Duane 'Keffe D' Davis's own jail call to his mistress has undermined his defence that he lied about his role in the Tupac Shakur murder case, just as jury selection begins in Las Vegas. In the recording, made days after his 2023 arrest, the 63-year-old admitted writing his 2019 memoir Compton Street Legend, contradicting later claims that a ghostwriter invented the details or that he fabricated the story for profit.
Prosecutors plan to use the call as the trial opens on 10 August 2026 over the 1996 Las Vegas drive-by.
The seven-minute conversation, obtained exclusively by the New York Post, captures Davis speaking to an unnamed woman who addresses him as her husband despite his marriage to another. When she asks 'What's this book they say you wrote?', he replies 'Oh, yeah, I did.'
He then complains about former detective Greg Kading, whose 2011 book first named him in connection with the 1996 shooting. 'He had my life f***** up. I crawled up under a rock for six years. I just got tired of it,' Davis says. The call also links him to grand jury witness Devonta 'Dirt Rock' Lee and other South Side Compton Crips associates.
Made shortly after his September 2023 arrest in Henderson, Nevada, the recording surfaces on the eve of proceedings expected to last about a month. Davis faces a single count of murder with a deadly weapon and a gang enhancement, carrying a possible life sentence if convicted.
Davis co-authored Compton Street Legend, in which he described providing a .40-calibre Glock and riding in the white Cadillac from which shots were fired at Shakur's BMW on 7 September 1996 after a fight involving his nephew Orlando Anderson at the MGM Grand.
He has since insisted the account was false, telling interviewers he never read the book and that any admissions were made solely to generate income for his family. A judge ruled in June that the memoir could be admitted because Davis had repeatedly called it the 'real truth'.
Prosecutors argue almost all their evidence aims to establish the credibility of his various accounts of the night. Defence lawyer Michael Sanft maintains the case is weak and that the book was fictionalised for commercial reasons. The call's direct admission of authorship undercuts that position at a critical moment.
Davis has pleaded not guilty and maintains he was in Los Angeles that night, with multiple alibi witnesses prepared to testify. He has also claimed a 2008 police interview was protected by a proffer agreement, though a recent ruling allowed it into evidence along with the book. The only surviving alleged occupant of the Cadillac, Davis is portrayed by the state as the shot-caller who ordered the retaliation for the earlier lobby brawl.
Shakur, then 25, died six days after being hit four times; Suge Knight survived with minor injuries. As of 10 August 2026 the trial is under way with the jail call now part of the public record that jurors may hear during the expected four-week hearing.
The recording leaves little room for the claim that Davis simply lied in print to sell copies. With proceedings beginning today in Clark County, the focus remains on whether his own words from the jail phone will prove decisive.
© Copyright IBTimes 2025. All rights reserved.