Content warning: This episode includes discussion of murder, the deaths of children, suicide and self-harm, postpartum mental illness, psychosis and other distressing details.

Nearly 30 years after Tupac Shakur was killed in Las Vegas, Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been convicted of first-degree murder for orchestrating the shooting. The jury took less than three hours to reach its verdict. Davis was not accused of firing the fatal shots himself, and the identity of the shooter has never been established in court. He is due to be sentenced on 13 October 2026 and has said he plans to appeal. (Reuters)

In Massachusetts, the Lindsay Clancy case ended very differently. After roughly 38 hours of deliberation across seven days, the jury could not reach a unanimous decision and a mistrial was declared. Reporting since the trial indicates 11 jurors favoured finding Clancy not criminally responsible, with one holdout. Her defence has now asked the judge to find her not guilty rather than allow a second trial. That motion is due to be heard on 29 September. Prosecutors have not yet announced whether they will seek a retrial if the motion fails. (Reuters)

In this episode, Saf and Zoheb talk through both cases, the decades of theories surrounding Tupac and Biggie, whether a case can really feel “solved” 30 years later, and what happens when even medical experts and jurors cannot agree on criminal responsibility.

They also get into the wider questions these cases raise: how much mental illness should change legal responsibility, whether one juror should be able to stop a verdict, and whether justice still means the same thing when it arrives decades late.

Important note: The Lindsay Clancy case remains active. This episode discusses publicly reported evidence, testimony and court proceedings available at the time of recording. Saf and Zoheb are sharing personal opinions and reactions, not making factual claims about medical diagnosis or legal guilt beyond what has been established in court. Some details discussed during the conversation are corrected or clarified as the episode progresses.

Recorded before the latest legal developments: Since recording, Lindsay Clancy’s defence has formally asked the judge to enter a finding of not guilty following the mistrial. A hearing is scheduled for 29 September 2026. Duane Davis remains awaiting sentencing on 13 October 2026 and has indicated that he intends to appeal.

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Are we living through the age of fame without talent, or has social media simply given people opportunities they never had before?

Saf and Zoheb look back at how social media has changed from the days of Hi5, Bebo, MySpace, BBM and BlackBerry to a world where TikTok, Instagram and everything else follows us around in our pockets.

They get into whether life was actually better when you had to go home and log on, why so much of life now feels like it’s being performed for an audience, and what happens when attention itself becomes something people can turn into money.

There’s the influencer with a ring light in a restaurant, people sitting on TikTok Live asking strangers for gifts, the rise of people becoming rich and famous without any obvious talent, and the flip side of all of that: social media has also helped genuinely talented people get discovered, created careers that didn’t exist before and given ordinary people access to opportunities they may never otherwise have had.

They also talk about the UK’s planned under-16 social media ban, online safety, children growing up permanently connected, gaming platforms, trolls and whether social media has made it harder to separate the loudest people online from what people are actually like in real life.

And, because this is The Side Room, the conversation somehow also gets into Michael Jackson, old Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones, BlackBerry Messenger, Floyd Mayweather, a Bollywood singer getting suspended from Twitter and whether Saf and Zoheb could take Mayweather in a two-on-one fight.

Would either of them choose to keep social media if they had the option to get rid of it completely?

A note on the conversation: The views expressed in this episode are personal opinions, recollections and conversational commentary from the hosts. References to people, events and wider issues are not presented as verified factual reporting and should not be treated as such.

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South Asian parents love an expectation.

Do well at school. Go to uni. Get a good job. Don’t embarrass the family. And while you’re at it, why can’t you be more like your cousin?

In this episode, Saf and Zoheb talk about the pressure they grew up with, how much of it came from their parents, and how differently that pressure could land depending on whether you were the oldest, youngest, a boy or a girl.

They get into school, discipline, being compared to other people, the things South Asian dads absolutely do not apologise for, and the expectations that somehow follow you all the way into marriage.

Zoheb’s wife gets pulled into the conversation towards the end completely randomly. She wasn’t mic’d up, so the audio changes a bit, but the conversation was worth keeping in.

We barely scratched the surface with this one, so there’s definitely more to come.

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