Original subtitles

(man) Death Row's in the motherfuckin' house!

(Suge Knight) Death Row can be bigger than Motown

or Sony or Warner Brothers.

Death Row's gonna be the biggest record company there is.

The master plan was to take over the world.

(man) Some of the greatest artists came together at one time.

And it was like a comet streaking across the sky.

(man) Sex, drugs, violence...

For better, for worse, gang bang went pop.

(man) It's like everything we touched turned to gold.

Next year, Death Row gonna start printing out own money.

You wanted a car, two cars, five cars, you could have it.

Death Row party was super bananas, like, this shit can't be real.

The more money we made and the bigger that we got,

it became more dangerous.

It was just a blood nation.

Suge spooked me, I'm telling you, I didn't wanna be around him.

They want the drama. We gon' definitely bring it like only Death Row can bring it.

(woman) That's when I knew this was more than just music.

This is dangerous.

♪♪

(gunshot)

♪ Murder was the case that they gave me... ♪

When Pac died, I'm finna to get the fuck out of here.

(man) I know who killed Tupac Shakur.

The last living eyewitness to Tupac's murder is telling his story.

The legacy of Death Row could've been bigger than Jesus.

But they crucified themselves.

♪♪

(man) Suge Knight is the heart and soul of Death Row Records.

To be able to understand the label,

you have to understand who he is.

Snoop, Tupac, Dre were in charge of the music.

But Suge was the force to be reckoned with.

He put Death Row Records on the map.

How does it feel to be so feared?

I don't look at it as fear. I look at it as respected.

Suge Knight is a mythical figure.

The controversial CEO of Death Row Records...

The most feared figure in all of hip-hop...

His size was intimidating.

(newswoman) Knight had been on probation for a 1992 assault

on two aspiring rappers.

(man) He was a beast. He was a bully.

Suge Knight, how you doing?

Don't kill me, all right, yeah.

I'm talking about slap men... hard.

We're talking about open fist across their face.

(Kurt Loder) Police in Los Angeles charging Knight with assault and battery.

(man) Suge was affiliated with Bloods.

(man) Suge was involved in guns. Suge was involved in drugs.

Suge was involved in, uh, he was a half-ass pimp.

(man) Suge Knight goes back to jail.

This is, like, some Godfather type stuff.

(newswoman) The music producer is accused of running down two men

and killing them in a Los Angeles parking lot.

(woman) This call is being recorded.

(gunshot)

The perception that people have of Suge, today's Suge is a lot

different than the Suge I met years ago.

(man) People believe Suge was a gangster.

But Suge Knight did not grow up as a gangster.

Suge Knight grew up in the middle continent of lower middle

class neighborhood with working class parents.

♪ I come up hard baby

♪ But now I'm cool

♪ I didn't make it sugar playin' by the rules... ♪♪

(Sharitha) I met Suge at a party, and I was probably about 14.

We were about three years apart.

He kind of followed me the whole time.

Wouldn't let me dance with anybody else.

I was either gonna date him or date nobody, that's how he felt.

♪ Trouble man...

(Sharitha) His parents, they were very family oriented.

And in that neighborhood, most black families didn't have

a mother and father in the same house.

♪ But now I'm fine

♪ I'm checkin' trouble sugar

♪ Hey...

♪ Movin' down the line ♪

♪♪

(man) If you're a young, Black guy

growing up in Compton at that time,

I mean, drugs and gangs were as much a part of your life

as stoplights and street signs.

(Sharitha) Suge never been in a gang but Compton was Blood.

And growing up back then, you were associated

with whatever color was in your neighborhood.

Played Pop Warner Football at Greater Compton with Suge.

(drum cadence playing)

(indistinct crowd cheers)

(game announcer) Well, we're ready to get it underway.

And we couldn't have asked for a more perfect afternoon

for a college football game, could we?

He was a good football player. Suge got his sacks in there.

(game announcer) Sets up, now he's gonna run it up the middle.

45 and dives near the 48-yard line.

Here's the snap, he drops back on the draw.

But he runs into a lineman right at the 40-yard line

and falls forward to the 41,

with a tackle made by Marion Knight,

a 6'2", 260 pound senior...

He was a leader on the team, and guys respected him.

