Las Vegas police said that on Aug. 27 officers witnessed Knight beating up Isaac while brandishing a knife in a parking lot on Spring Mountain Road near Interstate 15. The district attorney's office formally filed charges Friday.

Neither Knight nor any of his representatives could be reached for comment.

Knight is considered an icon of gangsta rap. In the 1990s he co-founded Death Row Records with Dr. Dre. They sold tens of millions of records and signed several notable rap superstars, including Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg, before the label went bankrupt.

In 1996 Knight was in the car when rapper Shakur was shot four times in the chest after attending a Mike Tyson fight on the Strip.

He was convicted of assault in 1992 and placed on probation, then jailed for five years beginning in 1996 for violating that probation.

He was returned to jail in 2003 for again violating parole for punching a parking attendant at a Hollywood nightclub. He was released the next year.