his luxury car, with Shakur next to him, when a white Cadillac pulled up next to them at a stoplight in Las Vegas, and two men stepped out and opened fire.

In full view of a caravan of 10 or more luxury cars rolling from Knight’s home to his newly opened Club 662 (“MOB” on a touch-tone keypad), Shakur was struck four times at close range, police said. A bullet fragment grazed Knight in the head, and he was treated at a nearby hospital and released before police were able to question him.

After nearly a week in intensive care, the 25-year-old Shakur died at a Las Vegas hospital. He was cremated the following day, according to a source close to Shakur’s family, because he had told his family that he did not want them to apologize for his life after he was gone, or entertain mourners at a funeral.

“He made it very clear to his mom after he was shot in New York that he did not want anyone looking down on him [in a casket],” the source said.

The source said that his mother, Afeni, a former member of the Black Panther Party, “wants people to know that she doesn’t want anyone apologizing for Tupac, his lyrics or the way he lived. It was important for him to do it the way he did it, the way he saw fit.”

On Tuesday, Knight expressed similar sentiments.

“He didn’t want people crying and in black,” Knight said, adding that he plans to honor Shakur by posthumously promoting an upcoming record by him. He is also planning a memorial service “in the next couple of weeks” that would instead celebrate the rapper’s music and life, he said.

A service that had been scheduled for today at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre was canceled, he said, because the 1,200-seat auditorium wasn’t big enough.

Knight added that he would not attend a planned “hip-hop day of atonement” that had been organized by the Nation of Islam and scheduled for Sunday in New York. Earlier this week, Conrad Muhammad, a New York representative of the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, had billed the event as a coming-together for rappers from the East and West Coasts, and a resolution of a high-profile public feud that Shakur had carried on in recent months with a rival East Coast rapper, the Notorious B.I.G.

But on Wednesday, a spokesman for B.I.G. said he suffered a broken leg in an auto accident this week and would be unable to attend. Likewise, the head of the rival label, Bad Boy Entertainment, declined, offering his “deepest condolences,” to Shakur’s family and friends.

Times staff writers Jerry Crowe and Jeff Leeds contributed to this story.