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♪♪ (Italian opera music)

(gunshots)

Rhythm Mic Live-- we're on location tonight

in the NWA Ruthless Studios

here to talk to NWA and Eazy-E,

probably the most controversial rap group in Los Angeles.

(Alonzo Williams) At that time, all the rappers

were claiming their hometowns--

South Bronx, you know, wherever they may be,

New York, Queens, whatever the case may be.

We were from Compton.

Coming up in the ghetto, period,

builds character to me, you know what I'm saying?

It definitely can build character

if you use it in a positive way.

When we seen, you know, regular homeys

from the neighborhood that was just putting down

real street raps, you know, it made us

feel like we could do it.

(Dan O'Dowd) Something really special

was coming out of that neighborhood.

It was a fresh, really volatile time in music.

I liken it to Elvis Presley when rock and roll started,

to when The Beatles came.

It was something really special coming out of there.

After a while, Michael Jackson didn't work.

People didn't believe the hype.

We didn't care, we didn't care.

If they didn't feel it with all of that

trying-to-be-shy nonsense--

people weren't checking for that no more.

Rap made it gritty.

I think we successful because we telling it like it is.

And, you know, that's what people want to hear

because they sick of hearing about fairy tales

and stuff like that.

NWA to me was like, uh, anti--

against-- anti-establishment.

They was bringing, you know, South Central

to the forefront in what was happening,

and, you know, drugs, and the whole shot.

I mean, they was hitting another element of society

that nobody else had touched on.

They talked about being gangsters.

"Gangsta Gangsta" was a big hit.

"Fuck Tha Police" was a big hit.

It's not what you know-- it's what you can prove.

When I went and got NWA albums,

I bought 'em as a fan.

You just see an all-star cast of people--

of Eazy being the mastermind,

of Cube being the rhyme writer,

Dre laying down the tracks, the producer.

And then you had Ren, who played a supporting cast,

and that just made up one of the great groups of hip-hop.

We don't tell you what to do,

and we don't tell you what not to do.

You got your own freedom of choice.

(Matt McDaniel) Eazy represented, you know,

the hardcore little gangster on the corner.

Don't try to hold us back

because this record has cursing on it

or it said something, or you're talking

about raping somebody and everything.

People were selling cocaine, making a lot of money,

and he was the first person that actually came out,

and admitted it, and boasted about it on a record.

It's some bullshit.

(laughter)

Eazy-E turned out to have some business savvy.

(Alonzo Williams) Eazy was a local crack slinger, okay?

It made him some money,

and because I was one of the few guys

he knew who had a studio,

he wanted to get with me and get in the studio.

He was not intending to be a rapper.

He was gonna be a financier.

Dre was producing for Alonzo

of Cru Cut Records and the Wreckin' Cru.

Dre started getting in trouble.

He was going to jail for warrants on a regular basis.

I'm digging in my pocket to get him out, okay?

So I got to the point where I got tired of it.

And Lonzo didn't get him out of jail.

Eazy got him out of jail.

When Eric got him out of jail,

they cut a deal that Dre would do some tracks

for Eric in my studio.

And then, they hooked up and was boys ever since then.

(Eazy-E) You put the dot on your target.

Then, you blow the shit out the motherfucker.

No joke.

Eazy knew it was like a joke to him, okay?

It was like-- (laughing)

But he got so far into it, it was like, "Okay, I am this."

I'm walking through to cross the mall.

I look up in the HQ, which is a sporting goods store

and a gun store, and these guys are buying automatic--

semiautomatic weapons to go on tour with.

I'm, like, "Shit!"

What kind of tour you guys going on?

Vietnam, or what?

They were selling out of the back of cars,

and they were making money, and they were going to the top

one way or the other.

(man) We used to ride around in Eazy's Jeep all day

and sell records to the--

what they call swap meets out here.

I used to make people buy records.

(reporter) How'd you make 'em buy 'em?

With a gun.

Eazy paid Lonzo to introduce him to Jerry Heller.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) Jerry Heller was basically

Dr. Dre and Eric Wright's manager and label head.

(man) Ruthless started from Eazy-E.

Eazy-E knew that Dre was a dope producer.

He did the "Straight Outta Compton" album.

He did "Eazy-Duz-It."

he did Michel'le's album, he did The D.O.C.'s album.

Dr. Dre was one of these guys

that could take this raw street sound

and turn it into the kind of magic

that would hit to a wide audience of kids.

They had a message that clearly was heard

and felt by young people.

All over the country, they had pockets of young brothers

who sold dope and had to carry 9mm pistols,

who had a wad of money that could relate.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) Every kid wants something that's sort of forbidden.

Certainly, this kind of imagery was.

In fact, they couldn't even hear it

on their regular radio stations.

(Jay King) They sold over a million albums.

And we have to understand that, with rap music,

past 500,000, 600,000 albums,

you go outside the black community.

You had little white kids out there

that was, you know, grew up in Pop's Country Club,

and they wasn't having it.

They wanted to hear NWA.

(Joe Isgro) It became clear that there weren't just

10,000 kids listening to this.

There was hundreds of thousands in each city.

People sat back and seen an album

that sold a million units that was never played on radio.

And-- and I had to question-- how does this happen?

How did this happen?

What-- what went on here?

Now, when it starts making real money

and it starts looking like some success is gonna come about,

that's when the shit starts.

Eazy and Jerry wasn't paying Dr. Dre enough money.

At that time, I was owed money,

but they wasn't paying it, you know what I'm saying?

I think they were trying to starve me-- starve me out.

As hard as you work for your money,

there's at least two or three people out there

working just as hard to get it from you.

I was there when Dre told me

he would sell his soul to the devil for a million bucks.

And I swear right now--

devil gotta have a receipt for his ass.

(Matt McDaniel) Suge Knight was always around.

He was around in the days of NWA.

I just-- I never noticed who he was.

(man) Suge was just a big kid, you know?

He was really, at that time, totally nobody.

(Kevin Powell) Suge Knight was a bodyguard,

bodyguarding Bobby Brown.

Being a bodyguard is probably one of the best music schools--

music industry schools that you could go to

because you're gonna learn everything about the business.

I was out there looking and learning, you know?

And I seen different people complain.

I seen artists.

I seen people trying to be artists.

I seen people talk about songs.

And I'm just listening-- I'm hearing it all.

(Dr. Dre) He was an aggressive person that cleared the way

for me to go in and do what I had to do,

you know, by any means necessary.

Suge was a leader-- he was a winner.

He was smart.

He kind of reminds me of a hip-hop Dick Griffey.

(Virgil Roberts) In the 1980s, Solar was probably

the most successful black-owned record label in America.

Dick Griffey, who was the founder of the company,

was one of those men, he had the rare ability,

I think, to identify talent in people.

What I'm interested in is-- is really teaching young people

how to be in business for themselves.

(Virgil Roberts) Suge first came to see Dick

because he was managing a young guy

named Mario Johnson, p.k.a. Chocolate,

who had written a number of songs

on a Vanilla Ice album.

(Mario Johnson) I did all of his songs at his kitchen table at his house.

Me and Quake would do tracks,

and I would go to his house and write,

give him songs, and he would learn 'em.

(Virgil Roberts) He had gotten some credit on the album,

but they hadn't paid him

and wouldn't return his phone calls.

I couldn't get in contact with him,

but the record wasn't doing anything at that time.

And then, when the video hit BET

is when the record started taking off.

(Suge Knight) The thing happened so fast, it blew up so quick,

the first thing they wanted to do

is tell me, "Look, we'll give you a couple dollars.

You know, let bygones be bygones."

I was, like-- I wouldn't go for it.

Suge came to me at the Palm Restaurant first

and just sat down, and said, "Hello."

He was kind of nice, you know?

It kind of scared us 'cause he was really intimidating.

You know, he had, like, six or seven guys with him

that looked like a football team.

We already knew where he was staying

because I was supposed to be hearing some tracks

that he was doing, but for some reason,

they wanted me to just come by myself.

You know what I'm saying?

And Suge was like, "Why they just want you

"to go by yourself?

"They already tried to beat you out of money.

They done beat you out of songs-- I'm going with you."

They whole attitude probably was, "Look,

"we was gonna go in there and tell him,

"'We gonna do it like this, and give him a check,'

and he gonna shut up."

I had a different program when we met.

One day, I went into my hotel room,

and he was in there, and he's with several people.

And then, he-- then he let me know

what he wanted, and he wanted

to get some points off the record "Ice Ice Baby."

I'm, like, "Look, you can't give me nothing.

"It's what I'm gonna give you

"because you then get the rights to put it out there

"'cause I haven't got paid, and my client hasn't got paid.

I remember watching "Primetime Live,"

the interview with Vanilla Ice.

(Vanilla Ice) Suge took me out on the balcony,

started talking to me personally.

He had me look over the edge,

show me how high I was up there.

(reporter) Were you scared?

(Vanilla Ice laughs)

I needed to wear a diaper on that day.

He didn't, first of all, hang me off from any balcony

or any of this stuff, okay?

The story's been kind of blown out of proportion.

And I want to clarify right now

that Suge and I have no bad feelings

or anything towards each other.

We had to sue EMI and Winkle

to recover that money.

And it was more than a year in the settlement

of that lawsuit that Chocolate finally got paid.

It doesn't mean he didn't get hung over the balcony,

but if he did, it didn't make him go pay.

You can look at it like--

like I was an investor in Death Row Records

with no return on my money.

(Virgil Roberts) Suge said, "Well, you know, I got some other clients

"who also have written songs and produced records,

and they haven't been paid either."

He shows up on my doorstep

with these two guys called D.O.C. and Dre.

D.O.C. was the storyteller.

The D.O.C. was the guy

that came up with those great stories.

He was probably the single most influential person

in gangsta rap.

Dre basically made Ruthless Records.

I mean, you know, he did the music.

He probably the one who, you know,

knew how to work with the artists.

And it supposed to been him and Eazy's company together.

Then, when Eazy met Jerry,

Jerry came in, and X'd Dre out,

and said, "You know, Eric, I'll give you

"a little bit more money.

