Original subtitles

02 The Defiant Ones - Part 2 English

[HORNS HONKING]

- [UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING ON RADIO] - [RADIO CHANGING STATIONS]

[EAZY-E] [RAPPING] I'm On the... [MAN] [SAMPLED] Radio

[ANNOUNCER] [ON RADIO] You're on the radio, on K-EAZY-E, with Greg Mac.

Don't forget to join us this Friday night live, we'll be jammin' with Eazy-E,

with more radio.

[RAPPING] Now disc jockeys are playin' me in rotation

Hittin' number-one spots across the nation

I'm on the charts, you can go list 'em

But now listen, I'm on your system

AM or FM, I'm in power

You hear my record once every hour

So listen up to the rhyme and percussion

But do this with no discussion

Eazy-E is the godfather of gangsta rap.

[CONTINUES RAPPING] Yo, I got reason

But you don't have Eazy-E without Dr. Dre.

- [RAPPING] Yo, Dre, do it your way - [RAPPING] What up?

On the radio you get more looser

Take my word, you're a dope producer

We combine to put out hits

But jealous people, they just have fits

[MUSIC STOPS]

That's how the shit go.

[ICE CUBE] Ruthless started out the gate winnin'.

You know, Boyz N The Hood became a hit,

so we had to follow it up.

[DR. DRE] But we needed more writers, so we called in a friend of mine from Dallas,

The D.O.C, and Eazy brought Ren in.

How was that? Too slow?

[INTERVIEWER] I never seen a roadrunner by the pool like this.

You ain't never seen 'em? They run out here all day, man.

- [INTERVIEWER LAUGHS] - Animal kingdom.

[CHUCKLES] Yeah, man.

My relationship with E, first startin' out, man, it was like...

Yeah, you can say like a little brother,

'cause he grew up right around the corner from me.

What, you want me to scream?

[REN] Eazy-E, he's totally opposite of what a lot of people think he is.

[RAPPING] To put out hits

[ALL LAUGH]

[REN] He cool. He a comedian.

He always got jokes.

But when E did Boyz N The Hood,

it was like a shock to me, because I'm in the neighborhood,

I'm tryin' to be an MC.

And then out the blue, I hear, like, Man.

Who is... That's E? You know, that's him doing that?

But I got the rundown from the story of how it came about.

[EAZY-E] Now I want to turn up my box and make much noise

and rock the party and shock all the B Boys, like that.

[DJ YELLA] The way Eazy learned to rap was Dre having patience.

Now I wanna turn up...

Ah, shit, man. Keep going.

Because he was not a rapper.

So Dre had to teach him word by word, line by line.

Now, I wanna turn up...

- Ah, shit. [YELLS] - [ALL GROAN]

- Seventy-three takes. - [EAZY-E] Shit.

He'd be in there so long, that you'd just be, like, I'm out, man.

I'll get with y'all tomorrow.

[EAZY-E] But jealous people, they just call... [BABBLES]

[ICE CUBE] That's usually when I had to exit,

'cause I just couldn't sit there and just hear these words get butchered.

We only got till tomorrow. That's all right. Keep goin'.

You can't say shit, you little pale bastard.

And fuck all y'all. Suck my dick.

- But Eric had such a unique voice. - [EAZY-E] Shit.

[ICE CUBE] Man, to see Dre turn this dude into a mega-star...

YO, yo:

It's like seeing Dr. Frankenstein work or some fuckin' wizard or somethin'.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

- Who does it? - Eazy does it.

But how does he do it?

[MUSIC PLAYING ON HEADPHONES]

Longer. It gotta be longer.

- That was perfect right there. - That was right.

- Yeah. - That wasn't long enough.

- That was right. - Gotta have it a little bit longer.

No, that was perfect. Just like that.

I think it was the perfect combination because we had Eazy.

He's comin' from this hard-core, drug dealin', street perspective.

And Cube would come in with the more Malcolm X, political voice.

You're goddamn right.

[DR. DRE] The angry rapper, so to speak.

I was tryin' to be street but commercial at the same time,

because I wanted the records to sell.

And Ren was the pop voice that bridged these two perspectives.

D.O.C. wrote a lot of Eazy's lyrics, but he was always meant to be a solo act.

So Eazy, Cube, Ren, Yella and myself, we decided to create a group.

And we wanted to be a little bit shocking, so you listened to what we're tiyin' to say.

