Compton Street Legend: Notorious Keffe D’s Street-Level Accounts of Tupac and Biggie Murders, Death Row Origins, Suge Knight, Puffy Combs, and Crooked Cops

by Duane 'Keefe D' Davis, Yusuf Jah

The infamous Suge Knight, former Death Row Records CEO, and I are the only living eyewitnesses to the deadly confrontation on the Las Vegas strip between the occupants of our two vehicles. A violent confrontation that led to the deaths of two of Hip-Hop’s biggest stars (Tupac Shakur & Christopher ‘Notorious B.I.G.’ Wallace) and changed Hip-Hop history forever. There’s a strict code on the streets. One that real street players live, kill, and die by. COMPTON STREET LEGEND reveals the street-level code violations and the explosive consequences when the powerful worlds of the streets, entertainment, and corrupt law enforcement collide. More than twenty years after the premature deaths of Tupac and Biggie there have been numerous TV specials, documentaries, books, magazine and newspaper, and social media dedicated to the subject. But at the end of the day, none of the private investigators, retired police officers, informants, Hip-Hop heads, actors, or academics that have weighed in on the topic truly know what happened and the reasons behind it, because none of them were there. Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis, a native of Compton, California, admittedly lived most of his life as a gangster; a real gangster that did the shit that real gangsters do. He rose up the gang-banging ranks to become a shot-caller for the notorious Southside Compton Crips, while running a multi-million dollar, multi-state drug empire. Keffe D has been a central figure in both the Tupac Shakur and Biggie murders for the past 20 years. COMPTON STREET LEGEND will add valuable information about two of the biggest “unsolved” crimes in American history. It will serve as the missing piece of the puzzle that Hip-Hop Fans have been waiting for. On the surface COMPTON STREET LEGEND will look like a story based on violence and hate, it is actually a story about Love, Family, Brotherhood, Loyalty, Trust, and Honor. Scroll to the top and click the “buy now” button. It’s time to set the story straight. Fasten your seatbelts.

Genres: Crime, True Crime, Biography, Music, Nonfiction, Conspiracy Theories

145 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 5, 2019

Reviews

[aisha ray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't bother

I didn't even bother to read this book. I was turned off from the first page. Why is this book formatted like this? Why would Amazon allow a book to be in this format? The screen kept turning sideways. I thought it was something I was doing. But no this is the way the book is formatted like the book was scanned from a pdf file. The words were so tiny and I could not enlarge it. Truthfully I know what happened. Watch the tupac and biggie Mimi series. Watch the interview with detective kading on Vlad tv. He tells how keefe d was granted immunity to tell the truth bout his cousin killing tupac. Watch his interview with vlad and mob james. The fact that he wrote a book is too much.

[Krystal Barnes · Rating 1 out of 5]

So why did PAC and Suge Knight jump on your nephew Baby Lane?

Who was south side and Suge’s boss since they had the same boss?

Why would his cousin Darlene say kill the brother of one of the guys he was looking for? She didn’t know nothing about him being jumped unless he left this out.

How would they know his car and book him did the police spot the car based of information at the beating of the brother or responding to crime scene of house he shot up.

Descendant from Nat Turner.... Ok

Why did his grandmother come over and fight him in front of everybody?

It’s like he is leaving stuff out of stories what the hell?

So he basically joined the gang because it was a fad and he didn’t want to be an outsider. Seems ignorant and foolish to me.

I swear he brags on himself way too much and is any of it legitimate?

Really driving a new Seville at 12?

I don’t know 21% in and don’t see the reason for the back stories as of yet other than him bragging about himself.

How do you stay out of jail and you get $350k delivered and the fbi intercepts the package and all that happens is you lose the money? Really?

Confused on why Puffy is a bad dream.

Did you write about Sage because he is in jail now and nowhere near getting out? I mean this beef happened in 1996 why now talk about it?

What was the point of telling us that Puffy came out in packed hotel room with no clothes?

So the only beef I can see he has with Tupac is lyrics and who has beef with someone just because of what they say in lyrics not even directly stated to you?

Makes you wonder how did everyone get locked up but him?

He is repeating himself a lot.

Who knows what to believe about murder of Tupac because it differs from Suge. Who shot Tupac?

Cops raided your house and found all these guns and you were on parole and nothing happened? Hum.

You killed PAC but when asked by Puffy who hired the hit you didn’t say nothing but it was for a million.

How did he keep from being locked up when the fbi did raids?

How stupid so you killed Tupac and never got paid what an idiot?

How do you get pulled over and they take an illegal gun from you but release you after holding you Illegally?

Seems as the federal prison is where they send all snitches because I feel like that is what this guy is and not telling really anything we didn’t know already in this book.