We'll just use Dre basically as a slave."

They had the worst contracts I had ever seen

in the history of the record business.

The contracts that Ruthless and Jerry Heller

had with NWA and Dre--

I guess if I said "draconian,"

that would be a kind word.

(Virgil Roberts) In the process of having a number of conversations

with D.O.C. and Dre, the question came up

about how can we be assured

that we're gonna get paid in the future?

Dick said, "Look, Dre, if you can make records

"the way you make records, I'll show you

"how to start a company.

"You won't have to worry about people paying you.

You will have a company that you own and control."

I suggested that, "Why don't you guys

"go and talk to Eazy

"and see if you can make a deal

"where Dre continues to produce Eazy for Ruthless,

he continues to produce NWA and the other acts."

I was consulting for Ruthless for Eazy-E,

working through Jerry Heller.

One day, Dre came in with Suge to my office in Hollywood

and simply said they had left Ruthless,

were starting their own company called Death Row Records.

It didn't go down the way it was supposed to.

And so, Eazy had to be persuaded

to make some moves to make things happen.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) According to court papers, Suge and friends

basically came in and told Eric and Jerry Heller

Dre was leaving, and they couldn't stop them,

and that this was not just legal.

It was physical, it was personal.

The stories that Eric, E, told

was that they came in with baseball bats, threatened guns.

And they threatened his life and told him

that they would kill his mother,

and that they were holding me hostage.

Under those kinds of duress,

got him to sign releases for Dr. Dre.

I wasn't there.

I wasn't in the room.

But when Eazy-E said in the papers

that me and the chairman of Sony, Tommy Mattola,

was in the room with bats and pipes,

he's obviously a liar.

There's no question that we have

substantial documentary evidence of a conspiracy here.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) Eric Wright, Eazy-E, filed a RICO lawsuit against them.

It was the first time RICO

had been used in the music business.

RICO is a racketeering law,

so it's the thing that they use to get the Mafia

when they can't get the Mafia leaders on anything else.

Eazy-E's lawsuit contended that there was money laundering,

extortion, threats, and violent intimidation.

Not only was it charged against Suge and Death Row

for stealing what was their top producer, Dr. Dre,

it was charged against Sony Music.

From day one, this label was born

amidst a controversy that involved violence.

The initial understanding was that D.O.C. and Dre

and Dick and Suge would be partners of this company.

Each one of the artists that started this at the beginning,

I got a lot of love for,

and they always will be a part of the family

on the strength that they took that chance.

It's not like they just-- we had a name out there.

It's not like we had a lot of money to give 'em.

They money I gave ''em came out of my pocket.

Back then, Suge was, like, very behind the scenes,

and helpful, and quiet, humble, non-visible.

He didn't like cameras.

He was invisible, the invisible man.

(Dr. Dre) His role was to handle the day-to-day business

dealing with the artists, dealing with distributors,

and record companies, and what have you.

My job was to go in here,

and push these buttons, and make the records happen.

(man) Everybody was following Dre

because people knew that Dre was the man.

Like, everything that he touched

was, like, you know, gold, or platinum, or better.

That's who everyone wanted to work with then.

He was actually the most bankable person at that time

pretty much in the industry, from the R&B-rap standpoint.

Everybody was taking direction from Dre

as for as he knows what he's doing.

He just finished doing NWA albums

that's double and triple platinum,

so you have to have confidence in what you've seen.

You've watched this man make money.

Warren G was my best friend,

and Nate Dogg was my best friend,

so we formulated 213.

And Warren G was the DJ, I was the rapper,

Nate Dogg would sing the hooks.

We didn't have drum machines back then.

All we had was records, and turntables, and a microphone.

Warren G called me on the three-way with, like,

"Snoop, I got Dre on the phone, cuz.

"He like the tape, he wanna work with us, cuz.

"He wanna work--" I was like, "Nigga, stop lying."

And he said, "Hello?" I said, "Who this?"

He said, "It's Dre."

He said, "Man, that shit was dope, man.

I wanna get with you, come to the studio Monday."

(Nate Dogg) At that time, it was a dream

just to be in the same room with Dr. Dre, you know?

Dr. Dre wants us to come to the studio where he is.

I'd have jogged up there if I didn't have a car.

(Snoop Dogg) I wanted to appreciate the game

and accept everything that was offered to me,

and learn, and just be a student at the time.

They were housed in my building,

so they didn't have a lot of expenses.

You have to understand that the greatest expense

in making a record is the studio time.

I didn't have a lot of knowledge

about the rap or hip-hop scenario,

so I kinda let them do their own thing.

(Snoop Dogg) Some nights we used to stay up there all night,

didn't leave till, like, 5:00, 6:00 in the morning.

I mean, it had a special vibe up there.

You just wanted to be there.

Even if you wasn't working on a song,

you just wanted to be there because it had that atmosphere.

It just was the spot to be at.

It was right in the middle of Hollywood.

And, you know, it was just the place to be for us.

And we was young, and we never really had been

out of the neighborhood, and, you know,

we was getting a chance to see it all in bright lights.

And this was the same studio that Shalamar, Lakeside,

The Whispers, Babyface, The Deele--

all of them recorded all their albums in the same studios.

(Virgil Roberts) On a business level and on a day-to-day basis,

it was merely existing.

It seemed like they were trying to find somebody

to put some money into it or somebody to help them out.

(Snoop Dogg) Money was hard to come by back then

because there wasn't no structure, there was no label.

And Suge Knight did all he could do at the time

as far as, you know, going in his pocket,

his bank account to get us money.

Dre didn't really have no money.

He was leaving NWA.

♪♪ (tense music)

Dick had made a deal with Suge, D.O.C., and Dre

to sell him a recording studio that he owned.

That was gonna be something that they would own

separate from the Death Row label

because they wanted to have something that they owned.

Suge came along and said he had found somebody

to help them finance the purchase of the studio.

It's always been a subject of speculation

where they got their original funding,

and the FBI is continuing to look into this.

There are so many things you hear about this situation.

I tell you this.

Mike Harris was firmly planted in the middle of it.

Well, on the news, they used to call Mike "The Godfather."

Tonight, the story of a man

who tried to murder his best friend

at the same time he was attempting

to win his way into Beverly Hills acceptance.

This is Michael Harris, a man drug agents describe

as a major cocaine trafficker.

At the young age of 26,

he had already made millions of dollars.

These are his roots,

the streets of South Central Los Angeles,

where he started pushing dope on street corners

and hung with a Blood street gang called The Bounty Hunters.

In the drug world, he is known as "Harry O."

(Jay King) Mike Harris was a known entity in our community.

You know, he was this guy bigger than life

because Mike Harris was in jail doing things.

Prior to his incarceration, he was very visible.

He had started doing numerous things in the community.

(news anchor) Harris built an organization that distributed cocaine

in California, Arizona, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa,

Indiana, Missouri, Louisiana, Florida, and New York.

Investigators say he dealt so much cocaine,

major Columbian drug kingpins like Mario Villabona

were obliged to deal directly with Harris.

But like a mob godfather, Harris sought

to legitimize his illicit fortune

and gain Beverly Hills respectability.

Mike Harris had a wonderful background in entertainment.

I think he was the first African-American ever

to produce a Broadway show that was a smash,

and it gave Denzel Washington his start.

"Checkmates" was the name of the play.

The play opened on Broadway.

Many of us African-Americans have been on Broadway,

on the screen, out front singing and dancing,

but very few of us have been there as producers.

I thought he was an entrepreneur in New York.

Had no idea that he was in jail.

The first time I met Michael, it was a drug case

involving Bo Bennett and Mario Villabona.

That trial went and resulted in a number of convictions

that went to trial in a federal court.

And after that case, Michael, I believe,

contacted David Kenner to have him

represent him on his appeal.

(Sam Gideon Anson) David Kenner was a longtime Los Angeles criminal attorney.

By the late '80s, he had become part of a fraternity

of top flight attorneys that handled a lot of federal cases,

a lot of big drug cases downtown.

In the course of his legal work,

he became Michael Harris's attorney.

I think if you look at clients of his over time,

David has a habit of getting very close to his clients,

and getting very involved in his clients' lives,

perhaps more so than would be wise for a lawyer.

David just, you know, fell in love with Michael,

and they became friends.

He was, you know-- he was a friend to us, you know?

I looked at him like family.

I was out in LA by myself,

and he, like, you know, took me in.

You know, him and his family, we'd go out to eat.

I mean, we would, like, do everything together.

(Sam Gideon Anson) He became someone who was a confidant,

a friend of Michael Harris's,

and also involved in business with Michael Harris.

(Virgil Roberts) I think that he's a lawyer who had a lot of money,

and he represented people who had a lot of money.

And it would not be unusual to me

for somebody who represented people with money to say,

"I want to invest."

Everybody wants to be in the music business.

In the years that I worked, I've gotten tapes and offers

from everyone, from politicians, you know,

to businessmen who want to be in the entertainment business.

They started talking.

You know, Mike said, "You got Dr. Dre."

And Suge said, "Yeah, you know, he a producer."

Mike said, "Well, we need to meet."

And Suge said, "Well, I got a couple of cases.

You know, I can't get in to visit you."

So Mike said, "No, I got this attorney.

He's bad, he can get you in here."

(Sam Gideon Anson) David Kenner brought Suge Knight

to see Michael at Metropolitan Detention Center

in Downtown Los Angeles.

They set down their basic business plan

that they would start a company called Godfather Entertainment,

and one division of it would be Death Row Records.

One day, I see these two people

walk in the building who I'd never seen before.

And one was David Kenner,

and the other was Lydia Harris.

In the summer of 1991, Kenner started coming around.

There was a lot of buzz about this company,

a lot of expectations that it could be a successful company.

And David was one of the people around at the time

making a play to be Suge's partner,

and to take care of business for Suge,

to handle business for Suge.

A couple days after Mrs. Harris and David Kenner came in,

things actually changed drastically.

Immediately, the studio gets carpeted.

Things are getting fixed.

I'm starting getting presented with money

to find apartments for the artists that hadn't--

that didn't have any apartments, didn't have any money.

