EXCLUSIVE: Duane Davis, otherwise known as Keefe D, is set to stand trial later this year for the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur.
That trial and the lead up to it – coming 30 years after Shakur’s murder in Las Vegas – will now be the subject of a new documentary.
British production company Pioneer Productions has secured exclusive access to Davis and his family and is set to take the project out to the market shortly ahead of the trial, which is scheduled for August.
Pioneer, which is part of the Tinopolis Group, secured the access by striking a deal with screenwriter and film producer Jon Aubrey Divens, who produced the original Blade movies. Divens has a personal relationship with Davis and is believed to have earned the trust of his community.
This includes access to Keefe D and his son Duane “Lil Keefe” Davis Jr. before the trial, throughout proceedings and in the immediate aftermath.
Divens will serve as executive producer on the project with Mary Pelloni, who previously exec produced long-running series Bridezillas, also attached. Pioneer, which is run by former Warner Bros. Discovery exec Howard Swartz, who oversaw Shark Week, is behind Discovery special Louvre Heist: Minute By Minute and Hulu’s Mother Undercover.
Former gang member Keefe D was indicted on one count of murder with a deadly weapon by a Nevada grand jury in September 2023. His trial was originally set for June 2024 but has been pushed back a couple of times and is now set to start on August 10.
Davis is the uncle of Orlando Anderson, who had been assaulted by Shakur and friends in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Casino after a Mike Tyson fight. Davis wrote a memoir, Compton Street Legend, and has given multiple interviews that he was in the passenger seat of the car that later that night pulled up next to Shakur’s vehicle when Shakur was shot and later died.
His arrest sent shockwaves through the hip hop community given that Shakur’s murder took place so long ago.
Shaku’s murder has been the subject of a number of documentaries, specials and scripted series over the years.
These include Lauren Lazin’s Tupac Resurrection, which received an Oscar nomination; Tupac Shakur: Before I Wake…, directed by Sean Long; Who Killed Tupac?, a six-part series that aired on A&E and featured the likes of Chuck D and Benjamin Crump; Murder Rap: Inside the Biggie and Tupac Murders, which was directed by Mike Dorsey and based on information from former LAPD investigator Greg Kading; and Nick Broomfield’s Biggie & Tupac.
There also was the scripted series Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G., which starred Josh Duhamel, Jimmi Simpson and Marcc Rose as Tupac. It aired on USA Network.
Then, there was Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur, directed by Allen Hughes, a major multi-part series that premiered in April 2023. Hughes was a one-time friend and one-time foe of Shakur’s and that series focused on Tupac’s relationship with his mother Afeni, a Black Panther activist, rather than his death.
In 2023, Hughes told Deadline that the day Davis was arrested was a “great day for the family.”
He revealed that when he was pitching the project around Hollywood, he had a different subtitle: This Is Not A Murder Investigation.
“When there’s a constellation of unremarkable details that’s when you know someone’s telling the truth and that’s what it was with [Davis]. This is not make-believe,” Hughes added.