[ELECTRICITY CRACKLES]

[ICE CUBE] There was a war on gangs at the time,

which means if you think I look like a gang banger, it's a war on me.

So we wanted to show the world our world.

We just wanted to put Compton on the map.

[ICE CUBE] Gangbangin', crack cocaine, Daryl Gates, the LAPD, Reaganomics...

That was our formula.

[YELLA] We were just ghetto reporters.

[ICE CUBE] And then Dre and Eazy pulled up one day,

and said, We got a name for the group.

And I was like, What is it?

He said, N.W.A.

And I thought, What the fuck?

That's initials. What does that mean?

And he was like, Niggaz With Attitudes.

And I was like... [GASPS] Oh, hell, yeah.

You know what I mean? It was like, Oh, yeah, yeah.

That's the name for this group.

[JIMMY IOVINE] Dre and I were involved with Chrysler,

and we have to tune the car to our specs, and we wanna make sure that it sounds right.

And Dre and I do it ourselves.

[SONG PLAYING ON STEREO] You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub

Look mami, I got the X

If you into taking drugs

I'm into having sex I ain't into making love

So come give me a hug If you into getting rubbed

When I pull up out front You see the Benz on dubs

When I roll twenty deep It's twenty knives in the club

Niggas heard I fuck with Dre

[DR. DRE] Okay, yeah, yeah. [JIMMY] I'll play you the Patti Smith.

[SONG PLAYING ON STEREO] Outside of society, that's where I want to be

Lenny!

Baby was a black sheep Baby was a whore

You know she got big Well, she's gonna get bigger

Baby got a hand

As the decades go on, right, Dre, it's like really weird, because...

They... [STAMMERS]

Everything,

the recording process has changed, so everything tightened up, you know?

- Right. - And where...

You started makin' records really in the '80s, right?

- [DR. DRE] Yeah. - Yeah.

With probably eight sub-woofers in a small room.

Right. I didn't meet a sub-woofer till I met you.

- [LAUGHS] - It's the truth.

- All I knew is that they were annoying. - [LAUGHS]

And you figured it out. You cracked the code on 'em.

[CLASSIC ROCK PLAYING ON STEREO]

- That sounds good. - Yeah.

I mean, I feel that.

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

[LAUGHING]

[SINGING] We got somethin', we both know it

We don't talk too much about it

I met Jimmy Lovine in '78.

I had made two albums,

but The Heartbreakers,

we had not mastered the studio by any means.

And I had heard Patti Smith's Bruce Springsteen song,

and I'd really liked the sound of the drums.

So we flew this guy, Jimmy Lovine, to I.A.

He'd never been to I.A.

[JIMMY] I remember landing in California.

It was 78 degrees and it was December.

And I remember gettin' out of that car, goin' to my room,

and goin' back to the doorman.

And sayin', Hey man, do regular people live out here?

He said. What do you mean, regular people?

I said, Regular people.

You know, my dad's a longshoreman. He goes, I'm a regular person.

I'm a doorman. I live out here.

I said, Well, are there docks down here?

Of course there are docks here.

You're in California. It's the Pacific Ocean.

I go back to my room, call my mother.

I said, Mom. How did we get this wrong?

[TOM] We rented him a nice little house in the Valley.

He calls the next day to say, I'm too scared to stay in this house.

And I thought, What do you mean?

He goes, I hear stuff movin' outside, and I never slept in a house before.

I go, What? You never slept in a house?

He goes, I've been in apartments all my life.

I'm from New York. I never slept in the woods.

And I'm like, Look, you're not in the woods.

You're in a neighborhood. There's nothing there.

[BAND PLAYING]

[SINGING] It's all right if you love me

It's all right if you don't

I'm not afraid of you running away, honey

I get the feeling you won't

[TOM] Next thing I know,

he shows up at Shelter Records, and he's got an engineer with him.

And I'm going, Well, hey. What's with him?

[JIMMY] I said, He's the engineer.

They said, I thought you were the engineer. I said, No, I'm the producer.

By the end of the day, he had convinced me that

he would be better as a producer than an engineer.

[TOM] [SINGING] Baby

Breakdown

Go ahead and give it to me

Breakdown Honey, take me through the night

Breakdown Now I'm standing here, can't you see?

Breakdown It's all right

It's all right

It's all right

[TOM] We sat down, and I played him the songs I had.

[JIMMY] He played me Here Comes My Girl and Refugee.