Last year we was that close to winning, we did, we just--

We just dedicate it to ourselves and to our fans.

And went out and worked as hard as we could to win it.

We knew we could beat 'em all the time.

He was one of those defensive linemen that was--

he was pretty aggressive.

(man) His whole mentality years later in the record business

all came from playing football.

You know, I'm gonna go out and get this one way or the other.

(Autney) There was a time where I was having an issue

with a guy at the school.

I casually mentioned it to Suge.

And he asked me, did I need, did I need any help?

So, I was, I was thinking about it.

I said, "Yeah, I probably could use some help."

And then he, you know, he raised his shirt,

and I just saw the butt of a gun.

And so I said, "Oh, no-no-no-no, nah, not that, no, I'm good."

(Sharitha) And then Vegas.

Suge started showing a behavior, uh, that was violent.

He thought that I was with some man.

One day my car stopped on me,

and Suge put sugar down my gas tank.

He denies it, but he did it.

I come to get my car back...

All the windows busted out of it.

One time, he pulled my ponytail down to his lap

and reached behind the seat

and all I could hear is this crunch, crunch, crunch.

I'm, like... did you just really cut my hair?

He didn't want nobody else to like me.

And he thought that since he liked my hair,

that if it was gone,

nobody else would like me either.

Why I got married to this man, I don't know.

But why not? I loved him, he loved me.

Why not be with this man?

(man) He didn't come up being a gangbanger.

But he glorified it, and I think if you talk to most people

who really had a street life, they spent most of their time

trying to get out of the street.

Suge spent a lot of his time trying to get into the streets.

(Jake) Gang life leaked into his pro sports aspirations

and it wound up killing it.

(Sharitha) He was a senior.

Football season was coming to an end.

He had an offer with the 49ers,

and he ran into a problem.

(Jake) Ricky Crockett a friend of Suge Knight's, he's in Las Vegas.

There's a dispute that happens.

They have a confrontation that gets so heated

that Suge pulls out a gun and shoots him.

I get a phone call, and he said he shot his friend.

And I'm, like, "You did what?"

It's not a life-threatening injury, thankfully.

It's his friend who refuses to cooperate with the police.

(Sharitha) Got a slap on the wrist for it.

He was put on probation for, I think, he had,

like, five-year probation for that.

He lost that contract with the 49ers because

they didn't wanna deal with the violence.

They dropped him.

(Sharitha) After the incident in Vegas,

the 49ers took back their offer.

So Suge and I moved back to California.

And at that time, Compton was crazy.

(newswoman) The police arrested these people

ages 15 through 30 for selling rock cocaine.

In the '80s, Los Angeles was weird in that it was very segregated.

You had a group of white cops

who patrolled in Black neighborhoods.

And it was a lot of distrust because of crack.

Get down! Get down!

(Virgil) You have police brutality on Monday.

Police brutality on Tuesday.

Police brutality on Thursday.

Police brutality on Saturday.

It was an ongoing condition.

(man) You had a generation, man, that they were fed up.

Cop piss in your face and tell you it was raining.

And it was, like... (smacking)

That ain't rain.

(Kevin) Hip-hop really is almost like a response

to the failures of the police in L.A.

You know, I mean, it's our soundtrack, you know?

It's what Chuck D called "Black America's CNN."

These guys who have gone through this every day didn't have a voice.

But now you have somebody that could speak for you.

And that was N.W.A.

♪ Fuck tha police comin' straight from the underground ♪

♪ A young nigga got it bad 'cause I'm brown... ♪

(man) Young Black males is the target right now, it's open season.

It ain't rabbit season or duck season.

It's young Black male nigga season.

That's what it is right now.

♪ Fuckin' with me 'cause I'm a teenager ♪

♪ With a little bit of gold and a pager ♪

♪ Searchin' my car lookin' for the product ♪

♪ Thinkin' every nigga is sellin' narcotic ♪

♪ Fuck tha police...

We started N.W.A. was just... To sell a few records

out of the trunk and make some money.

We didn't start hip-hop music. We just got it popular.

That's the way it goes in the city of Compton, boy.

♪♪

(Virgil) Suge had a lot of friends from Compton and elsewhere

who were getting involved in the rap business.

