Music

Suge Knight Claims Afeni Shakur Arranged for 2Pac's Ashes to Be Smoked

The Death Row Records co-founder claimed he paid $1.2 million for the late rapper to be cremated after his September 1996 murder.

Death Row Records co-founder, Marion "Suge" Knight, appears at a pretrial court hearing on May 15, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. - Knight is charged with several crimes, including attempted murder and hit-and-run for allegedly ramming his pickup truck into two men, killing one of them, after a dispute on the set of the movie "Straight Outta Compton."

STONE MOUNTAIN, GA - SEPTEMBER 09: Afeni Shakur-Davis, mother of the late Tupac Shakur, gives a speech in the Peace Garden on September 9, 2006 in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
DAVID MCNEW/AFP via Getty Images/Annette Brown/Getty Images

While not wanting involvement in the 2Pac murder trial, Suge Knight claims that the late rapper’s mother, Afeni Shakur, personally arranged for her son's ashes to be smoked by those closest to him.

In a new TMZ report, the Death Row Records co-founder claimed Shakur, who died in May 2016 at 69 years old, requested that her son be cremated immediately after his September 1996 death. Knight said that after offering $1.2 million to a man to expedite the cremation process, his request was granted. After the process, Afeni invited Knight and 2Pac’s close friends and family members to a Las Vegas hotel room where the ashes were rolled into blunts.

Knight himself did not participate, as he was on probation at the time. Multiple associates of the All Eyez on Me rapper have shared differing perspectives on 2Pac’s remains. In 2024, Outlawz member Young Noble told The Art of Dialogue the group had smoked Tupac's ashes, basing the decision off a verse from their “Black Jesuz” collaboration.

In a 2020 Vlad TV interview, fellow Outlawz member E.D.I. Mean corroborated Noble’s story, and described a conversation 2Pac had with the group about the Native American practice of smoking ashes.

"It's something the Native Americans did. That's where it came from… Because he had Native American friends that he went to school with that told him about that," E.D.I. Mean explained.

The rapper also recalled 2Pac framing the smoke session as, "‘Wouldn't it be some shit if one of us died just so we’re always a part of each other?’”

The claims have otherwise been disputed by some members of 2Pac’s family, as a portion of the rapper’s remains were released into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Malibu. 2Pac also has a gravesite in Lumberton, North Carolina, the birthplace of his mother.

Tupac was shot on September 7, 1996, while riding passenger in Knight's car on the Las Vegas Strip, and died six days later on September 13.

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