I'm also given an allowance for them.

I saw a few little upgrades in the studio,

some chairs, some speakers.

And I was also told we'll be getting collect calls,

and to accept them, and to find Suge,

where he was, and connect them.

We were assigned by them to may-- build an awareness

for Godfather Entertainment, and to kick off

their first vehicle, which is Death Row Records,

to the industry.

Norman Winter, in his infinite wisdom, said,

"Let's take the boys into Beverly Hills.

Let's stick it in everybody's face."

So off to Chasen's.

Let me see you put your hands together and say, "Oh, yeah!"

(all) Oh, yeah!

(emcee) Let me see somebody give Dre, Suge, D.O.C.

a round of applause.

Death Row Records is gonna be

the record company of the 2000s.

We were thinking about putting in

metal detectors at the entrance.

Everyone gets served with subpoenas as an invitation.

"You are hereby ordered to appear

"before the honorable Dr. Dre

"and the offices of GF Entertainment

"as a guest of the court to witness the springing--

springing of Death Row Records."

Put your hands together!

Come on, y'all, make some noise.

We invited virtually every major record company executive

in Los Angeles and New York.

And it was so big, that we originally planned

on spending around 20,000, 25,000.

I tell you, it turned out to be 35,000 or 50,000.

They had enough money at that time behind 'em,

and they looked good.

For somebody that comes out of nowhere

to have a party at Chasen's on Grammy night,

which is reserved generally for all the white people.

It's also a place that would never be associated

with rap music in any way

unless it was something co-sponsored by a white group.

The market we're going after, we're mainly for the people.

I mean, for us, the West Coast

there's a lot of talent around that guys,

we don't have the opportunity

to have a chance to prove themselves.

So as far as GF Entertainment goes with the studio

and the films, we giving all the youngsters

the opportunities from all the neighborhoods where--

basically, we haven't forgot where we came from.

I personally interviewed all of the players that were there.

GF Entertainment is a multimedia company.

We have Death Row Records.

We have a movie production unit, concerts.

We're gonna be doing pay-per-view concerts

and all kinds of exciting things.

In the beginning, they was giving Mike his props,

and they was recognizing that there was another entity

that helped this be one major powwow.

(man) When it came to Dave Kenner,

he toasted the man who made it all responsible, Harry O.

The label started with Dr. Dre,

who was gonna do his own thing,

and with a lot of help from Suge Knight, and Harry O.,

and a number of people, and we got it all together.

And that's on tape, and the FBI

confiscated that from me...

uh, under very rude circumstances.

(gunshot)

(Virgil Roberts) When Death Row was in the Solar offices,

we pretty much gave over to the one floor.

There were a lot of young street folks hanging out,

but it wasn't what it became.

Unfortunately, there was-- there was a lot of tension.

An element showed up

that my people were not accustomed to.

Dre had invited these guys over to the studio.

When Suge came, these guys were using the phone.

So he told him, "Hey, man, get off the phone.

So the guy says to Suge,

"Hey, man, we were invited up here by Dre,

and Dre told us that we could use this phone."

An argument ensued.

Suge went down to the car and got a gun.

And hey, he beat these guys up in the studio.

He shot through the wall to scare 'em.

The hole is in the wall over there.

The cops came and dug the bullet out, you know.

(news anchor) George and Lynwood Stanley later sued Knight.

He agreed on a $1 million settlement,

but only paid a third of it.

♪ Y-- Y-- Yeah ♪

♪ And you don't stop ♪

"Deep Cover." "Deep Cover."

(Virgil Roberts) "Deep Cover" was-- was a critical success.

It was the introduction of Dre as a solo artist.

♪ I'm on a mission, and my mission won't stop ♪

(Kevin Powell) It was the introduction of Dre

as a mentor to other artists,

in this case, Snoop Doggy Dogg.

♪ 1-8-7 on a undercover cop ♪

♪ Yeah, and you don't stop ♪

♪ 'Cause it's 1-8-7 on a undercover cop ♪

♪ Yeah, and you don't stop ♪

By Snoop blowing up on "Deep Cover,"

I looked at that like we were all blowing up

'cause I always knew we did music together,

and I always had confidence in our music,

that it would sell and it would sell worldwide.

And after the way it blew up with Snoop,

it pumped me up.

Like, man, I can't wait till it's my turn

'cause they really do love what we doing.

That single is so significant

because it shows these two different worlds

that Dre was leaving, and where he's going to.

(man) Dr. Dre wanted to make a statement

that he was a solo artist,

that he was a good artist on his own

and a good producer.

The thing back then was we gonna try to come up.

That's all Dre used to talk about is coming up, coming up.

And "The Chronic" was what was supposed to set it off.

What I'm doing right now

is, um, I'll be putting out a solo album soon.

(Nate Dogg) Everybody put their all into the "Chronic" album

because we seen that not only was this

gonna build a record company that we were on

'cause this was the first album

off the record company we were on,

this would build all of our careers.

And we vibe it, straight whatever Dre want.

It's Dre-- "Dre, whatever you want.

You want this concept, Dre? You want this? You want this?"

It's all about Dre, it's all about Compton and Dre.

Dre, Dre, Dre. Boom.

You had Snoop Dogg who just brought,

a whole nother style to rap music.

He has a voice where he can rap over beats

and just rip a beat to pieces.

And a lot of that shit was on the spot,

spontaneous right there.

We just putting the weed together like this,

breaking it down, put it in a Zig-Zag.

Once we twist that shit up and blaze,

if it's the chronic, we're gonna keep it in this--

you know, unroll that motherfucker, and throw it out,

and come up with some new shit.

(Lamont Blumfield) First of all, you had so many hungry,

starving individuals that, you know, wanted

to be superstars, who put they talent together,

and it came out to be a classic.

The camaraderie in them early days over there, man,

all them cats used to show up to the studio.

They were poor as hell,

but they said, "We're a family." They still had fun.

Yeah! "The Chronic," baby!

(Jewell) So it wasn't like we had money to hang with our friends

or anything like that, so we just hung together.

And we created a masterpiece.

(indistinct chatter)

Check it out.

I think it was a lot of collaboration

on "The Chronic" album as far as names like Daz,

Kurupt, Snoop, Warren G, D.O.C.,

RBX, and myself, Rage, Jewell.

We were all starving.

All starving.

Dre included.

We would be up there eating Popeye's chicken

five days a week.

I gotta go roll up a joint.

We had weed, the best weed, you know what I'm saying?

That's why we made "The Chronic,"

because we had the chronic.

I mean, sometimes, we just was in there, you know,

drinking or elevating our minds to another level.

Dre would be, like, working with the beats at the time,

and he would come up with something,

and depending on who was in the studio

at that particular time.

There was people waiting all over the world for that album--

for Dre's album to drop.

(Virgil Roberts) "The Chronic" was finished.

We had originally thought we were gonna be able

to distribute the record with Sony.

This would have been the first time in history

that young guys would have actually had the opportunity

to have a distribution deal,

what they call a P&D deal,

through a major and get all of the money.

Sony refused to distribute "The Chronic."

Sony, because of their fearfulness

of some of the crazy things going on around Death Row

and their wariness of the contractual status of Dr. Dre,

didn't want to get that deal done.

Part of their fears in dealing with rap bands

is that some of these gangster rappers

might turn out to be real gangsters.

Indeed, many of them are.

There's-- any number of these guys go to jail every year.

I mean, it's, like, first thing, they--

you know, they go platinum, then go to jail.

(Virgil Roberts) Dick and I then negotiated a deal

with BMG to put out the record.

They heard the lyrics, and they said,

"We're not gonna put the record out.

Everybody got afraid of putting out

any kind of rap records with explicit lyrics

that talked about killing cops and stuff.

There wasn't nobody out there with us.

I mean, it was a time when we were shopping a deal.

We had an album done.

John McClane Jr. came along.

When he heard the record, he went crazy.

He said, "Griff, Griff, you gotta--

you gotta give me this, you gotta give me this record."

John said, "I love the record.

Why don't you let me take it to Interscope?"

An opportunity appeared for a young, aggressive label

to distribute Death Row,

and two established industry people to deal with--

Jimmy Iovine, who is a superstar producer of rock records,

and Ted Fields, who had been a movie producer

and produced some hit music.

They had some rather controversial acts

of their own in rock-- Nine Inch Nails.

They signed Tupac Shakur,

the other hottest rapper in the business.

Interscope was out of business.

They were getting ready to close the doors.

Warner's Atlantic was dropping the deal,

and Ted Fields was tired of pouring

his personal money in there.

So here comes Dick Griffey with "The Chronic."

Dick and I went and met with Jimmy Iovine,

and we met with David Cohen,

and we played them "The Chronic,"

and they said they were interested in making a deal.

So these guys told me-- said, "Look, they--

we gonna advance you $200,000."

Well, in the meantime, what was--

what was going on is there was no more money.

There was no cash flow.

Friday, no money, Saturday, no money,

Sunday, no money, Monday, no money.

Tuesday, they advanced $100,000,

for which we had to sign as a loan.

By Wednesday, Suge and Dre are up at Interscope.

Jimmy Iovine got a hold of Dre,

said, "See, Dre?

"They doing it to you again, Dre.

These guys are taking advantage of you.

They then got in touch directly with Suge and said,

"You know, Griffey was here, he won't make us a deal,

but you bring us a record, we'll give you $1 million."

The man, once again,

had done the old divide and conquer.

There's really a lot of prejudice in the business.

And people think it's so much black and white,

but a lot of it is young and old.

Most of our young people don't really know

what's available for them out there,

so that's how they get taken advantage of.

Older guys, only thing they want to do

is sit you down and say, "Look...

"Okay, Suge, you say you're a young entrepreneur.

"This is what we gonna do.

"Give me all the stuff you got-- give me your tapes,

"give me your masters, give me your groups,

and I'm gonna go over there and make you a deal."

Suge didn't know contracts.

He didn't know manufacturing, he didn't know publishing.

But you know, my opinion was,

"Look, I ain't no punk.

"You don't gotta talk for us.