And he said, okay, you know, maybe I can make money in that business.

(man) Bobby!

(Jake) He meets Bobby Brown at an after-party.

He kept Bobby Brown from getting, like, hit by a crazy

fan and from there, boom, he's Bobby's bodyguard.

(Sharitha) I think along the way, he was being taught

all about the music industry, and he was fascinated.

(Sharitha) In the late '80s, he started managing.

Eventually he managed Jodeci,

Mary J. Blige, D.O.C.

But Chocolate was his first success story.

That began everything.

(Mario "Chocolate" Johnson) I went with Suge to be my manager because

he really wanna see me win.

(man) Mario "Chocolate" Johnson, he wrote some of the lyrics

on "Ice Ice Baby" for Vanilla Ice.

It wasn't until they were getting awards

when Chocolate goes, "Hey, I worked on that."

Chart-topping rapper Vanilla Ice, his debut single

"Ice Ice Baby" went to number one this week.

♪♪

(Vanilla Ice) My record is selling over a million copies a week.

Fastest selling record in history.

Double Platinum Platinum, kept going...

I was, like, oh, my God.

♪ If there was a problem Yo, I'll solve it ♪

♪ Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it... ♪♪

(Mario) Vanilla Ice's attorneys, they tried to give me a contract

for ghostwriting for 100,000. And I was gonna take it.

'Cause I didn't know.

You know, 100,000, to a man from the ghetto, it sounds good.

And Suge got a whiff

of what they were doing.

Said, no, you ain't signing this as a ghostwriter.

♪ All right, stop...

(Jake) Suge saw in that an opportunity.

The more intimidating he seemed,

the more mythical he became.

And that Vanilla Ice story became an instant urban legend.

(man) And roll!

(man) "Death Row Chronicles", scene four, take one.

(man) According to Vanilla Ice, Suge started showing up wherever

Vanilla Ice was along with a group of huge bodyguards.

And Vanilla said they were bigger than his bodyguards.

The next time Suge shows up without any warning,

just to let Vanilla Ice know he's got that control.

Wow, this guy knows where I'm at at all times.

How does he know where I'm at... you know?

What's going on here?

(pounding on door, door opens)

(Mario) Suge took Vanilla Ice out to the balcony.

He had me look over the edge.

Show me how high I was up there.

(Mario) Vanilla Ice said that Suge hung him over the banister.

I needed to wear a diaper on that day (laughs).

(Mob James McDonald) Suge got a paper written up

and made Vanilla Ice sign that paper.

If you don't sign, you're gonna whoop da whoo.

Signed it.

I walked away alive.

That never happened.

(man) Take two.

(Mario) The most threatening thing

of that whole night that Suge said was,

"We could be here for 15 minutes.

Or we could be here all night."

It wasn't not one shove, push,

no disrespect or nothing.

(Mario) I'm there so I know.

Kill all of that urban legend, it never happened.

(Virgil) I can recall talking to Suge and said, you know,

why don't you clean that story up

so that people don't think you are a gangsta?

And really, I think, he enjoyed people thinking

he was a gangsta because you've added to his reputation.

(Mario) Vanilla Ice saying that he got hung over a balcony...

It changed Suge's life drastically because

it put him in that door.

(Virgil) And all of a sudden people who would not return his phone calls

started returning his phone calls.

Suge knew what he was doing.

Suge already had a blueprint

for where he was going and what he wanted to do.

And that was to bully the game.

He had a plan.

His plan was to take over hip-hop.

This is Eazy-E and N.W.A.

And we coolin' out here at this party, right?

Having a ball! (laughing)

Peace!

Compton's in the house. You know that.

(man) Suge had a vision to become something bigger than he was.

And he saw Dre as his way to do that.

Yo, my name is Dr. Dre.

Do most of the music for N.W.A.

Produce, you know?

♪♪

Between 1987 when Ruthless Records was incorporated

through 1991, Dr. Dre had produced

about 15 million in album sales.

(newswoman) N.W.A.'s album blasted its way

to number one on the album charts.

♪ All you got to do now, express yourself ♪

♪ I'm expressing with my full capabilities ♪

♪ And now I'm living in correctional facilities ♪

♪ 'Cause some don't agree with how I do this ♪

♪ I get straight meditate like a Buddhist... ♪

Dre's genius came from the ability

to recognize a good beat.

