Duane “Keefe D” Davis, the man who police and prosecutors say ordered the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur, made his first court appearance on a murder charge on Wednesday in Las Vegas.

Davis was arrested last week during an early-morning walk near his home in suburban Henderson.

A few hours after his arrest, a grand jury indictment was unsealed in Clark County District Court charging him with murder.

Prosecutors allege that Shakur’s killing stemmed from a rivalry and competition for dominance in a musical genre that, at the time, was dubbed “gangsta rap”.

It pitted East Coast members of a Bloods gang sect associated with rap music mogul, Marion “Suge” Knight against West Coast members of a Crips sect that Davis was associated with.

Davis had been a long-known suspect in the case and publicly admitted his role in the killing in interviews ahead of his 2019 tell-all memoir, “Compton Street Legend”.

If Davis is convicted, he could face decades in prison, as grand jurors also voted to add sentencing enhancements for the use of a deadly weapon and alleged gang activity.