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LAS VEGAS — <\/span>Shardae Williams woke up recently to someone blasting Tupac Shakur’s \u201cShed So Many Tears,” as they drove by her home. Lately at work or while running errands, she has seen people wearing Shakur shirts. The late rapper’s presence is everywhere since the Las Vegas trial began, she says, calling it a hopeful sign that answers are coming in the death of her favorite artist. <\/p>\n \u201cHis spirit wants this to come out and wants this to get justice,” Williams said.<\/p>\n Nearly 30 years after Shakur\u2019s death, the trial of the only person ever charged<\/a> in his killing has drawn fans back to a loss many of them never stopped carrying. For them, the case not only offers the person who may be responsible for Shakur’s death, but a chance for resolution after decades spent keeping his music, message and memory alive.<\/p>\n Former Southern California street gang leader Duane \u201cKeffe D\u201d Davis has pleaded not guilty to orchestrating the drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. <\/p>\n After his death in 1996, Shakur and his influence lived on through fans and pop culture. He received a posthumous star<\/a> in 2023 on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a street named after him<\/a> in Oakland, California, and will be a character in the upcoming video adventure game \u201cStranger than Heaven.\u201d <\/p>\n There’s no official memorial to Tupac where he was shot on the Las Vegas Strip on Sept. 7, 1996. But visitors stop at the intersection and fans gather regularly on his birthday, June 16, adding messages to a utility pole that is covered in remembrances, such as \u201cRIP King,” \u201cTupac 4 Life\u201d and \u201cGone but never forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n They leave balloons, cake or his favorite type of brandy, Hennessy. On a strip of concrete nearby, someone painted a rose with the phrase \u201cthe rose that grew from concrete,\u201d a reference to Shakur’s posthumous book of poetry. <\/p>\n Atlanta resident Julie Hardy has been to the memorial three times on Shakur’s birthday to pay her respects. <\/p>\n “People still care, and he has not been forgotten,\u201d said Hardy, 56.<\/p>\n For fans like Hardy, Shakur is more than just a rapper. Hardy categorized Shakur, the son of a Black Panther, among the likes of Black activists such as Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King Jr. because he wrote about the \u201crevolution\u201d and the ups and downs the Black community faces, she said.<\/p>\n Shakur’s philosophy that he dubbed T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E, which stood for \u201cthe hate U give little infants f\u2014-s everybody,\u201d called for the uplifting of marginalized communities and demanded accountability from systems that oppressed Black people and the youth. <\/p>\n Hardy gravitated toward Shakur when she was 19 living in Cincinnati, Ohio, and her cousin showed her Shakur’s first solo album, \u201c2Pacalypse Now.\u201d <\/p>\n Shakur’s \u201cBrenda’s Got a Baby\u201d resonated with Hardy because of the high rate of teen pregnancy at the time, she said. His song \u201cSoulja’s Story\u201d inspired her to write hip-hop songs because it told a story of things she also saw growing up in Black communities, such as police and gun violence.<\/p>\n When she saw on the news that he was shot, she called everyone she knew. Hardy then went to her friend\u2019s house and prayed, hoping Shakur would survive like he did when he was shot in a robbery in November 1994.<\/p>\n She felt like a family member passed when she learned he died days later a hospital. He was 25.<\/p>\n \u201cWe looked up to him as an icon and a revolutionary, and now we\u2019re looking up to him as a legend,\u201d Hardy said. <\/p>\n Din \u201cLil Therapy\u201d Malone took a bus from Denver, Colorado, to watch the trial in Las Vegas. <\/p>\n Malone was introduced to Shakur when he was 13 years old watching Shakur in his breakout starring role as a troubled teen in the 1992 movie \u201cJuice.\u201d Then, he started listening to his music. <\/p>\n \u201cTupac taught me how to translate my tears into words,\u201d said Malone, a songwriter and artist. Outside of an overflow room in the courthouse, Malone wore a Shakur shirt and played Shakur’s music on his phone’s speaker. <\/p>\n Shakur wrote about his own hardships, and inspired Malone to do the same, putting into words experiences of being bullied as a kid or mourning family deaths, Malone said. He grew up in a Crips-run neighborhood in Denver and \u2014 like Shakur \u2014 learned how to \u201clive through the hood.\u201d<\/p>\n Shakur’s song \u201cIt Ain’t Easy\u201d spoke to Malone about the importance of persevering when life isn’t easy. Even though he never met the rapper, he said he felt like he lost an older brother.<\/p>\n Williams, a North Carolina resident, runs a Facebook fan page for Shakur called All Eyez on Pac that has over 25,000 followers. <\/p>\n The 38-year-old has loved Shakur ever since she watched \u201cPoetic Justice,\u201d the 1993 movie starring Shakur as a postal worker and Janet Jackson as a grieving hairdresser. One of the first Shakur songs she heard was \u201cDear Mama,\u201d and she said she was touched by Shakur’s deep love for his mother, Afeni Shakur.<\/p>\n Over the years, Williams watched every video about Shakur and every interview of people who knew him, she said. <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what made me create the page because I really truly have a love for Tupac,” she said. <\/p>\n She saw Shakur as a sweet, kind-hearted person who was misunderstood. Shakur wasn’t perfect. He was convicted of sexual assault and acquitted on more serious charges in a sex abuse case in 1994. He was sentenced to 18 months to over 4 years in prison, but served nearly eight months before he was released. But Shakur was human, Williams said. <\/p>\n Some fans who sat in the courtroom during the trial still don’t believe Shakur died, believing he faked his own death and is living in Cuba. <\/p>\n Williams said she was in denial when she first saw Shakur’s autopsy photos but sadly came around to realize he was gone<\/p>\n \u201cHe would want to have justice,\u201d she said. \u201cHe would want to keep his name and legacy alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n