♪ It's Dre on the mic getting physical ♪

♪ Doing the job N.W.A is the lynch mob... ♪

I'm the type of person, I can get anybody in the studio

to make a hit record off of 'em.

If they have any kind of talent I can pull it out of 'em.

I'm digging that shit.

(man) Ooh...

(man) Dre, he knows when some shit is hot.

He hears some shit and he tell you it's fire.

It'll burn the shit out of it if you touch it.

♪ Express yourself

♪♪

Dre, he was hot.

(electrical buzzing)

But he was unhappy with Ruthless Records.

You can ask any artist on Ruthless Records if they're happy.

I bet you they say "no."

(chuckling)

(man) I'm the General Manager of Ruthless Records.

I'm Eazy-E's personal manager.

As Eazy-E started to expand into different areas of the business,

I found my, uh, duties

becoming more diversified.

(Alonzo) When they first put the whole Ruthless thing together,

Eazy was gonna put the money up.

Dre was gonna make the beats.

And they were gonna be partners.

(Suge) As time went on

and the pie got bigger,

Jim stepped in and pulled Eric to the side

and was, like, look,

me and you can be partners. You don't need Dre.

And they left Dre as an employee.

(Dr. Dre) We wasn't getting paid what we was supposed to...

And I'm the type of person, I don't want no more or no less

than what I'm supposed to get.

If I can't have that, I can't, I can't be around.

Hi! The Mega.

The Mega!

Michel'le, hey!

Now Dre, now tell us a little bit about

what else is coming up for Michel'le?

Well, I gotta tell you, she's got this super hype

album coming out entitled "Michel'le" of course and...

Her gimmick is the way she talks, say, hi.

Hi!

(laughing)

(Michel'le) When I was dating Dre, I was actually

signed with Ruthless at the time.

Dre and I, we struggled.

We struggled like you suppose to for a while there.

But he, he told me don't worry and... I didn't.

Only thing I wanna do is live my life, make my money.

Make the money I'm supposed to make.

(John) Dre and DOC, they were broke, I mean, uh, even the little

money they got wasn't a lot, I mean...

Dre had a mansion in Calabasas that was empty.

Like, devoid of furniture.

Like, you know, if there was a fire, it would go out

'cause there was nothing to burn.

♪♪

One thing Suge was always smart about was he aligned himself with a big star.

In every move he made you can see it.

Bobby Brown, D.O.C.

(man) Suge wanted to start a label with D.O.C.

And D.O.C. thought this was a good idea at first.

But they both ultimately realized

that they needed Dr. Dre.

And so in 1991, they set their sights on

trying to convince Dr. Dre to come with them.

(Michel'le) Suge started really finessing Dre

when we was still with Ruthless.

He was really plotting.

He was seeing us before we were seeing him.

He, he, he may be an idiot, but he's not stupid.

(man) I worked at Ruthless, and Jerry Heller who's my cousin...

And, uh, Suge started coming to the studio

where we were recoding.

The next thing we know, um,

Dre is speaking to Eazy less

and going to the studio less,

spending more time with Suge.

(Michel'le) I would question everything from

why does he show up everywhere that we're at?

(Gary) You know, Eazy and Dre had these beautiful pool parties.

And Suge would be around.

(Michel'le) Why is he at the videos?

(Gary) He was just kind of always in the background.

(Michel'le) Suge spooked me, I'm telling you,

I didn't wanna be around him.

(Gary) Suge and some of his guys went to

Ruthless Records lawyer's office

with ball bats.

And demanded the contracts.

Dre's contract, Michel'le's contract, D.O.C.'s contract.

And terrified this guy. The guy peed his pants.

This is a big time lawyer.

But he got totally gangstered.

(Michel'le) Suge came to our home and had a meeting with Dre.

And he told him that we were getting,

like, two cents on every record, like, two pennies.

And Dre was furious.

(Dre) Check my contracts out. Sure enough...

It wasn't worth the paper they were written, you know?

And, um, that was that for me.

So, I said, Dre, look,

ain't no use going back over spilled milk.

I got a vision.

Obviously, you got a vision.

Let's just start fresh.

