Charges against Garelle Smith, the man accused of murdering rapper James “Soulja Slim” Tapp, have been dropped by prosecutors. They claim there was insufficient evidence to prove the crime.

According to detectives, Smith had been paid $10,000 to kill the rapper and claimed that his murder was connected with the record industry and a rival record label.

When police questioned Smith about the murder, he allegedly told them “Take your best shot. Do whatever you have to do.”

Smith is still behind bars, charged with another murder, that took place in December.

In the meantime detectives also named Tapp as the assailant in the murder of Robert Lee Paige Jr., 30, in September 2003. Paige was shot and thrown into a lagoon, with his body weighted down with cinder blocks.

The Third District Police department was looking into Tapp as a possible suspect in other shootings as well, according to Captain James Scott.

“We had a known credible witness who came in and gave us circumstances of the murder which substantiated information that, through our investigation, only we had,” Scott told the The Times-Picayune. “There would be no other reason for a person to come in and name Soulja Slim as a perpetrator after the fact. There would be nothing for that person to gain.”

Family and close friends of Tapp don’t believe the allegations, saying Tapp was on the verge of super stardom and was planning to promote a new album.

“That’s just their way of closing their books,” Tapp’s manager, Anthony Murray said. “Nothin’ on the street was serious enough for him to bother with like that. Nothing that crucial. He wasn’t on that type of time. He was on artist-type time.”