We gonna go in there and speak for ours self.

"Instead of getting a dollar, we want five,

You know, and our masters, and our ownership."

(Dick Griffey) What they ended up with is going over to Interscope

and getting one of those regular slave deals.

They took the kids away from the nest too soon.

Interscope clearly saw the money.

And this is the record business.

And I think they were smart enough

to see that whoever this guy Suge Knight was,

and knowing the track record of this producer, Dr. Dre,

and you had the legal mind of Dave Kenner there,

they've got all the tools in place.

"Everything that we need is right here.

"We don't really have to do anything.

"All we have to do is fund these guys and do what we do,

"which is promote records and market records

and advertise records."

Jimmy Iovine had to go pay off

Ruthless, Eazy, Jerry Heller,

and have "The Chronic" distributed

through Priority Records.

Eazy was getting on Dre's "Chronic" record,

like, 50 cents a copy, maybe 25 cents,

meaning, yeah, "Dre Day," he talking shit about me,

but every time "Dre Day" sell a record,

I get 25 cents a copy.

(Virgil Roberts) After they signed the agreement,

I think they realized that they needed to leave,

and they did.

All of a sudden, they disappeared.

(Jewell) Suge cut off all ties with, you know,

the people he was dealing with in the beginning,

and we got a whole new office and a whole new crew.

And that really became kind of the--

the rupture in the relationship

between Dick and Suge and D.O.C. and Dre.

(Dick Griffey) "The Chronic" rolls out and sells 5 million copies,

generates $50 million.

It saved Interscope... made Interscope.

We invented something that wasn't out there,

so it was fresh, and everybody wanted it,

from the East Coast to the West Coast, period.

You couldn't turn on MTV without seeing Dr. Dre.

First time I performed songs from "The Chronic"

was with Dr. Dre,

and we did, like, a small, little concert in Compton.

And, man, motherfuckers were singing every word of the songs.

It made me feel, like, damn, this is my life right here.

(Ton Def) To me it wasn't like, okay,

Dre is advocating everybody smoke weed.

He wasn't saying that.

He was saying my album is dope.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

My album is dope, buy it.

It was a good record-- I know a lot of cats

that's pissed off behind those records right now

'cause they say they haven't been paid

or didn't get credit for it.

I liked it-- I mean, it was--

I was surprised by it, I was happy with it.

In fact, I still play it from time to time.

I don't like to listen to his voice on the shit,

but I still listen to it.

If you understand, you know,

what was going on in the street

at that time and even now,

word of mouth is everything.

And Death Row became really hip on the street.

Every young black entertainer wanted to be a part of it,

so there was no problem finding talent at all.

There was an understanding at Death Row

that they weren't getting at the major companies.

(Doug Young) One of the things about these major labels--

they'll never understand street music.

They'll never understand stuff

that starts right there in the neighborhoods.

They'll never understand it,

never will, never will, never will.

That's why you will always have some young entrepreneurs

who will come along, who really understand

how to do that, and make a killing.

(Suge Knight) I'm not Hollywood.

You know, if you see me out somewhere,

I don't care who you is-- I'm fixin' to come over there,

hear your hook, talk to you-- "How you doing," whatever.

You ain't gonna speak to me.

I ain't gonna do no "Psh, let's do lunch."

I ain't with all that, you know?

I'll be, like, "What's up? I'm still from the ghetto.

It was a very, very good time

for young kids looking for a break.

There was an opportunity there.

There were people there that understood them,

understood what they were about.

Kids would come in and want to audition

right off the street.

Basically did the same thing Motown did.

They took the mindset, the spirit,

the dreams, the hopes, and wishes, and thoughts

of the people, of the time period,

and they set it to music.

If anybody would really stop for a moment

to analyze what really happened at Death Row,

it's really a miracle.

You have a company, a small company

run by a young, black entrepreneur,

and he releases five or six LPs,

and all of them went at least, I think, double platinum.

Now, it's a known fact in our industry--

if you're working for a major, and you release ten LPs,

and you have three to four hit records

out of the ten that you release,

you're considered a genius.

I think the most important thing in my situation,

that I wasn't coached.

I think if a person is coached about the business,

they're gonna continue to make the same mistakes

the other entrepreneurs been making all along.

The appeal of Death Row Records, and everybody

wanting to join Death Row Records at the time,

was the fact that Suge Knight was a black man

with a lot of power,

and he was a fearsome individual.

That's the type of person you want on your team.

Suge Knight is an intimidating individual.

When he enters a room, you notice him,

You can't help it.

I think that he would be considered

a handsome man, huge man.

(Hank Caldwell) Suge's tremendous size intimidated people.

When you got a 300-pound guy saying something,

it means a lot more than if you have Mickey Rooney saying it.

Suge was bright enough to use his size

much like Don King uses his hair.

The hype got so big, that everybody started fearing him.

I have friends who are at Sony, and one of them called,

said, "Gee, you know, we really want to get a track.

Would you do me a favor, and could you go talk to Suge?"

And I said, "Yeah, I'll go talk to him."

And so, I went over to see Suge.

And I said, Suge, "What is it you're doing?

You got people out here that are afraid to talk to you."

(Hank Caldwell) Suge became somewhat like a folk hero after a while.

These stories just developed a life of their own.

You got Suge doing everything from throwing people

off of a 30-story building

to, you know, putting rocks-- and burying them in cement.

The media, they put bad names on people

and, you know, try to run.

They drag their name through dirt or whatever.

But now, as an individual,

you got to do what you got to do to get paid.

(Jewell) He was a very brilliant businessman.

Whatever his tactics might have been,

whoever he had to step on to get there,

his main objective was to just get there

at any cost.

There's a genius which is a part of him.

And you know what they say about geniuses, you know?

They aren't far from being insane.

Suge Knight pretty much blew his cover

by appearing on the cover of magazines

because now, you're no longer a figure behind the scenes.

Now, you're a celebrity.

You're making yourself a celebrity.

When Snoop's album comes out,

this is the most anticipated rap album in history.

(Snoop Dogg) "Doggystyle" was--

we through with "The Chronic."

"It's all about you, Snoop.

You the hottest thing coming out the West Coast in a long time."

And Dre gonna produce it.

And when Dre produce an album from top to bottom,

you can't lose.

(reporter) Tell us what we should expect on the new album.

Gangsta shit, you know what I'm saying?

Smooth gangsta shit.

We're here at Tower Records in Marina del Rey.

where this is really the hottest album on the shelves right now.

(news anchor) Since the album was released at midnight last night,

at this store, they've already sold

130 CDs and about 100 cassettes.

It could be the hottest album ever.

Get it before it's gone.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) Nobody had ever, in the modern era,

had their very first album go number one.

A triple platinum album is $30 million to the record label.

It's more like $45 million on the retail level.

Death Row became the core of Interscope,

which became the core of Warner Brothers'

music moneymaking machine.

After the Snoop album came out, it was all gravy

'cause, man, Death Row was flying high at the end.

There was just so money floating around Death Row for anything.

I remember, I used to keep thousands--

I used to run through thousands of dollars a day.

They're making $100 million a year.

They can buy anything they want.

They can buy anybody they want.

That made it all very, very serious business.

Rappers didn't give gangsta rap its name.

The music industry gave gangsta rap its name.

They said, "This music has cussing in it,

"they're calling women bitches, so that's gangsta rap

because it comes from the gangs and the gangstas."

Gangsta rap isn't something that was just born

and invented in the quote-unquote "ghetto."

It's something that you see in American movies.

Put that gun away. When I get good and ready.

The glorification of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano,

and that's kind of glamorous in any American's eyes, I think.

It really puts the truth of society

out in front of America,

and America, not used to that,

is obviously gonna be shocked about it.

Suppose they just started rapping about the 6:00 news.

Would it be gangsta rap?

Gangsta rap is like the movies, too.

Drama sells.

I take it for what it is.

It's a record, it's a CD, it's a tape.

You know, and I'm not gonna live my life by it,

and other people shouldn't either.

It's entertainment.

No black man should get on the front of a magazine

with a 12-inch cigar in front of two Rolls-Royces

wearing what could be considered gang colors in America.

That sends a bad message-- that's negative.

Publicity, when it was negative, played a role also

because it was part of this role

that Suge Knight had chosen for the company.

I mean, these kids were not gangsters,

quote, real gangsters.

Many people there were not, as a matter of fact,

gang members, like it has been portrayed in the press.

You know, there were people around that were.

When you got brothers that, you know,

perpetrating gang violence or gang affiliation,

and they making it cool, it's a problem.

That could be a problem.

It wasn't just Death Row perpetuating the violence.

I think it was the media.

I think-- I mean, let's face it.

The coverage was just awesome.

All of a sudden, Death Row and gangsta rap was the reason

that every youngster in America was going bad.

(all) No gangsta rap!

Lyrics that promote rape, murder,

racism, drug abuse, and violence.

"Die, die, die, pig, die."

Time Warner's music division promotes music

that celebrates the rape, torture, and murder of women.

C. Delores Tucker is a political activist

that embodies herself in matters

of African-American decency questions.

In the beginning, she was trying to protect America

from the threat of gangsta rap.

You will see words that you can't even repeat

in a locker room.

But by that point, the cat was out of the bag,

and there was very little that should could have done.

Doggy style.

Do it from the back.

She involved herself in Time Warner politics

along with a odd political bedfellow for her,

who was William Bennett.

The moral obtuseness of Time Warner.

We do not understand why they don't get it.

These are right-wing conservatives, both of them.

They are would-be censors.

Both were attacking Time Warner along with Dole.

A line has been crossed,

not just of taste, but of human dignity and decency.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) Now, you've got a presidential candidate

accusing Time Warner of debasing the nation

for handling Death Row product.

The mainstreaming of deviancy must come to an end.

And I think we do have problems

with the social fabric of this country right now.

I do have trouble believing that it is caused

by song lyrics or movies.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) Time Warner was also doing Ice-T.

They got T off the label, but they were stuck with Death Row.

And the numbers were so huge,

they didn't know what to do with it.

They'd just put $120 million into it.