Suge, he was aggressive,

and he really seemed like a go-getter to me.

You know what I'm saying?

And he was making things happen.

That's all I really cared about

was getting in the studio and making music.

If you gonna help me with that,

so be it, let's keep it moving.

Suge broke the... He broke the chains.

His unorthodox way of getting

a deal was groundbreaking.

How does Suge go from being a bodyguard

to running his own label?

It's called a street-- a street instinct.

He never went for the little man.

He always went for the big guy.

You don't rob the person who's,

who's selling the dope on the street.

You rob the person who's-- who has the dope.

Dre called Eazy and said, look, man, let's squash this.

Meet me at the studio, just me and you.

We'll talk it over, you know, and figure this out.

(soundstage beep)

(man) "Death Row Chronicles", scene 12, take seven, mark.

(Jake) Eazy-E shows up to this office

within the studio that is soundproof.

Ay, what's going on? Ay, where's Dre at?

(Jake) A beatdown ensues.

Even after that beatdown, Eazy-E is tough.

Eazy-E grew up in Compton, he's a real dude from the streets.

He still won't sign them because he knows what he's giving up.

Suge allegedly hands him a piece of paper without saying

anything else about what's on it and says,

"This is where we're going next if you don't sign it."

And it's Eazy-E's mother's address

in the suburbs wherever he moved her.

That terrified him and as Jerry Heller later said,

under severe psychological duress,

he signs the releases.

Suge was one of us. He was no CEO.

He was no, no tie behind no desk.

He was a thug just like everybody else.

Gangsterism ain't even a word

but I'm gonna say that right now.

He took gangsterism to a different level.

If you're not getting treated right in a place,

you're not gonna stay there... you know?

That's all that was.

I guess they didn't respect my talent.

(chuckles)

So now they're suffering the consequences.

(Jake) Suge Knight extricates Dr. Dre and D.O.C.

from their contracts with Ruthless Records.

And I really don't give a fuck...

(Jake) Suge knew that getting Eazy to sign that paper was his shot.

He knew it.

He knew he was, like, he had this marquee talent in Dr. Dre.

His main ghostwriter in D.O.C., he knew it was his shot.

And he was gonna go in there

by any means necessary and get it done.

And it sent the word out that Suge

was not someone to be toyed with.

Suge tried to destroy my record company

with the help of others, Dre...

So, right now, we're getting everything back together,

and we finna come out, you know... fully loaded.

(Gary) Eazy was pissed off at Suge for taking Dre.

And it was much money and energy and work that Eazy

put into starting Ruthless and making it

a success, you know, like, that,

it was, you know, kind of gone.

Eazy wanted to kill Suge, himself.

He just wanted to kill Suge.

And Jerry talked him out of it.

(Carter) That beef drew very severe lines way beyond

LL and Kool Moe Dee and all the old school

'80s, you know, battle raps.

For the first time, the beef created an environment

which was dangerous, and I think

it was rooted partly in some gang shit.

(Alonzo) It was all with a gang undertone

because of Eazy's Crip affiliation

and Suge's Blood affiliation.

And I'm sitting there going, wow, this is really some crazy shit.

I think the guy is a... is a serious, major gangster.

(Gary) Jerry was... well, he was freaked out.

(Carter) Jerry's response was to hire an ex Israeli special forces dude

named Klein who, uh, helped organize

the defense against Suge and his guys.

(Gary) Mike Klein was a very tough,

hard bad-ass guy.

Let's say that I'm proficient in self-defense

and, and, uh, that kind of stuff.

The story I heard was Klein told Suge he was gonna cut him up

in little pieces and put him in dumpsters all around the city.

That's a myth.

All I can tell you is we reached an understanding

that nobody was coming to the office without an appointment.

(Jerry) I have guns all around us now.

You know, this, this art form isn't worth

me and my family getting killed over.

Everyone had guns.

We had shotguns in the corner.

We had Uzis.

Our secretaries had guns.

(gunshot)

(woman) I didn't look at how dangerous it was.

I thought it was gansta, hell, it was like the movies.

It was like a modern-day, um, "Scarface."

(Carter) Eazy-E took me into a bedroom in Norwalk, opened up the closet.

And there were automatic weapons on a shelf.

