In February 2003, a young man entered Mecca to perform the pilgrimage. Just a few years earlier, he was still carrying a gun on stage and drinking a bottle of cognac every other day. As Napoleon, Mutah Beale stood at Tupac’s side and lived the Death Row year of 1996 in excess. Today, he is an entrepreneur in Saudi Arabia. No member of the Outlawz has traveled such a long road. Much of what is known about his childhood and inner life comes from his own accounts; this page marks it accordingly.
Bloodshed in New Jersey
Mutah Beale-whose full name according to the Los Angeles Times is Mutah Wasin Shabazz Beale-was born in 1977 and grew up in New Jersey. According to biographical accounts, he lived in Irvington. When he was three years old, his Muslim parents were shot to death in front of his eyes and those of his brothers. That is how he described it in 2003 to the Los Angeles Times and in 2012 in the documentary Napoleon: Life of an Outlaw. Who committed the crime and why, he has explained differently in interviews; reliable sources on this are lacking.
His Christian grandmother raised him. By his own account, he “never felt at home” in church, but all the more so on the street: he stole, fought, and dealt drugs. Yet even as a teenager, he wrote poetry and began to rap.
Five Foot Six of Rage: The Road to Death Row
His path to Tupac ran through a childhood friend: Yafeu Fula, the future Yaki Kadafi. In an interview translated in 2007, Beale recounted that as a teenager he asked Kadafi’s mother about her son, and that was how he got in touch with Tupac. Tupac reportedly wanted to meet him because of his story. In late 1993, Beale joined the trio of Kadafi, Kastro, and Malcolm Greenidge (E.D.I. Mean). Calling themselves Dramacydal, they were featured in 1995 on Me Against the World.
Following Tupac’s release from prison in 1995, the group followed him to Death Row in Los Angeles. Beale said Tupac gave him the name Napoleon-because of his height of five foot six (1.68 meters) and “because I was so evil.” He can be seen in the video for Hit ‘Em Up. Looking back, the Los Angeles Times in 2003 described him as someone who drank hard and fought hard back then: a bottle of cognac every two days, always carrying a gun. The records on which he appears sold around 40 million copies, according to his own figures.
Two Deaths in the Fall of 1996
On September 13, 1996, Tupac died. Not two months later, on November 10, Kadafi was shot dead in Orange, New Jersey. According to reports by Gulf News (2012) and Complex (2015), the fatal shot was fired by a cousin of Beale’s.
In retrospect, Beale gave starkly conflicting accounts of how deeply this affected him. In 2003, he told the Los Angeles Times that the deaths had barely touched him, since he had seen death all his life. In 2012, by contrast, he told Gulf News how the death of his grandmother and then Tupac’s plunged him into depression. He said he no longer wanted to live, drank every day, and got into fights. Gulf News identifies Kadafi’s death as the turning point.
Beer, Joints, and an Invitation to the Mosque
The catalyst for his turnaround was music producer Mikal Kamil. He met Beale in a North Hollywood studio-a can of malt liquor in one hand, a joint in the other-and was surprised to realize that Beale’s first name was Islamic. Kamil invited him to the mosque.
Beale himself recounted a different scene in 2012: an argument with his younger brother in the studio had escalated. A Muslim separated the two and asked him if he realized that the blood on the floor was that of his father and mother.
Ramadan 2001 became the turning point. Beale fasted, stopped drinking, and began to pray. Today, he cites 2002 as the year of his conversion; in February 2003, he made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Shortly beforehand, he had still made headlines: in 2001, the Outlawz were thrown out of a rehearsal for MTV’s anniversary show after Beale snatched the microphone from Sean Combs and a scuffle broke out.
The Call from the Pilgrimage
Accounts differ on when exactly he left the group. His final Outlawz album was Neva Surrenda (2002). According to his account in Gulf News, the Outlawz were on tour when he returned from the pilgrimage. He called and said he wasn’t coming back. That aligns with an older fan source (April 2003). Other accounts cite 2005; the available sources cannot clarify the matter further.
At first, he tried making music without profanity. In 2003, he worked on such an album titled Scriptures From a Thug’s Point of View. The industry did not support that kind of music, he said in 2012; he had to leave everything behind. Since his conversion, he says he no longer listens to music.
A New Life in Saudi Arabia
After that, Beale traveled the world for nearly ten years as a motivational speaker, warning young people against gang life and the music business. In 2012, the documentary Napoleon: Life of an Outlaw and an autobiography of the same name, co-written with Shafeeq Qasim, were released. In 2022 followed Life Is Raw: The Story of a Reformed Outlaw: author Sulaiman Jenkins wrote the book based on conversations with Beale and companions like Young Noble and Storm; an Arabic edition was published by Obeikan.
Around 2010, he moved to Riyadh; accounts vary between 2010 and 2011. There he initially worked with youth, then as an entrepreneur. In 2014, he opened a café with partners. Today, he is co-owner of the barbecue restaurant Smokey Beards, which also has a branch in Fort Worth, Texas, and advises companies setting up in Saudi Arabia.
The 2026 Guilty Verdict
Following the arrest of Duane “Keffe D” Davis in 2023, Beale said on The Art of Dialogue that Davis had put himself in this position with all his talking. Even so, had Tupac survived, he still wouldn’t have wanted Davis to go to prison: “Pac wouldn’t involve the police.” According to available reports, Beale did not appear as a witness in the 2026 trial.
He called the guilty verdict surprising in comments to The National, saying he had expected an acquittal. His faith gave him certainty: “Everyone gets what they deserve. If not in this life, then in the next.” He maintains contact with Tupac’s family, but is “not a spokesperson for the family.”
Davis was found guilty of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon on August 31, 2026; sentencing is scheduled for October 13, 2026. He denies the crime and has announced an appeal; the verdict is not final (see The Trial of Duane Davis).
Regarding Tupac, Beale says today: “He changed, by God’s permission, the direction of my life.” How Tupac himself viewed faith is explored on the page Tupac and Religion.