They're getting all that money out and then some.

They can't be seen by any of their artists

to give into political pressure whatsoever.

If you do that, they'd never get another act again,

and no self-respecting manager would ever sign with a label

who they thought could be pressured for content.

We, African-American women particularly,

are tired of being called hoes, bitches, and sluts

by our children,

who are paid to do this by Time Warner.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) She came up with an idea

that she reportedly pitched to Fuchs,

that what if she stated a label, a positive rap label,

and got Suge to distribute Death Row product through her

with her as the watchdog of the lyrical content,

to make sure that the messages were positive.

Michael Fuchs, reportedly desperate

to try and figure out a solution to this,

apparently listened to her.

She got Fuchs to guarantee $80 million

if she could pull this off.

Interscope was not about to let Death Row

go without a fight.

Suge Knight also protected those artists lyrically,

you know, made sure that everyone was allowed

to say whatever the hell they wanted to say.

Whatever happens, we're gonna stand up tall

and-- and-- and be more successful.

Only thing anybody is doing

is making us stronger and better.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) No way he was gonna let C. Delores Tucker

decide the lyrical content of a Snoop Doggy Dogg album.

That wasn't gonna happen,

but they apparently thought it was.

Michael Fuchs reportedly flew to Los Angeles

in the Time Warner jet to Dionne Warwick's house,

with C. Delores Tucker sitting there

waiting for Suge Knight to come over to cut a deal

that would make a tame Death Row Records.

What she really wanted was a record company,

or to have more involvement in that business.

I mean, it is a very lucrative business.

She had the wherewithal to see

where this rap situation was going,

how it had the nation really sort of unnerved.

She was just trying to parlay it into something for herself,

or she had been promised

that it would be something for herself.

Never.

Never have I discussed $80 million with them,

about any kind of a business deal.

The story goes that they waited five hours,

Michael Fuchs, C. Delores Tucker,

and-- and-- at Dionne Warwick's house,

that Suge never showed up.

Suge went right back to Interscope and said,

"Do you know what these guys just tried to pull?"

So Interscope then promptly sued Time Warner

and promptly sued C. Delores Tucker

for interfering with their contractual relationship.

Time Warner has decided

to get out of the gangsta rap business

by selling its 50% share of Interscope Records

back to that company.

They made the right decision,

the morally responsible decision, we think,

and we believe that by their action,

divesting themselves of Interscope

at some financial loss, they have set a standard

for the entire entertainment industry.

I commend them for it.

I think they are gonna be good corporate citizens.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) Death Row Records was at the center of controversies,

and if the Republicans had had their way,

would have brought down a president.

That's how big the controversy got.

(Michael Harris) The origins of Death Row, starting with David Kenner,

Michael Harris, and Suge Knight

didn't seem out of the ordinary

until all the information started unfolding

because David Kenner, nobody knew who he was.

David Kenner became the principle business attorney

for the label, as well as the criminal attorney

for many people at the label.

Los Angeles police announced that 21-year-old Calvin Broadus,

better known as rap star Snoop Doggy Dogg,

had turned himself into police on Friday

along with two other young black men,

all accompanied by an attorney,

in connection with the murder on August 25th

of a man named Philip Woldermariam

in what police believe was a gang-related shooting.

It never should have gone to trial.

(David Kenner) The alleged victim in this case had a gun,

was reaching to his waistband to pull that gun out.

At the time, Snoop's bodyguard did the--

fired a shot.

And that's what we said from the beginning.

The testimony makes it clear this is a case of self-defense.

(Snoop Dogg) The DA, he was a pain in the ass.

He just tried to do everything in the world

to make me seem like the most negative,

gangbangin'-est, criminal-minded motherfucker

he could just imagine, and tried

to paint a picture of me that just wasn't happening.

It was crazy knowing that he was--

that's what his job was to do,

was to get me locked up for life.

You know what I'm saying?

I just want to say fuck you... bitch.

(Paul Palladino) Dave Kenner was the guy

who legally made Suge secure.

One of the benefits Suge Knight

gave to people that joined Death Row

was to say that, "I have a legal team,

"people who have a lot of experience

in the criminal arena, that can help you."

Whereas in the past, coming from a black community,

you go into a white justice system,

where all the cards are stacked against you.

Here, for the first time in most of their lives,

they were given a lawyer who was very capable

and an investigator on top of it.

And the results spoke for themselves most of the time.

They got to see instances where they were acquitted

in cases which normally they would have been convicted.

In the rap industry, the problems happen

at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning,

so it's not a 9:00 to 5:00 job.

David was the rare lawyer who would be available

to clients at that hour.

(Sam Gideon Anson) Of the $70 or $80 million

that Interscope paid them between 1995 and 1997,

about 13 million of that went to the law offices

of David Kenner or to David Kenner.

Certainly, this company

was his bread and butter for some time.

(reporter) What's your name again?

David Kenner, K-E-N-N-E-R.

I was quite surprised because you would expect

a music business attorney, but he wasn't.

He was a criminal attorney.

He had entertainment attorney qualities, you know?

He's flamboyant and he's sharp, and-- you know?

And he's kind of Mafia-ish,

you know, his whole persona.

After a while, David might have got so caught up

in this lifestyle that he might have become

somewhat confused because the thing is

is David really was supposed to be

working on getting Mike out.

David was handling Michael's appeal.

David was involved very much in Lydia's life.

He was friends with Lydia.

This was a person who was very trustworthy to him.

And I thought, man, Mike is making a ton of money.

And then, you see Dave Kenner there.

So you see if Dave is there, then Mike is there.

And then, the stories start flashing,

and then you know that there's a war going on.

There was rumors that, you know,

Suge was over there trying to get a deal at Interscope.

But when he would go down and visit Mike,

him and Kenner would say it wasn't true.

And Mike said, "Hey, what's this here in the newspaper?

And Suge would say, "Oh, they, you know

how the newspaper print up articles."

So Mike said, "Well, they're not gonna just print up anything."

So he start asking David, you know, "What's going on?"

Then David came and said, "Suge did this behind my back."

(Sam Gideon Anson) Then that started to cause Michael concern

about what exactly was going on.

He started to get word that Suge was telling people,

"Oh, Michael Harris is nobody, he's not my partner."

And the word on the street was

Michael Harris is really pissed off with Suge, it's on.

(Jewell) He wanted to get all the credit,

which Mike don't trip-- the credit.

The world thinks that Suge did this on his own.

Mike's in jail, but he's got a wife, he's got a kid.

You know, he's got family out here.

He's got people he's taking care of.

So you know, his reaction is he's stunned.

Then, he's kind of mad about it, you know?

You know, "How you gonna punk me?"

The phone was never blocked

because it always had cats calling from the pen.

Harry O., uh, wasn't the only one.

But after a while, I even remember--

and I think it was because of Harry--

that they then blocked the phone

where it couldn't take no more calls.

David Kenner started off

to play these guys against each other.

Once the rift between Suge and Mike happened,

Dave Kenner had to pledge allegiance one way or the other.

(Sam Gideon Anson) Throughout this time, even if Suge

was denying his partnership with Michael

or denying that Michael had any role in the company,

David would be going up to visit Michael

and saying, "Oh, no, everything's okay.

"There's no problem, everything's fine.

"We're gonna get this taken care of.

It reminds me of the-- Brutus and Caesar.

(Sam Gideon Anson) At some point, Michael gets a hold

of the incorporation paperwork of Death Row Records

and realizes that Suge and David Kenner

had set up a different company of Death Row Records

that was independent of this GF Entertainment

Michael had had a hand in.

And I think Michael began to suspect

that things were not so kosher with their partnership.

He the one told Dave, "Hey, look at this, man, that guy Suge.

"I like him, go talk to him.

"Okay, a record company?

"Okay, I give you this amount of money.

You tell him to do this."

Okay, then him and Suge talking, Suge's going to visit him.

"Suge, check this out-- put it down like this, man.

"Put it down like that. You do--

"David, you do this part-- keep him out of jail.

You make sure you keep him out of jail."

That's how Suge got all them probations and stuff,

Dave fighting like he crazy to keep him out of jail

'cause Mike telling him to.

"Keep him out of jail."

But guess what?

Soon as the money come in, "Who?

Harry O.?"

They turned Scooby Doo on him--

"Who-- who-- who's that?"

You know.

Mike said, "Well, where's the money at?"

And they said, "You know, it's gonna be 60 to 90 days,

you know, before we see a royalty check."

So those 60 and 90 days turned into a year.

I went over and met with David Cohen.

He said, "Well, you know, what if we don't pay you?"

And I told him, "I'm not threatening you,

"but I'm gonna go on national TV

and tell what really happened."

(Doug Young) Everybody knew Harry O. wasn't no joke, okay?

Everybody knew Harry O. had chips.

And all you gotta do is be no joke and have chips,

and you can get somebody handled.

(Jewell) That's when Michael typed up a letter.

(Sam Gideon Anson) Michael put his concerns on paper

in the form of a lawsuit

that could have been filed, that was never filed,

laying out his grievances as to how he had been

a founding partner in Death Row Records

and had been denied his fair share of the proceeds.

That lawsuit was shown to Interscope,

and Interscope paid a fairly generous settlement

to make it go away before it ever got filed.

That next day, I got a call.

They told me that Mike was, in, like, a wheelchair.

His mouth was twisted.

I mean, he couldn't even walk.

He couldn't even use his hands.

He couldn't do nothing-- I said, "What happened?"

And that's when the doctor said he had Guillain-Barré.

And I asked Mike-- I said, "Well, did,

you know, Kenner give you anything?"

I'd started thinking, at least to myself,

that Suge was getting himself caught up

into too many situations that were unhealthy.

He had created an image that was working for him.

And sometimes, the image merged with reality.

And I'm not sure that as time went on,

that Suge didn't draw the line

between when there was the image

and when there was the reality.

Suge wasn't a gangsta.

Suge came from a family.

His mother and father are still together.

He was a college football player.

I feel I got a whole, whole lot of street credibility,

street smarts, and at the same time,

I graduated from college.

You know, I-- I hit the books,

and I put both of them together.