And you gotta ask yourself, why-- why are you showing

a reporter guns?

You know that there's a chance I'm going back to "The Source",

and I'm gonna write about this.

So, either you're hoping I write about this or you're hoping

that I won't write about this but I'll put out the word

that you got guns and you're ready for battle.

(Mike) Eazy was not the type of guy that would take a beating

and not respond in some way. That I can assure you.

Eazy was small in stature but... a lot in guts.

(Gary) Suge told Eazy, if you don't sign these papers

we're gonna beat you to a pulp.

You know, it was, it was extortion.

(Virgil) Ruthless filed a lawsuit to rescind the releases

and to get damages for the loss of Dre's recording services.

(Sharitha) Dick Griffey started mentoring Suge

a lot for the business.

How to be in the record industry

and how to own your own record label.

So, that's how it started.

(Virgil) In the Solar office building, we had a studio.

We had a rehearsal room.

We had some writers rooms and other things.

I was the President of Solar Records.

We agreed to let Suge move DOC and Dre

and kind of all the, all the folks

who were gonna make up Death Row Records

into the third floor where they could start

recording and making records.

As far as I could tell,

the guys seemed to have no money.

I mean, literally, there were times when

Dick and I would pay

the lease payments on Suge's car.

(Sharitha) What people don't realize is we had some financial struggles.

I had other jobs so that's what carried us

that people don't know, I worked.

And I was having a baby at the time.

So, it was tough.

Ready?

Hi, my name is David Kenner and I'm-- excuse me, I'm the

attorney for Death Row and, uh, its artists and principles.

(John) David Kenner was a criminal attorney.

He did a lot of, like, mafia cases

and big drug dealer cases and all that stuff.

They reach a point where they need a financial partner.

Through his attorney, David Kenner,

Suge is put in touch with Michael Harris, AKA Harry-O.

Michael Harris was a major drug dealer.

Not the kind that, you know, I got dimes.

No, he's the guy that would deal directly with Noriega.

And he was in prison at the time.

(woman) This call is from a federal prison.

(Jake) Suge was introduced to Harry-O.

They had their meetings at the prison

where he was being held.

He got the funding in a prison visiting room.

It doesn't get more gangster than that.

I feel in the future,

Death Row can be, um,

a Sony or Atlantic

or a Warner Brothers.

But first step, you know,

you gotta get people to know Death Row.

(John) Michael Harris said we gotta do this big.

You know, we got to put Death Row on the map.

And Denise said, we're gonna do Chasen's.

Chasen's was a swanky, Beverly Hills restaurant.

Let me see somebody give Dre, Suge and D.O.C.

a round of applause.

Death Row Records is gonna be

the record company of the 2000s!

Put your hands together.

Come on, y'all, make some noise.

(John) I mean, Suge's mom and dad were there and a lot of...

The people from the hood are sitting at Chasen's.

We're in Beverly Hills, you know,

most of whom had never left... the hood.

♪♪

(Ben) They invited sort of a who's who of the industry.

And we decided we would actually do the, uh,

invitations in a subpoena form.

You know, it was kind of like an inside joke based on my situation.

(Michel'le) Death Row is gonna be big... huge!

We have the best acts coming out.

Oh, not we.

Look at me, like it's my label, really?

This is Death Row, really.

It was a like a dream to have a Black-owned label.

Like, what is a Black-owned label?

Just didn't exist before Suge and Dre.

♪ Is that the future shock? Hell, no, it's Death Row ♪

♪ I was all in because of the begin ♪

♪ Then they would say Yo, we all gon' win ♪

Death Row's gonna be the label of the future.

Death Row is a artist's label

where the artist is always right.

A situation where we give a home and have open arms to artists.

(Kurupt) Suge master plan was to have

the most talented roster of artists.

And to become the biggest record label on the planet.

The most powerful

record label to come out into the market

that I have ever seen in my life, and I mean that.

Death Row! Death Row!

Death Row, that's what's happening tonight.

♪ D-O-C Comin' with the B-O-M-B Beeyatch! ♪♪

Death Row Records...

The label started with Dr. Dre who was gonna do his own thing.

And with a lot of help from Suge Knight and, uh, Harry-O

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

♪♪

(Jake) After the party at Chasen's announcing

the founding of Death Row Records,

now they're officially set up in business.

