2Pac's Estate Scores Victory In Legal Battle Over Makaveli Painting

2Pac’s estate and the entertainment company that owns all of his music and related content have scored a preliminary court win in a lawsuit surrounding the cover art for his Makaveli project.

According to AllHipHop, on Wednesday (February 22) United States District Judge Jane J. Boyle dismissed a lawsuit brought forth against the estate and Amaru Entertainment by artist Ronald Brent, the Zelus Group and Leslie Ware.

The suit requested that the courts declare Ware the legal owner of the image which appeared on ‘Pac’s posthumous album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory. According to the plaintiffs, the man won the painting in an auction organized by the Zelus Group, who acquired the painting from a third party, Mazuree Ali, who had purchased the painting from Brent.

However, as detailed by Boyle in her decision, 2Pac’s estate and Amaru Entertainment presented an alternate chain of ownership.

“By contrast, Amaru contends that Brent never ‘owned’ the Makaveli painting or image to begin with,” the ruling read. “Rather, because Brent was an employee for [Death Row Records], Amaru alleges that ownership of the painting and image stayed with DRR.

“Then, in 2013, Amaru, along with Tupac’s late mother, Afeni Shakur, filed an action to recover Tupac’s DRR recordings and related material, including album artwork,” Judge Boyle continued. “Ultimately, according to Amaru, the purported holder of the DRR materials quitclaimed and assigned the recordings and artwork to Amaru on January 1, 2022.”

The judge’s decision on Wednesday did not address the issue of ownership, but rather one of jurisdiction, ultimately deciding that the case did not belong in her district.

“Plaintiffs seek to hale Amaru to the Northern District of Texas for declaration as to the ownership and copyright of the Painting and Image, and their action is against Amaru directly and personally,” Judge Boyle wrote. “To conclude that the Court could assert jurisdiction over Amaru merely because of the painting’s presence in Texas would place ancient forms over modern notions of due process.”

Amaru Entertainment initially filed a lawsuit in California after the Makaveli painting landed on an online auction site in May 2022. As the company took steps to have the auction listing removed, the 2Pac estate began communicating with The Zelus Group in writing.

Leslie Ware was still able to purchase the painting at auction in the midst of the legal disputes. He, Zelus and Ronald Brent filed their case in the Northern District of Texas due to the fact that the painting is currently at Ware’s home in Dallas.

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The 2Pac estate did recently approve the sale at auction of a collection of previously unreleased photos of the slain artist as NFTs.

The photos, which are of ‘Pac performing at Prince’s Glam Slam West nightclub in Minneapolis, are part of an auction by MakersPlace, which started on Thursday (February 23) at 3 p.m. EST.

Dubbed “2Pacalypse92,” the collection includes 17 shots of the late rap legend, each one captured by Lawrence “Loupy D” Dotson, the former managing editor at Kronick Magazine.

Additionally, each NFT will come with its own original negative, allowing collectors to own a piece of Hip Hop history in both a digital and physical capacity.

“The atmosphere was hyped,” Loupy D recalled of ‘Pac’s 1992 performance. “The crowd was loving it. He put on a show. He wasn’t just a rapper, he was a performer. He had a theater background. Tupac knew he had to engage the crowd.”

A handful of the photos will also appear in FX’s upcoming docuseries Dear Mama, which dives into 2Pac’s relationship with his mother, the former Black Panther activist Afeni Shakur who passed away in 2016.