[TOM] And he got really excited. [JIMMY] I just looked at him.

I said, Get another eight songs quick, 'cause we're done.

And he goes, We're gonna be millionaires. You know?

And I thought that was the strangest comment

I'd ever heard about music, you know?

But when you're that age, the sky's the limit.

Jimmy became so obsessed with getting the right take on that song.

I'll bet we did over 100.

- I think we should do one more. - [JIMMY] We just were so connected.

We would work 12 hours and then talk for three hours.

[TOM] We were thick as thieves, and we had a plan to conquer the world.

[TOM] [SINGING] I was talking with a friend of mine

Said a woman had hurt his pride

Told him that she loved him so And turned around and let him go

[TOM] When they released that record, Jimmy turned into a tornado of promotion.

[JIMMY] I wanted to have some influence in the marketing.

'Cause when you finish the record, you go play it for somebody

and they just go, That doesn't sound like your last record.

And you're in there saying,

Of course it doesn't sound like the last record.

It's not supposed to sound like the last record.

The whole concept is to not sound like somebody else.

Not like everything else.

So I started saying, I gotta get control of our destiny,

or else we're handing these records

to people that want us to sound like what's on the radio.

[TOM] He was really, really dedicated and doing very well on that side of things-

One thing about him is, he's always known what people to be hanging with.

And Stevie Nicks had shown up and wanted to hang out.

She had lots of people around,

that, really, I couldn't figure out what their jobs were,

you know, and gypsy girls.

And I was just kinda confused by it all.

[PIANO MUSIC PLAYING]

[PIANO MUSIC CONTINUES]

[STEVIE NICKS] [SINGING] You can ride high atop your pony

I know you won't fall

'Cause the whole thing's phony

[PIANO MUSIC CONTINUES]

[STEVIE] That's Bella Donna.

When I first met Jimmy, we went out to dinner,

and about 10 days later,

I moved into Jimmy's house when Tom was finishing Damn the Torpedoes.

But nobody knew.

I mean, certainly Tom Petty didn't know.

Jimmy didn't want Tom Petty to know,

because he felt that Tom would feel like,

Well, I guess your interest has been slightly taken away from my record now.

And for the next several months,

I spent a lot of time making English muffins

with mozzarella cheese and tomato in the broiler.

That's what we lived on. I was the mini baby pizza-maker.

I liked him. And he totally liked me.

[LAUGHING] I mean, we liked each other.

[JIMMY] You know, I was an up-and-coming record producer, and she was a big star.

So Danny Goldberg, Paul Fishkin, and Doug Morris

asked me to produce Stevie 's first solo album outside of Fleetwood Mac.

[STEVIE] I wanted Jimmy, because Jimmy produced Tom.

Because I loved Tom's records.

[JIMMY] We started hangin' out, and it was fun.

But Tom and I were very, very close at that time,

and it was really awkward.

[STEVIE] Jimmy's, like, You don't know Tom.

Tom doesn't know you.

And when Tom comes over here, you have to hide in the basement.

So I did, because it was a nice basement,

and actually it was a whole Rock and Roll 101

outside of Fleetwood Mac for me when Tom would come over.

And of course, I would be, like, you know...

[JIMMY] I want to say one thing.

If we were to make an alteration of some sort, if we say,

Hey, you know, this is not right, it's not exactly right,

it does not mean, okay, panic city time, Needle Park.

- We're tryin' to get it right, Jim, for you... - I know.

- Stevie. - And so we can't...

Intentions are right. All I'm tryin' to say...

We can't, you know, do it without talking.

Stevie, again... Again, Stevie, this is what I'm talkin' about.

Every time I say somethin', it's like a lawyer.

- It's like a group of lawyers. - Okay, I'm sorry.

- It's just completely unnecessary. - All right.

I don't feel we should try a different high part.

Stevie, that's not the point. But you don't have to be a lawyer.

Okay.

You know? Okay.

Come on, let's go.

[STEVIE] Jimmy and I would get in a lot of arguments about music.

About what I wanted and what he thought I wanted.

For instance, the single.

They didn't have a single that was gonna break the album.

And she started coming by the sessions quite a bit,

and she was right up front.

She goes, I want you to write a song for me.

And I said, Well, I'd like to write a song for me.

You know, I'm... It's not that easy.

So we had this record going, Hard Promises.

