The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was blamed for the collapse of a wrongful death trial brought against the city by the relatives of the singer last year.

The family of Notorious B.I.G, born Christopher Wallace and also known as Biggie Smalls, has long accused the LAPD of colluding in the death of the 24-year-old star, who was killed as he left an awards party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

In July last year US District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper cancelled the family's civil suit after it emerged that a detective had witheld evidence crucial evidence. Today's payment is intended to cover the family's legal costs for the mis-trial, allowing them to bring a fresh suit against Los Angeles later this year.

The death of Wallace is generally thought to have been the result of a lethal feud between America's two leading hip-hop recording studios.

Wallace was the star of Bad Boy Entertainment, the East Coast label run by Sean "P Diddy" Combs in New York. His death came six months after the drive-by shooting of rival artist Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas.

Wallace's family maintain that he was shot on the orders of Marion ''Suge'' Knight, the owner of Death Row Records, the LA-based record company that discovered Shakur.

No-one has been charged with either murder. In more than eight years of on-off inquiries, the police and the FBI have failed even to identify suspects for the shootings, which were both carried out on busy city streets.

The killings have thus become the focus of widespread conspiracy theories suggesting complicity between police officers, hip-hop impresarios and gangs. Fans recall Wallace's final album, Life after Death, when he sang: "You're nobody 'til somebody kills you".

The central allegation against the LAPD, dismissed by the city last year for being based on "incredible witnesses and unreliable informants," was that off-duty police were involved in the killing of Wallace.

At the time, off-duty police officers were known to provide private security to rappers and their entourages. The Wallace family has claimed that a former LAPD-officer, David Mack, used police radios, security plans and knowledge of the rapper's route to carry out the murder.

Mack, now serving a 14-year sentence for bank robbery, has repeatedly denied any involvement.

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