He ran that company like it was his gang.

That's his family.

He might not love us, but he made us think he did.

(Virgil) A lot of what followed in part had to do

with trying to establish Death Row

as the label with the most street credibility,

and we're really doing gangsta rap,

and we're keeping it real,

and we're keeping it legitimate.

And so, when you guys get out the joint,

you can come get a job with me, that sort of thing.

I ain't never had a job before in my life

until I start working for Suge.

You know, I was in and out of jail.

You know what I'm saying?

Did a little bit of everything, you know what I'm saying?

Now, I'm-- pssh-- you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, a lot of them cats that was up there

was fresh out of the penitentiary

with that penitentiary mentality.

It was like working at a prison

with no guns, no knives, no nothing.

you just had to be in there on your own and handle it.

How many companies do you know

can have some Crips and Bloods up there?

Crips and Bloods.

At first, I was totally with Death Row's concept

'cause it was about time we had a brother out there, man,

that wasn't taking no shit from these companies,

that wasn't paying brothers their money.

So I was totally with it.

It was when the nonsense got too out of hand.

We had a system of that kind of thing,

sort of like a demerit system for artists and so on,

and for some of the office workers.

Say something wrong, you get smacked.

If you come late, you get smacked.

If you do this, you get smacked.

(laughs) That sounds to me--

To me, it was like pimps and hoes.

(Doug Young) I just knew how after a while, Suge was unapproachable.

You couldn't really talk to him no more.

You know, I just-- I just knew it.

There was no more talking to this guy.

Man, this guy is the fucking man.

The company was, by no ways, forms, or fashion, Hollywood.

You know how white folks like to do.

They like to scream at each other.

They-- "I'm gonna get my lawyer on you."

But the new brothers wasn't doing it like that.

They was coming through doors, coming through windows,

and the whole nine on people.

You know, these rappers are from the street.

They're not used to nothing else.

So you have to deal with ''em in the street mentality.

I heard somebody once describe them

as all thinking they were in a "Godfather" movie.

Suge was famous for applying the old Mafia tactics,

that you instill fear in everybody.

And a guy just walks in, he wants to--

he has no idea we're in the middle of a meeting.

He wants a record deal, he walks in,

and he says he knows how to rap.

So Suge says, "Okay, rap.

If we don't like what you do, we gonna kick your ass."

He said maybe three words, and they just lit his ass up.

I've seen people get beat up.

You understand I've seen people get that door locked on 'em,

the infamous door-locking... (laughs)

when they take you in a room and touch you up and down.

I wasn't the only lady that got beat up.

But I was the only lady beat up and he held down.

Suge grabbed me by my feet, and everything went haywire.

This girl cold-cocked me.

She loosened up my teeth, and I had two black eyes.

David Kenner stood up and watched.

Somebody else videotaped it,

and I kicked Suge in his nuts,

and I got the hell up out of there.

I have not laid eyes on Suge since that day.

He won't lay eyes on me till he see this.

(Doug Young) All that drama that people knew that was happening

right there at Death Row on that 12th floor--

this is at the building right down near the UCLA on Wilshire--

it never leaked over to the Interscope side.

You know, you see the Interscope.

Interscope looks nice, woody.

Things say "Interscope Records," and...

they get into reception-- Death Row is just a door.

(laughing) It's...

It was just a mahogany door--

colored door-- with a camera.

(Snoop Dogg) D.O.C. and RBX both had problems with Suge.

They seen what type of person he was on the inside.

Not to say nothing bad or not to say nothing good about him,

but they seen the type of person he was.

And through the grace of God and good attorneys,

they were able to leave.

Everybody else was forced in a chokehold after that.

(Frank Alexander) Tupac Shakur was not before his time,

but one of a kind of his time and era.

He was a movie star, and for him to be doing street stuff

gave him, like, sort of a Marlon Brando edge,

the outlaw who was living life

in some romantic Ernest Hemingway world

where you lived out your art.

He had that almost uncontrollable,

defiant attitude.

I got a big mouth, can't help it.

I talk from my heart, I'm real, you know what I'm saying?

Whatever comes, comes.

But my controversy, probably-- and it's not my fault.

I'm trying to find my way in the world.

You know, I'm trying to be somebody

instead of just make money off everybody.

Tupac's gift was the ability

to take somebody else's pain and story

and translate it.

We, as rappers, bought that violence.

We bought the violence that we seen on the street,

and we put it in our records,

put it in our records for years.

And after three, four years,

people finally starting to see it

because of all the statistics that's going on in the streets.

If we stop talking about it,

then they wouldn't take statistics.

And when they stop taking statistics,

then we'd be killing each other in the street,

and these white people wouldn't care no more.

He would definitely give you something to think about.

I know some of y'all white folks

and some of y'all black folks

don't appreciate what we talking about,

but this is the only way we got to make money.

And if you don't let me make my money on the streets,

I guarantee you, I will make my money on the streets.

A lot of people say the same things

or have said the same things as Pac,

but Tupac made it believable.

'Cause at first, I always thought

he was just a crazy, arrogant, little idiot.

But I didn't really know how deep he was.

We have to be honest about the tools

that we use to survive.

And why is a black life any--

any more... recoupable than a white life?

You know what I'm saying?

We know that they don't put the same security

in the ghetto that they do in the white--

in the white neighborhoods.

What I saw in Tupac was someone

who had a desire to be successful,

and he only had two or three avenues.

One was rapping, one was acting,

and the other was going into the movement

that his family came out of.

His mother was a Black Panther.

All of the anger, frustration, and everything

that she was dealing with in what was going on

with her at that time in her life

was feeding right into him.

When Tupac was a kid, for punishment,

she would make him read "The New York Times"

cover to cover.

And at the end of the day,

he would be quizzed on everything

he read out of the paper.

Tupac, well aware of what his mother had gone through,

brought that into the '90s

because nothing had changed in the '60s to the '90s

as far as he saw with his race of people.

I don't know how to be responsible

for what every black male did.

I don't know.

Yes, I am gonna say that I'm a thug.

That's because I came from the gutter, and I'm still here.

I'm not saying I'm a thug 'cause I want to rob you

and rape people and things.

I'm a businessman.

I mean, you know I'm a businessman

because you find me at my places of business.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) Tupac was a star at Interscope,

and Interscope had their hands full with him.

He was in jail and in trouble.

He just had got beat up by the police.

He had a lawsuit going to them that he won,

and he was getting just harassed for anything.

I mean, you know, they just start throwing him on the news

as the bad guy of rap

when he really wasn't that person.

I appreciate the press that you're giving me,

for giving me a fair trial and a fair shot at justice.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart

for just destroying everything I worked for

for the past 22 years, and a Happy New Year to you too.

Tupac was in the news every day.

I mean, you can't buy that kind of publicity.

It's unfortunate the kinds of media coverage that they got,

but it added to sales.

People didn't know Pac had, like, 15 cases

in different states in America.

We would go do a show,

Pac would go straight to court

soon as we get off the airplane.

Don't block my way, and don't hit my lawyer.

(Virgil Roberts) Great artists are almost always out of step

with what's going on in society

'cause they see the world differently

and they act differently.

The last situation he got into,

Interscope kind of, like, left him for dead.

They weren't really fucking with Pac like that.

Shakur and another man were accused

of sexually assaulting and sodomizing a 21-year-old woman

in their hotel room last year.

It's not a crime for me to be

with any girl I want to be with.

It's a crime for that girl to turn that into a rape charge.

It was her who sodomized me.

It wasn't me who went down to the dance club

and ate her out.

It was her in the dance club who had oral sex with me.

She should be charged, not me.

Last night, or just after midnight,

at 723 Seventh Avenue--

that's between 48th and 49th Street--

our rap star, Tupac Shakur, and three members of his group

were robbed and shot.

(Kevin Powell) The word on the streets is that it was a warning to Tupac.

Who was it coming from?

(reporter) In a bizarre twist of events,

rap singer Tupac Shakur checked himself out

of Bellevue Hospital late Wednesday night

after the 23-year-old was shot five times

early that same morning inside the lobby

of a Times Square recording studio.

(reporter 2) Shakur had appeared in court today,

but had little to say about being shot.

(reporter 3) Mr. Shakur, how are you this morning?

(reporter 4) After three days of deliberations,

the jury has finally decided the fate of rapper Tupac Shakur.

Guilty on three counts of sexual abuse,

he now faces 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years in prison.

The main impetus for the incarceration of Mr. Shakur

was from City Hall, Mr. Giuliani himself.

Being 23, being black, and last name being Shakur in America,

he never had a chance.

Tupac was in jail, and he wanted out of jail,

and he wanted out of jail badly.

No one, including Interscope, was putting up

any bail money to get him out,

and his bail was set at $1.4 million.

A lot of people on the East Coast,

a lot of people in New York City dissed him hard, man.

They dissed him on the radio.

No one went to go visit him except for a few people.

And he wanted to be number one again.

So where else do you go

but to where the other number-one people are?

(Allen Gordon) Death Row Records had been trying

to get Tupac for some time.

If you got Suge Knight dangling in front of you,

you know, freedom, freedom, money, power, respect,

can get you out of jail, how else you gonna go for it?

You got a scared young man, first time behind bars.

He's supposed to be back there for four years.

And Pac promised him in return, "You get me out of here,

"I'll put Death Row on the map.

My first CD will sell six million copies."

And I don't think it's a coincidence

that Suge wanted him on Death Row Records so badly

because even though Snoop was a huge star,

he didn't have what Tupac had,

that kind of icon presence, like a James Dean or Elvis.

Now, I heard that he had Pac sign a contract on toilet paper.

(laughs)

I don't know how true it is,

but I know when Pac came back... he was ready.

(Frank Alexander) Tupac got out September of '95.

He went to Death Row Records.

That's the day he got off the plane,

and they laid down their first track

for "All Eyez on Me" in 15 minutes.

This album is more celebratory of life,

um, upbeat, energetic, fun, I think,

but it's also harsher in terms of the language

because I didn't-- I've been in jail for 11 1/2 months.