Just feel like I don’t t want to hear about who set you up.

Why did you ignore the red flags. Yes, you may have found it hard to believe that family and friends would turn on you but I also think it was greed.

So he says he sung because he was not able to get so many free. What exactly did he sing about? He doesn’t tell what he told them.

Said you didn’t do a day in jail but you told what you took part in regarding Tupac’s murder and you didn’t do a day in jail how is that possible? I smell a rat!!!

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Murder Rap and LAbyrinth prior to this book. I wanted a different perspective than those two books. A lot of what Keffe D said raises some eyebrows and those questions are very well laid out on other reviews here so I defer to them. Some of this stuff took place decades ago so part of it could be that our memories on things get muddled over time even if we believe we remember them clearly.

The book was full of spelling and grammar errors. The quotes the author would take from the book often times did not match! My assumption is that this book was thrown together fast due to Keffe D, Greg Kading, et. al appearing on podcasts and shows like VladTV so they tried to strike while the iron was hot.

I’ve had a lot of interest recently in this case due to Keffe D being raided again by the feds. So I found some insight in this book that I did not get on Murder Rap or LAbyrinth. Anyone who isn’t really interested in the murders of 2pac and The Notorious B.I.G. will probably find this to be a two star book at best. For me, I’ll round it up to three stars.

[Hannah Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last chapter is next level petty 😂

[Scott Holstad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tells a mean tale but seems full of crap because he's little more than a brash, arrogant self-promoter and little else. It's always all about him so while some of this may be factual to whatever extent, it's impossible to know or say what, which sinks the whole fucking thing for me. It's almost like reading a stereotypical gangsta who is writing their rap tune to both shock (little does anymore) and impress with their own massive self-importance, which is rarely accurate or believable and virtually always way over the top. Meaning little integrity for the author and hence the author's words and assertions.

I'm willing to be wrong about this because it's been awhile, but it struck me as ironic at how much the author accuses himself of all horrors and crimes while I guess trying to say he's also FOS cause he'd never been prosecuted as an accomplice -- trying to straddle a fence that's almost diametrically opposed -- yet I think when I first started reading this, I saw reports that the LVPD had just arrested him for exactly what he basically admits to guilt while still trying to deny guilt -- cause otherwise the law would have gotten him. Dunce! May have taken awhile, but the law DID catch up with him. And spoiler alert -- I recall they said it was largely because of all of the confessions to crimes he relentlessly asserts in this very book!

The writing is wretched, the author is massively unreliable, the book reads like a "C"-grade hip hop flop, and most readers will probably not like the author or much else. The ONLY reason I'm giving this 2 stars instead of 1 is because of what I just described in the preceding paragraph. It's worse that watching a slow train wreck and I don't recommend it to anybody except those like me who apparently saw the equivalent of a smutty grocery store line rag and impulsively buys it -- something I'm not particularly proud of and have rarely done -- but if you experience such a weakness and can stomach a braggert with major communication problems, you might find this book interesting. Otherwise not recommended.

[Maritza · Rating 2 out of 5]

I watched the P. Diddy docuseries on Netflix and started looking for books to read. I found this book that lacked serious editing. It was fascinating that a lot of the same subjects keep coming up. I hope at some point someone will come out with the whole truth of who killed Tupac and Biggie.

[Maurice David Randle · Rating 4 out of 5]

GREAT BOOK!!!

I had to dock the book one star for the formatting and spacing issues. A lot of words, even entire phrases are jumbled together. Also, I HAD to turn my phone sideways to read it because the pages were too small to see otherwise.

Once you get past those issues, this was a really compelling story. I still remember Biggie and Pac's murders like it was yesterday. I remember delving into the crazy conspiracies and rumors surrounding their demise. It's great to finally gain some closure about the whole situation, especially because it's from an extremely reliable source.

This was a very easy read (outside of the formatting as aforementioned), and I HIGHLY recommend this book to any hip-hop head!

[Jason Weber · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I’ve read other books and watched docs about the Biggie/Tupac murders, so I figured I would check this out…
Somewhere between Murder Rap- Labyrinth- and this book is the truth… who know if we will ever know for sure….

[Tyiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a mess. I was a interested in the read from the man who claims he had a hand in Tupac's death but this book is shameful. He needed an editor badly and it's just written like an amateur book. I was not interested in his story after reading the first chapter because I could tell he was embellishing a lot of details. This book was a quick money grab but thank goodness I got this off Kindle Unlimited. Not recommended.

[Dréya · Rating 4 out of 5]

All I can say is wow and the epilogue...geeze!

