Police say Davis planned the deadly shooting shortly after his nephew, Orlando Anderson, was involved in a fight with Shakur on the night of 7 Sept. 1996.

US police on Friday arrested a former gang leader on a charge of murder in connection with the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, a breakthrough in a long-running case that became a defining moment in the history of rap music.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis was arrested Friday morning near his Las Vegas home. His wife’s Henderson home was searched in July as part of the ongoing investigation into the shooting.

Nevada’s grand jury indicted Davis on one count of murder with a deadly weapon for his alleged role in leading a group of men to kill Shakur in a 1996 drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas strip. The 60-year-old is set to appear in court next Wednesday.

Police say Davis planned the deadly shooting shortly after his nephew, Orlando Anderson, was involved in a fight with Shakur in a casino.

Shakur, whose stage name was stylised as 2Pac, was shot four times while leaving a boxing match in Las Vegas on 7 September 1996. He died six days later aged 25.

“For 27 years, the family of Tupac Shakur has been waiting for justice,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference.

“The investigation started on the night of September 7th, 1996. It is far from over. It has taken countless hours, really decades, of work by the men and women of our homicide section to get to where we are today,” McMahill added.

Authorities described Davis as the “shot caller” of a hurried plot to avenge the beating of Anderson by Shakur and members of his entourage inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena on the night of 7 Sept. 1996.

Metropolitan Police Department Lieutenant Jason Johansson showed reporters hotel security camera footage of Anderson being beaten. One of those seen attacking Anderson in the video was identified as Marion “Suge” Knight, co-founder and then-CEO of Death Row Records, which produced Shakur’s records.

Johansson said the attack ultimately led to the “retaliatory shooting death” of Shakur as he was waiting in his car at a red light. He added it became obvious very quickly that this was a gang-related crime, and the case had been reviewed multiple times.

But it was not until 2018, when new information came to light, that the case was “reinvigorated”.

Johansson also mentioned Davis’s “own admissions” to media outlets that he was in the vehicle where the shots were fired from.

The death of Shakur, whose first album debuted in 1991, inspired several documentaries.

The New York-born hip-hop legend released 11 platinum albums: four during his five-year career and seven others released posthumously.

Shakur, who sold more than 75 million records worldwide, was also a poet and featured in films like “Poetic Justice” and “Above the Rim”.