And within the week of the Harry-O deal being made,

red carpet gets rolled out.

Dre was able to come in with a wish list of equipment.

They got, you know, like, a new vocal booth.

They got upgrades on the microphones.

(man) Tell me what, you got, like, 48 tracks and stuff now?

56 tracks.

Just an infusion of capital they desperately needed

that Harry-O provided without any question.

(Ben) Harry-O was still behind bars when he was helping Suge

get this label off the ground.

And so he and Suge talked almost every day.

(John) I was actually brought in as the chief engineer

for Solar Records.

One day I'm in a studio, and I'm actually repairing something.

Harry-O calls, and I answered the phone and I said,

"I gotta run out and get some parts."

And he goes, "Well, how much is that?"

And I says it's gonna be about a grand, I said I gotta--

He said, "No-no-no-no. Let me call you back."

(clock ticking)

About 20 minutes later, this guy comes up

and hands me a bag.

And it's got about 30 grand.

And I said, "But I only need a thousand."

There was a time that I got $100,000

and there wasn't a bill bigger than a 20.

(laughing)

Death Row was never really organized,

for example, making sure we had an accounting department

that was a real accounting department

that would keep track of money, like, the business end.

There's no business plan.

There's no policies and procedures.

It's really just flying by the seat of their pants.

Who y'all waiting on? Suge? Yeah.

Everybody waiting on Suge today?

I'm waiting on him, too. That's right.

I don't know what time he's due up here.

Probably a little bit later.

(man) If Suge said 10:00 a.m. was the meeting,

you won't see him until about 7:00 p.m.

(chuckles) 8:00, here come Suge

like he's on time for the meeting.

(Gary) Suge was never by himself.

He always had, I'd say, three to five guys with him.

(Mob James) Suge asked me to bring in

all the Bloods, how many of 'em I can get.

We start recruiting guys from the neighborhood.

The Mob Pirus. It was just a Blood nation.

Suge Knight knew he could pay them to be his security

and basically carry out

any type of extortion or, or,

or assaults that he wanted done.

And spread fear to persons

that he wanted to intimidate.

(Mario) There was a phone put in at Death Row at that time.

And that phone was strictly for Harry-O.

If that phone rings, nobody answers it.

It's only for Suge to answer.

(man) And roll.

"Death Row Chronicles" scene three, take one, mark.

Actors up!

(Virgil) One day, Suge comes in the studio.

And one of the Stanley brothers is on the phone.

And he says, "Who are you?"

He says, oh, I'm here, you know, to see Dre.

I'm a friend of Dre's.

He said, "I don't give a fuck who you are, hang up the phone."

(man) Their response to him was... F you.

You're not Dr. Dre. This ain't your shit.

Make him have to escalate to go, "Okay...

Now I gotta show y'all who I am."

(Virgil) Suge comes back with his gun.

Put the gun to the guy's head.

Said, "Motherfucker, I told you to hang up the phone.

Now hang up the phone."

(Sharitha) He gets mad.

He turns from zero to 100 real quick.

Dre's in the big old studio working on tracks.

(music playing)

(Virgil) Suge says, "Take off all your clothes."

He says, "Man, I'm not taking off my clothes."

So, Suge shoots a bullet by his ear.

(gunshot, woman screams)

(Virgil) Suge says you know I could really fuck you up.

But I'm not gonna do that.

But I got your driver's license, and if you tell anybody

about what happened, then it's gonna be your ass.

It's gonna be your mama's ass, I'ma get your family.

Guy puts on his clothes.

Goes downstairs.

Walks over to Hollywood Boulevard, stops a cop car

and says, "I just got assaulted in this building."

That began all of Suge's criminal problems.

(man) It's gangsta time!

Death Row is gonna be the biggest record company there is.

"The Chronic" album is the foundation.

That's dope! ♪ What's my name?

It became, like, this pop culture phenomenon.

Death Row blew the fuck up.

Fast life, just party...

Bring that shit!

(Kurt Loder) An arrest warrant was issued for 21-year-old

rap star Snoop Doggy Dogg.

It was traumatic and didn't know what to do.

He could get the death penalty for this shit.

♪♪