[anjela t. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book hours after the news broke about the 1st degree murder charge of Tupac. I wasn’t sure what i was getting into or how I would feel abt reading this book but i was not expecting this. Keffe calls tupacs and biggies deaths unfortunate but collateral damage. I can’t say i don’t understand. The last few sentences in the book rocked me to my core *to the people who turned on him* “I saved your life and i think you outta thank me for that, instead of trying to put salt on my name.” he goes on to say “At first i was mad abt this whole situation but im free now. As time goes by, i realize i was offered the deal of a life time. They were going to punish our asses, i would never had said a word if they wouldn’t have given me such a sweet deal. I didn’t have to do a damn time, saved 48 peoples lives and i didn’t tell on any body but myself bc every body else was already dead. Think about it.”

I am shocked he did all this just to end up spending the rest of his life in jail bc we all know how the trail will end.. I can’t say i agree with him, or that what he did was right or he doesn’t deserve jail, but i will say i love hearing all sides of the story. Great great book.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compton Street Legend has flaws, but overall is a very enjoyable read. While Keffe D.’s story is a big part of Rap history, it would be a disservice to view his story exclusively through the lens of Rap. This book is a very interesting first-hand account of West Coast gang affiliation during its formative years through the early 2000s.

The memoir started really strong but could have used more editing towards the end. The narrative after the chapter “Aftermath” becomes weak, and as a result, the timeline is hard to follow- if it’s being followed at all. The language in this memoir is not for the easily scandalized or the young reader; discretion is advised.

Keffe D.’s voice is strong throughout the book, and not only does that make the book entertaining, it allows the reader to get to “know” him. Is he a reliable narrator? That is hard to say, but I believe that a lot of his accounts are true- in the form of half-truths. If this book has piqued your interest, I’d say give it a go. It’s a short read that kept my attention through the end of the book.

[Benya Workman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ramblings of a brain dead moron.

Don't bother to read this snitch's book. At one point this lowlife brags about beating up some woman that cursed at him.. seems like a stand up guy, right?

Cant even call this a book really.. just this idiot's incoherent ramblings..

Not only is he brain dead but he's also dillusional.. at one point he claims that his untrained gangbanger buddies could get the drop on Navy Seals if they wanted to...

The last chapter is him literally rattling off names one by one and then telling them off.. I've never seen that before in a book.. literally just rattling names off and then airing dirty laundry.. wierd.. anyway this guy is dumber than dirt. Dont read this. Oh and the title should be Compton Street Snitch.

[Jamila Glapion · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up because they just announced this past week they had someone in custody after almost 30 years for Tupac murder....well damn the suspect has a book, let me get it! Actually quite interesting, gives a different perspective and so many things I barely even remember, like the Altercation at MGM before the shooting. Definitely seems as though more people should be going down for this murder and the Biggie Smalls murder is still unknown, but I am glad I took the time. Quick read if wondering.

[Arien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting enough for me to keep reading and entertaining at very few times, but it gives major “I’m taking my ball and going home” energy. I often found myself rolling my eyes and saying, “what the f?” and “get over yourself!” It’s disappointing that the author even in his late 40’s/50’s (?) writing this shows no growth or remorse for almost anything he writes about in the book. You want to kill someone, because they kinda beat up a nephew?! When being the big, tough guy that’s the hardest person you know is more important than human life and family and growth? Well that’s sad as hell.

[Alex Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good to learn more about somebody who is notorious when it comes to the Tupac murder and their background.

However, much of it was a desperate attempt to upkeep his “gangster” image there was a perception of over-inflating/exaggerating/fabricating stories, wealth and relationships.

The back-end of the book felt like a bitter rant and unsubstantiated accusations towards others for his own wrong-doings, getting caught and ultimately becoming a snitch.

It’s worth a read if you are interested in LA gang scene, Tupac murder and Death Row records era.

[DeLisa Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s an ignorant book. The best way I can describe it. He implicates himself through out the whole thing and makes it all sounds so juvenile. I read it just be informed since he was just arrested for the murder but I would just watch the interviews and not waste your time with this junk.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shit sucks

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The gangster psychology

[Keets · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book! It is a great small insight into who Keffe D is.

[Terra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Positive: grammatically well edited.
Negative: just about everything else.

[DD · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wild ride, but worth the read. Did not see the comparison to DJP coming. My face probably looked like a surprised Suge.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read. The writer was in the car with the shooter when Tupac was caught and down the street when Biggie was shot. He has ties to Puffy and Suge Knight.

[Tammy Horvath · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a unique read, and time flew by as I listened to this book while cycling. I'm assuming this book is all true, but regardless, I enjoyed it.

[Maria Padilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm!! Did this book answer everyone's question about those two days we lost two talented men? I don't know. This was a roller-coaster ride.