In the 50-year history of hip-hop, there have never been two stars whose lives â and deaths â have been more examined than Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, the rapper known professionally as the Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls.
Both men are as beloved and missed now as they were almost 30 years ago when they were killed â Shakur in September 1996 in Las Vegas and Wallace in March 1997 in Los Angeles.
âWe lost two giants senselessly,â rapper Fat Joe told CNN. âThatâs what bothers me when it comes to Biggie and Pac. We lost two giants over nothing.â
Their deaths are now being revisited after Duane Keith Davis, known as âKeffe D,â was arrested last month for the death of Shakur, 27 years after the rapper was shot as he was leaving a boxing match on the Las Vegas Strip.
Body camera of Davisâ arrest shows him referring to the murder as âthe biggest case in Las Vegas history.â
But Shakurâs death reverberated well beyond the borders of Nevada and foreshadowed that of Wallace. The question now is when, or if, an arrest will be made in connection to the death of Wallace.
MULTIPLE CONNECTIONS
The murders of the two influential rappers who started as friends and later became rivals have always been culturally connected, because of both the time period and the circumstances.
âIt was almost like [the death] of Tupac was the first movie and then Biggie was the sequel,â P. Frank Williams, who produced the 2017 television special âWho Shot Biggie and Tupac?â told CNN. âThe two biggest deaths in the history of hip-hop.â
Both men came from impoverished backgrounds, were raised by single mothers whom they cherished and honored via the music that made them famous. Each had run-ins with the law earlier in their lives before being heralded as artistic superstars who were untouchable when it came to their craft.
The pair were also at the center of the âEast Coast vs. West Coastâ rap beef in the 1990s after Shakur, a West Coast-based artist, became convinced that Wallace, who was from Brooklyn, helped set him up to be shot five times in a Manhattan recording studio in 1994. Wallace denied any involvement and was never charged in connection to the crime.
Ultimately, both were victims of fatal drive-by shootings while out with others for a night of partying.
There is even a connection between the investigations into their deaths.
Now-retired Los Angeles Police Department detective Greg Kading interviewed Davis in 2009 as a person of interest in the death of Wallace, as Davis had been present at a party at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles which Wallace had left just before he was shot.
In a transcript of a Clark County grand jury proceeding from last month, retired Las Vegas Metropolitan Police detective Clifford Mogg said that investigators theorized Shakurâs murder and Wallaceâs âwere related.â
Mogg didnât specify what their theory was, but testified Davis was not involved.
FUTURES UNFILFILLED
Another person who was in LA the night Wallace died was Cheo Hodari Coker.
While heâs gone on to work in film and television, with credits including Netflixâs âLuke Cage,â back then Coker was a journalist on assignment to talk to Wallace for what would turn out to be the rapperâs final interview.
Coker said he was supposed to be in the entourage traveling with Wallace when he was killed, but the rapper failed to call him back to connect. Shakurâs and Wallaceâs deaths are linked âby both history and emotion,â Coker said, and have come to reverberate all the more in the years that have passed.
âNot just dead, murdered. And I think that sometimes, in our celebration of the music and of themâŚthat does get lost over the years,â Coker said. âThese were deliberate deaths on somebodyâs behalf and that stings so much. Particularly as all of us who have been around this are now in our fifties and we understand how much life you have lost when you die at 25 and 24.â
Those unfulfilled futures are especially haunting to Coker, who said his final conversation with Wallace focused on his childhood and aspirations that may be surprising to those who viewed him only through his rhymes.
âBasically the life that he described was being a soccer dad in Atlanta,â Coker said. âHe just wanted to give his daughter away at her wedding, play with his kids and he wanted to build a house in Atlanta.â
Shakur was also a man who was multifaceted.
Williams, who as a journalist covered Shakurâs murder for the Los Angeles Times and Wallaceâs for The Source Magazine, recalled a Latino grandmother calling in to a Los Angeles radio station after the death of Shakur to talk about how much his song âDear Mamaâ meant to her.
Yet he was the same man who sported a âThug Lifeâ tattoo on his stomach and was one of the reigning stars of hardcore rap.
âTupac reached people on an emotional and spiritual level,â Williams said. âHeâd go from [his single] âWonda Why They Call U B**châ to âDear Mama,â which was talking about the human experience. That was the kind of stuff he talked about, which is a far cry from the image that you have of him.â
âBiggie on a lyrical storytelling level is probably one of the best,â he said of Wallace. âI think he was a superstar and was beloved for his music and his craftsmanship as a writer and artist.â
âThey both were gifts at that time.â
Coker is hopeful that with the renewed spotlight on Shakurâs death, there will be movement on Wallaceâs case.
CNN has reached out to the Los Angeles Police Department for comment on Wallaceâs murder investigation.
âIâm hoping that with pressure comes revelation,â Coker said.
Revelation, and, perhaps, eventually some measure of justice for his loved ones.
Those close to Wallace and Shakur are still waiting.
âWeâre in a constant state of grief and remorse and pain because we have to relive it and relive what happened,â Mopreme Shakur, Shakurâs stepbrother, told CNN last week. âWe have been through decades of pain.â