(Ton Def) Tupac brought the feeling of "I was nothing,

"now I'm something,

"and I want everybody else to be something too.

If I can do it, you can do it."

He stirred up the whole group there.

He got them all going and all working.

He made sure that every artist at Death Row

had some part of this double CD.

It was his way of saying, "Look, I'm part of the family,

and I want you on my album,"

which he did not have to do.

Like, I remember doing a session with him, you know,

and it seemed like he was just running around, having fun,

just partying, you know, having a good time.

But the man was done.

We thought that he didn't even write 'em.

We thought he came with his lyrics already.

But no, he wrote 'em that day.

And that's just how sharp he was, man.

(Suge Knight) You had people around the studio saying,

"Man, we gotta get like Pac.

"Pac just go in there, kick 'em in, kick 'em out,

kick 'em in, kick 'em out."

And that's all they'd talk about,

and that's exactly what they were doing.

He made the level of competition,

which is a good thing.

He brought that level up.

Any of the artists will tell you

that what Tupac put into them was this business

of the work ethic, where you can do more

if you just work at it.

When Tupac came, it's like Suge wasn't worried

about nobody else, not Snoop, nobody at the time.

Nobody.

Around the time that Tupac got out of jail,

Sean "Puffy" Combs was about to become,

I would say, the East Coast version of Suge Knight,

with Bad Boy Records.

You know, his first big artist was the Notorious B.I.G.

This bullshit about the East Coast and the West Coast

started when we went out to New York

to do the Source Awards, and Mr. Knight went onstage.

And he's in New York City,

and we all know Puffy's from New York City.

Any artist out there want to be an artist,

and want to stay a star, and don't want to have to worry

about the executive producer trying to be

all in the videos, all on the records, dancing,

come to Death Row.

(booing)

I mean, the whole crowd started booing.

And then, I thought to myself, like,

"Why would you do that?"

The East Coast don't love Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg?

The East Coast ain't got no love

for Dr. Dre, and Snoop Dogg, and Death Row?

Y'all don't love us?

Y'all don't love us?

Well, let it be known then.

We know y'all East Coast.

We know where the (...) we at.

East Coast (...)!

(booing)

I'm the executive producer that a comment was made about

a little bit earlier, but cont-- check this out.

Contrary to what other people may feel,

I would like to say that I'm very proud of Dr. Dre,

of Death Row and Suge Knight for their accomplishments.

And all this East and West, that needs to stop.

It was so... personal.

Puffy was a good friend of mine.

(Kevin Powell) There's enough room in this business

for two young black males who are entrepreneurs to exist.

I mean, can you imagine if Al Bell and Berry Gordy

were fighting, or if The Temptations

had beef with The Four Tops?

I mean, it sounds fucking retarded

when you think about it.

"Yo, The Four Tops got beef with The Temptations,

Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson were fighting

at the Grammy Awards last night."

I mean, think about that for a second.

A lot of people on the West Coast felt that...

we have always had love for the East Coast, you know?

They come here and break their records.

They come here and play at the clubs.

You know, they come do in-stores.

We do the whole nine with them East Coast cats,

and we go out there, and we don't get that same love.

I remember New York DJs at parties

refusing to play West Coast records.

"They country, they're bamas, they wear Jheri curls,

they can't rhyme, they're whack, it's not danceable."

It was the media that blew it up, you know?

You're seeing certain things that somebody said

highlighted in magazines about the West Coast,

and vice versa, and it just--

it just boiled over from there.

All these people talking about an East Coast-West Coast war,

they like what Judas was to Jesus.

They only here to cause confusion.

It made rap music look bad.

It made rap music look like

it was just another part of the dope game.

Controversy is what Death Row started living off of

instead of talent.

If this was chess, we'd be yelling "checkmate"

three motherfucking years ago

'cause we been beat these motherfuckers.

Then, the disrespect just started getting worse and worse

between the West Coast and the East Coast.

Overthrow the government y'all got right now,

which is Bad Boy, and Nas, and all that bullshit,

and we will bring a new government here

that will feed every person in New York.

And then you had the Tupac and Big situation,

you know, flaming it even more.

I possess his soul, his and Puffy's.

They know that I was the truest nigga

involved with Biggie's success.

I was the biggest help.

I was the truest nigga.

I don't write his rhymes,

but he know how much he borrowed from me.

He know how I used to stop my shows

and let him touch the show,

let him blow up and do his whole show

in the middle of my show,

how I used to buy him shit, and give him shit,

and never ask for it back,

how I used to share, how I used to share my experiences

in the game, and my lessons, and my rules, and my knowledge

on the game with him, you know what I mean?

He owed me more.

He owed me more than to turn his head

and act like he didn't know niggas

was about to blow my fucking head off.

He knew, but for me to know,

like, three weeks ago, this happened,

and then three weeks later, you're album's coming out,

and you are a fucking don in your album,

but you don't know who shot me in your fucking hometown?

This nigga's from your neighborhood,

and I gotta find out by myself?

And I don't even call myself a don.

I'm just a capo from the West Side,

and I'm on the East Side in jail,

and I know who touched me,

and I know everything that happened.

Tupac was wrong in blaming

whoever the individual figures were

who actually had something to do with it in New York,

and making it into this whole New York City thing

and then this East Coast- West Coast thing.

And I think that he definitely had someone in his ear--

probably Suge-- exacerbating it.

It sells records.

It continues to get media attention,

which sells more records.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) Tupac had claimed to have gone out

with Biggie's wife, Faith Evans.

This was a great humiliation, reportedly, for Biggie.

It was all over.

We were in Manhattan shooting a video.

Biggie Smalls had gotten on the radio station,

and Biggie said that, "I cannot believe

"that New York is allowing Tupac and the Dogg Pound

"to shoot a video in our city,

right in the heart of Times Square."

The words out of Biggie's mouth was,

"Tupac and the Dogg Pound."

And it wasn't.

It was Snoop and the Dogg Pound.

Tupac was not with us.

Snoop at the time was having his hair braided,

and all of the artists was in the trailer.

And then, all of a sudden, gunfire.

Someone shot into the trailer.

They weren't shooting in there to say, you know, "Get out."

They were shooting in there to kill someone.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) There was a shift in Tupac Shakur's lyrical content.

He, at first, was more political.

Then, at some point, he became more street.

It was West Coast versus East Coast.

The person at Riker's Island was very reflective,

and he's gonna change his life, and everything.

This new person was, like, "Fuck New York.

"Fuck the East Coast. Suge is the man.

He takes care of me."

He's flashing money in front of the MTV cameras.

It was like, wow-- it was Jekyll and Hyde.

One of the songs was a song called "Hit 'Em Up."

It talked about killing the Bad Boy camp,

you know, different artists.

It was a lot of threats.

I go, "Pac--" I go, "Did you hear what you said?"

He was like, "Yeah, nigga, I wrote it."

"Okay, um, we're gonna need some more security,

and you need to start wearing a vest."

(Hank Caldwell) Anytime you have this synergy

between two or more people

and they make things happen,

when you start breaking that up,

things are never the same again.

When you think about Dr. Dre,

here's a cat who's always had

some sort of big brother or father figure around him.

Early on, it was Alonzo Williams.

Then, it was Eazy-E, Jerry Heller.

Then, it becomes Suge Knight.

And so, Dre was one of those cats

who always needed guidance from someone else

because Dre is really an artistic person.

He's an artist, he's a true artist.

Seemed like after a while, somebody was pulling

his strings, you know, like Dre had to answer to somebody.

(interviewer) Who do you think that was?

We all know who that was.

(Kevin Powell) The king, i.e. Suge Knight,

felt the need to have the court around him,

and I don't think Dre felt comfortable with that.

I've got all these people around me, um...

How many of 'em do I really need?

(Frank Alexander) Tupac and Dr. Dre

was fine in the beginning.

Everything was great.

I mean, you didn't see any problems.

From the time that I worked there in '95

up until early '96,

Dr. Dre had been in the studio twice.

Pac took offense to that.

(Tupac Shakur) He wasn't producing shit.

Other niggas was producing the beats like on my albums.

Other niggas is doing the beats,

and Dre was getting the credit.

Daz and all the other little producers, and Assassin,

all the ones we have, and... they did the tracks.

Dre wasn't doing the tracks,

and Dre didn't write the lyrics.

(Kevin Powell) Suge basically took on the role for Tupac

that he had taken on for Dre.

And I don't think it's a coincidence

at a certain point, you know,

Tupac started becoming the mouthpiece for Suge

and started dissing Dre.

(Tupac Shakur) He is a dope producer, but he ain't worked in years.

I'm out here in the streets, you know what I mean?

Whooping niggas' asses, starting wars and shit,

putting it down, dropping albums, doing my shit,

and this nigga taking three years to do one song.

I seen the change.

Like, right after we finished "Murder Was the Case,"

and we moved into Can-Am Studios

and started working on the "Dogg Food" album.

I just seen that he wasn't as inspired.

And it was, like-- it was too many thugs

and niggas up there

that didn't have nothing to do with nothing.

It was mostly just the way the studio was, you know?

And that's where I have to spend most of my time.

It was not a work atmosphere anymore.

It became fun and games.

And the success had kicked in,

and we were stars, and motherfuckers just loved

being around us and bringing bullshit around us,

and Dre wasn't for that.

I just didn't like some of the things that were going on.

There was nothing being done to stop it.

(Snoop Dogg) Dre likes to work in an environment

where he can create, and everybody's on

a creative atmosphere, and it's not about

what's going on in the hood, how many niggas you shot,

and how much shit you done did.

It ain't-- he didn't want that.

Suge took over the company.

It was no mystery to nobody.

I don't think Dre wanted to be a yes-man for somebody,

so he wanted his own situation again.

So he bailed out.

(man) He says, "Wait, I want out of this world.

"I want to form Aftermath, where I'm not part

"of Death Row anymore.

"I want to be beyond that, I want to be with my family.

I want to live."

(Nate Dogg) When Dr. Dre left Death Row Records,

that was the biggest shock to me

'cause I was real confused at how you start a label

then you leave the label.

