By Roxanne "Flashbulb" Starr
Nearly thirty years after Tupac Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas, his brother is preparing to watch a trial he says can offer only partial peace.
Mopreme Shakur sat down with the BBC's Shaimaa Khalil ahead of the murder trial tied to the rapper's 1996 killing, according to the BBC. "I want my brother back," he told Khalil — a plain, aching line that cuts through nearly three decades of theories, documentaries, and unanswered questions surrounding one of hip-hop's most notorious unsolved crimes.
The BBC's report does not detail the identity of the defendant, the specific charges, or the trial's start date beyond noting it is upcoming; those specifics were not included in the available source material, and we flag that gap here rather than guess at it.
What is clear from Mopreme Shakur's own words is a family member's weary honesty: a courtroom can assign blame, but it cannot return what was lost. Tupac Shakur, one of the most influential and commercially successful rappers of his generation, was 25 when he died. His music and legacy have only grown in the years since, even as the case surrounding his death remained, for most of that time, cold.
We'll follow the proceedings and report developments as they're confirmed by credible sources.
— Roxanne "Flashbulb" Starr. If I can't source it, you won't read it here.
— Compiled from reporting by the BBC.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."