Jump directly to the content

RAPPER Snoop Dogg had the power needed to call off the "gangland hit" on rap rival Tupac Shakur, a Hollywood actor has claimed.

Heavyweight comedian Faizon Love believes Snoop had the connections within the deadly Crips organisation needed to put any plans to gun down Tupac on ice forever.

 Snoop and Tupac started out as close rap friends
7
Snoop and Tupac started out as close rap friendsCredit: Rex Features
 Actor Faizon Love believes gangland differences cost the rapper his life
7
Actor Faizon Love believes gangland differences cost the rapper his lifeCredit: Rex Features
 Gun-toting Crips members on a video shoot
7
Gun-toting Crips members on a video shootCredit: Corbis

During an Instagram Live session, The Couple's Retreat star said:  “I always felt when Pac died...Snoop could have stopped the whole thing.

“I mean, because like I said, Snoop was a Crip. Pac affiliates were Crips doing some gang s**t. Some dumb n***a gang s**t, really.”

Love added that Tuac’s "tension with Snoop set off a chain of events” that ultimately led to his untimely death.

Had Pac “not crossed Snoop,” he concluded, the hit-making Death Row Records star would still be living today.

Just last week, a top cop involved in Tupac's  murder investigation claimed the killing was a run-of-the-mill gangland revenge hit.

The officer – who asked not to be named – dismissed the conspiracy theories to say “It was simple retaliation: you mess with one of ours, we will mess with one of yours.”

The LAPD source said the motive for the 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas was “all about gangs. It was a gang retaliation murder”.

The rapper’s links with gun-toting street gangs reportedly started when he signed to Suge Knight’s label Death Row Records in the autumn of 1995.

And hours before his murder, Tupac was involved in a high-profile brawl with Crips member Orlando Anderson in the MGM Grand casino.

 Suge Knight, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur and MC Hammer at a 1996 Grammy Party
7
Suge Knight, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur and MC Hammer at a 1996 Grammy PartyCredit: Rex Features
 Tupac wearing Mob Piru red - the deadly rivals of the Crips
7
 Tupac wearing Mob Piru red - the deadly rivals of the CripsCredit: Getty Images

Trouble flared as earlier that year Anderson and his crew stole a Death Row Records medallion from one of Tupac’s entourage – also a Mob Piru member.

Tupac was caught on camera joining in the vicious “beat down” of Anderson.

Hours later he was shot as he drove down the Las Vegas strip with Knight.

The star was hit four times times – in the chest, arm and thigh – and died six days later.

The LAPD insider says later a former leader of the Crips admitted Tupac’s death was revenge for this beating.

 Tupac's bullet-ridden car on the Las Vegas strip
7
Tupac's bullet-ridden car on the Las Vegas stripCredit: Getty Images
 It’s claimed Tupac was shot in revenge for the beating of Orlando ‘Baby Lane’ Anderson
7
It’s claimed Tupac was shot in revenge for the beating of Orlando ‘Baby Lane’ Anderson

In April, Snoop described Tupac as the “greatest rapper of all time” during the latter’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Snoop spoke of Tupac as “many different things at once. Hardheaded and intellectual, courageous and afraid, revolutionary and….oh yeah, don’t forget it f*****d up, gangsta.”

Snoop has yet to comment on Love’s claims.

Topics