I always figured if you had a problem

with somebody on your label,

you make them leave the label,

and you go on with what you're doing.

I guess that was the way of learning

that it wasn't all his label.

(Suge Knight) Dre's departure wasn't a loss.

I mean, if you have a multimillion-dollar company

maybe worth a billion dollars or so,

and you own it 100% and don't have a partner,

and you don't have to give him nothing

but his walking papers, that's great.

Dre made Death Row Records, you know what I'm saying?

And this is absurd that he's going from one situation

to another situation, where he feels

like he's being undercompensated.

To give up 50% of your label and move on elsewhere

from a dangerous situation,

which Death Row Records was becoming,

and we now find out that it is,

was a smart move for him.

♪♪ (tense music)

(Frank Alexander) September 7th, we were just leaving a fight.

Tupac, Mike Tyson, friends, were at the fight.

And we go backstage to leave the building.

Immediately after coming from backstage, um...

one of Suge's homeboys came up

and whispered into Tupac's ear.

Pac took off running.

There was a gentleman standing with a MGM security guard

by a pillar as Tupac was approaching him.

Now, when I think about it,

the guy was standing there waiting.

And Pac ran up on him, and a fight broke out.

Orlando Anderson and a couple of Suge's homeboys

had gotten into a fight at the Lakewood Mall

in California back in April of '96

over a Death Row chain

because there was a bounty on the Death Row chains.

The same person that had got into an altercation

with Orlando Anderson in the mall

whispered into Tupac's ear,

and it caused this fight.

They were, you know, beating Orlando Anderson

up on the ground.

Tupac, Suge, and the rest of the entourage,

they're pretty much bragging about what had happened.

We get back to the Luxor Hotel.

So we go up to Tupac's room.

He changed clothes.

We come back downstairs.

We're all just standing around,

and all the women are coming out.

Everybody's ready to, you know,

go over to 662, the afterparty.

So Tupac turns to me and says, "No, don't ride with us."

He hands me the keys and says,

"You go drive the little homeys

"because we're going to the club.

We're gonna be partying, and you're gonna drive us."

So I said, "Okay."

Pac and Suge get into the BMW.

We get back onto the Las Vegas strip.

Suge's the lead car, I'm the car right behind him,

and then, there's just cars all behind us.

So we turn right off of Las Vegas Boulevard

onto Flamingo to go down to 662.

As we approached the next stoplight,

which is Koval and Flamingo,

there is a car coming down the open lane

that is next to myself and the BMW.

As the car is approaching,

I turn and I look to my right,

and I see the car,

and it's a white Cadillac.

It kind of had moved over,

and I would say, closer to the BMW,

probably about that close.

And an arm just comes out and just starts firing.

(gunshots)

(Suge Knight) I heard the shots being fired.

Pac stood up to try to get in the backseat

to get out the way of the shots.

That's how he got shot in his hip,

which hit one of the bones

and traveled to hit his lung.

I grabbed him and said, "Get down"...

and covered him.

When I pulled him down, that's when I got shot in my head.

I said, "Are you hit?" He said, "I'm hit."

So I'm driving like a madman to a hospital,

and the first thing he said, laughingly, jokingly,

loudly is,

"I need the hospital?

You the one shot in the head."

(siren)

(indistinct police radio)

Coming up next on the 10:00 news, his lyrics,

his life reflected a gangsta lifestyle.

Tonight, Bay Area rapper Tupac Shakur

is dead of gunshot wounds.

It's been all over the media, all over the news,

all over the radio.

(news anchor) Hundreds line the streets

outside a Nation of Islam school

to pay their respects to the slain rapper.

(Paul Palladino) The first things I started hearing were rumors

that Suge had had Tupac shot

because Tupac was thinking of leaving the industry.

And I started to laugh when I heard that, I said,

"You know, the problem with this is,

"is why would someone like Suge have the shooter

shoot across the car so that the bullets would hit him?"

There are so many different layers to the story,

and it's so tragic.

Tupac Shakur is one of those kids

who was really one of the great creative forces of our ages.

He wasn't just a rapper, he was a kid who was really insightful.

He said, "I didn't want to go to Vegas anyway."

He goes, "Almost didn't even come."

That day was gonna happen.

It was the destiny of his life.

He had the thought of not going,

but he went, because his destiny

was to die in it the next day.

And it's just a shame that... (scoffs)

another brother gets lost as a victim of this music.

If you had any street sense knowledge about yourself,

you knew that company was gonna come crashing down, face first.

People let the fame go to their heads,

and their egos took over, and...

the next thing you know, it was--

It was nowhere to go but down.

Coming up, will the founder of one of rap music's

most successful record labels be doing time

for a probation violation?

(news anchor) Last year, he pled no contest to two counts of assault

stemming from a 1992 attack

on two aspiring rappers in a Hollywood recording studio.

This is a man who has eight different convictions.

And, Your Honor, I ask you,

how many bites at the probation apple

does this defendant get?

I think it is very clear that Mr. Knight,

um, delivers a kick with his right foot.

(Jewell) That man made a choice to ignore his conscience,

and it's only him that can reconcile that

and can change it-- we can't.

We can just move on,

give our contribution to the music industry,

and hope that nothing like this ever happens again.

(Judge) He was an active participant in this assault,

and I do find a violation of probation.

I also keep in mind I think the way

he left the scene evidenced a consciousness of guilt.

I think he had been involved in an assault,

and the way he left the scene

causes me to believe that he knew exactly what it was

he was doing and what he had been involved in.

Your prior record indicates one of violence.

Uh, you are a danger to the community.

Your prior performance on probation was not satisfactory.

You committed other crimes while you were on probation.

You're not a suitable candidate for probation, in other words,

and so therefore, probation is denied.

I don't think anybody here has any question

that if we were dealing with somebody other than Mr. Knight,

what we saw in that videotape, first of all,

would not be sufficient to constitute

a probation violation,

and secondly and most importantly,

even if somebody thought it was,

it's certainly not the kind of violation

or the kind of activity that warrants a nine-year-sentence.

How can Suge be in jail?

How can one of the most powerful people in the record business--

not black people, one of the most powerful people

in the record business-- be in jail...

for something as silly as stopping a fight,

or even kicking somebody?

In my opinion, this is a miscarriage of justice.

You got this lawyer, this attorney,

this guy who is pretty brilliant.

So you know that this isn't a regular attorney.

He's got some pull somewhere

because he's got somebody from the DA's office

involved in this thing, and you're saying to yourself,

"If all these people are involved,

"all these powerful people,

what kind of situation did he set Suge up in?"

I mean, Dave Kenner was a big man in our business

on all levels, and you have to ask yourself,

"Did the money get to him?

Did the power get to him?"

You gotta ask yourself, "Is Suge thinking about this?

"Is he sitting in jail saying,

'Is this guy really on my side?'"

(George Pryce) Suge Knight was and is Death Row.

And for me, without Suge Knight, there is no Death Row.

If Suge has grasped all that has happened to him,

I think he could come out and, again,

start up Death Row Records and start a record company

that would be more viable than ever.

They will be legends no matter what happens,

but if they'd have been-- continued to go on,

no telling what kind of influence they may have had

on the inner city youth in America.

When you have guys that have the ears

of not only black America,

but white America also, you can call some shots.

Anybody can sell four million records, five million records,

anybody can sell out concerts around the world.

Whatever they put their name and faces on will sell.

Whatever they endorse will be backed up 100%.

(Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn) The Death Row Records story

told the tale of three major record labels,

almost brought one of them down,

rattled another to its core,

and set the framework for a whole new way

of doing business in the music business.

This was a story that wasn't just about

a bunch of guys from Compton,

it was a story that affected the whole music business

and, ultimately, the business world.

It's about empowerment. It's about greed.

It's about ego. It's about sex.

It's about violence.

It's about fame.

It's about failure.

I mean, you don't get any more American than that.

(Virgil Roberts) The legacy that Death Row Records has left

is both positive and negative.

I think the positive legacy is that if you have talent

and if you're prepared to work,

you can create a business, and it can be successful.

People always say,

"You remember how ol' Suge

started his company from nothing?

We can do that."

We're gonna hear this music forever.

It's gonna forever mark an era in American culture

and American history.

Now, the sad part about this whole thing

is that Jimmy Iovine and Ted Fields

sold Interscope for $400 million.

I still have the article in the "Wall Street Journal."

It says, "Warners ups its stake in rap music."

So what they were buying was Death Row.

They paid 400 million for it.

So Jimmy Iovine and Ted Fields got 400 million.

Tupac's dead, and Suge is in jail.

Who's in jail?

Mike Harris.

Suge Knight.

And-- and where's the money?

Who controls the money?

(laughing) What-- what happened

to the power that all these... black folks controlled?

(Sam Gideon Anson) Death Row is the named party in scores of lawsuits

over its financial management and mismanagement.

With the federal investigation, they're looking into

Suge's dealings in Las Vegas.

They're looking into his dealings with Michael Harris.

(Paul Palladino) Michael has an attempted murder charge over his head

and a drug case over his head.

If the government offered Michael an opportunity

to get out of jail to testify against David Kenner

or Suge Knight or Andre Young or someone else,

there's a good chance that Michael could take it.

(Doug Young) Suge, I would imagine,

in the minds of white corporate America record business,

had to be stopped.

He had to be stopped.

When we start taking the money that we make in the streets,

however we live-- it's hustling bottles,

selling bottle tops, selling a bag of weed on the corner--

however we do it,

when we do it and we start to realize, "You know what...

let me find something legal to do,"

that's when it becomes a problem.

They don't want us legal.

They'd rather we-- 'cause they feel like

if you selling dope, you ain't gonna

never really get rich, unless you the man

sitting next to the God damn man.

It'd be hard to dig up and find who started what

with what kind of legal money,

but they wouldn't want to do that.

If they were to take Death Row right now from Suge Knight,

what about Atlantic Group?

What about Interscope Records?

They made more money than Death Row did off of Death Row.

If Death Row was founded by drug money,

and Death Row made money, Interscope made money,

Atlantic Group made money,

you take everybody's record company.

You don't take just the black man's.