Tupac Shakur’s Ashes: Claims of a Cremation Ritual

Suge Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records, told TMZ that Afeni Shakur — Tupac’s mother — directly requested an immediate cremation after his September 1996 shooting. Knight says he offered $1.2 million to expedite the process, after which Afeni invited him and close friends to a Las Vegas hotel room where the ashes were rolled into blunts. Knight declined participation, citing his probation status at the time.

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Tupac was shot while riding as a passenger in Knight’s car on the Las Vegas Strip on September 7, 1996 and died the following week. Afeni later arranged his cremation and, according to family members, scattered a portion of his remains in the Pacific Ocean off Malibu. Tupac also has a gravesite in Lumberton, North Carolina, his mother’s birthplace.

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Knight’s account, first reported by TMZ, frames the ritual as a private gathering that he did not attend. Outlawz member Young Noble corroborated the story in a 2024 interview, saying the group smoked the ashes based on a verse from their 1999 collaboration “Black Jesuz.” E.D.I. Mean of The Outlawz recalled Tupac’s interest in the practice, linking it to Native-American traditions he had learned about from school friends.

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• $1.2 million offered by Knight to accelerate cremation.

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• Ash-smoking reportedly took place in a Las Vegas hotel room shortly after the September 1996 death.

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• Portions of Tupac’s remains were later released into the Pacific Ocean; a gravesite remains in North Carolina.

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• “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, The Outlawz, Vlad TV interview

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• “The conversation was a real conversation. He was giving us history on where it came from, what he learned about it, you know what I mean? Why it was something he thought was interesting… [Tupac said] 'Wouldn't it be some shit if one of us died just so we always a part of each other?'… Shit you talk about when you young and you're high,” — quoted by E.D.I. Mean, referencing Tupac’s own words.

Suge Knight Recalls Smoking 2Pac's Ashes, But He's Missing Important Details