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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Thomas Hobbs

‘Your favourite rappers are only alive because of our sacrifices’: the secret life of rap bodyguards

Tekashi 6ix9ine surrounded by heavy security while shopping on Rodeo Drive, Los Angeles.
Tekashi 6ix9ine surrounded by heavy security while shopping on Rodeo Drive, Los Angeles. Photograph: AKGS/Vasquez-Max Lopes/BACKGRID

‘My biggest regret is being the one responsible for not saving Tupac’s life,” says Reggie Wright Jr, formerly head of security at the hip-hop label Death Row Records. On 7 September 1996, 25-year-old rapper Tupac Shakur was fatally shot while riding in a BMW with the head of Death Row, Suge Knight, along the Las Vegas strip.

The gunman is believed to have been Orlando Anderson, a Crip gang member the pair had previously beaten up amid the charged aftermath of a Mike Tyson boxing match. Anderson died in 1998 and his uncle Keefe D, who testified to being in the white Cadillac that Shakur was shot from, goes on trial for the murder in November.

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