And I'd written a lot of songs for it,

one of which was Stop Draggin' My Heart Around.

And I didn't see Stop Draggin' My Heart Around as a single.

I kind of put it on the shelf.

[JIMMY] It sounded like a blues record when he did it.

And I heard it like a big pop record with a girl sin gin ' it.

[STEVIE] Jimmy says, If I were you,

I would take this amazing gift from Tom Petty

and put it on your damn album.

Because you don't have a single.

[JIMMY] And you're coming out of a group that has nothing but hit records.

So you're gonna come out with this beautiful record

all with lace and veils and candles all over it.

And no one's gonna hear it.

[TOM] Next thing I know, he rolls in and says, Hey, I got somethin' I gotta play you.

And he plays me Stop Draggin' My Heart Around.

The same track,

with her singing.

Jimmy, you just took the song and...

I said, Tom, let's do the same thing I did with Bruce.

It had worked once. Why wouldn't it work again?

[STEVIE] He knew that Stop Draggin' My Heart Around

was a stone-cold hit.

And even more of a stone-cold hit

with Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks singing it together.

His comeback was, like, Hey, this is gonna buy you a house.

[LAUGHING] And I'm, like, Okay.

But it pissed me off, because it became a huge hit.

[JIMMY] It blows up with him on it.

When his single comes out, it wasn't a big a hit as it should have been.

[TOM] They came out at the same time,

so I think our single suffered.

[SINGING] There's people running 'round loose in the world

Ain't got nothing better to do

Than make a meal of some bright-eyed kid

You need someone looking after you

[SINGING] I know you really want to tell me goodbye

I know you really want to be your own girl

Baby, you could never look me in the eye

Yeah, you buckle with the weight of the words

Stop draggin' my Stop draggin' my

Stop draggin' my heart around

We almost did that right.

[STEVIE] That... That wasn't good?

[JIMMY] I didn't tell anybody that I was goin' out with Stevie, right?

So that shit always leads to trouble.

It always leads to awkwardness amongst friends and stuff like that.

And I was in over my head.

[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]

[JIMMY] That was the beginning of a tough time for me and Tom,

because I was goin' out with her.

We had a gigantic hit record.

It looked like hustle.

I mean, did I know that her label

was gonna drop that record right on top of his record?

No.

But still, it was my responsibility to have his back.

And my relationship with Tom was affected,

and it's probably still affected in some way because how I handled it was wrong.

I had no idea what I was doing socially or in life.

I knew one thing.

That every time I went back to the studio,

if something good happened, I felt better and my life would get better.

It was that simple.

[SINGING] Just like the white winged dove

Sings a song Sounds like she's singing

Ooh, ooh, ooh

Just like the white winged dove

Sings a song Sounds like she's singing

Baby

Ooh, ooh, ooh

This guy gave me my solo career on a platter with a single from Tom Petty.

You know, I don't think he ever consciously did anything to do Petty a disservice.

But he knew it would work for her.

And after everything is said and done, he wants a win.

[SINGING] Well, I can hear you In the morning

When I hear you Every night, all the time

At nightfall, I hear the call Of a night bird

I'm a few years older than you Whoa

on, baby

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

[DR. DRE] Every producer knows that

you're only as good as the artist that you're workin' with.

Because that artist could either make or break you.

No matter how great your track is,

the artist that you're workin' with or the writer that you're workin' with

has the ability to make it magic or fuck it up.

[SINGING] Dr. Dre is on the drum Going rum-pa-pum-pum

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[DR. DRE] So we're in studio working on the first N. W.A. album.

It's comin' out great.

[ICE CUBE] The group was startin' to get shows and gettin' money.

[DR. DRE] And Eazy comes in and he wants me to stop the show,

'cause he has this girl group he wants me to produce.

I'm like, Are you crazy? You want me to stop this to do what?

[RAPPING] My home girls always say I'm chillin'

But I rocks the box And I get top billing

[ICE CUBE] Dre is always down for a good idea.

But it better be hot.

Not warm, not kinda hot.

It better be the shit.

I'm Baby D, on the mic My funky beats, so what you like?

I know you'll like me once you see me 'Cause I'm not your enemy

Always happy, never sad That's because I'm such a bad

Freaky cool, you're a fool, Sucks to see you later, rude

Sassy C, yeah, that's me Bustin' out some beats you see

See if you can understand MC JB

[SCATTING]

Hold it, wait Stop the beat

I want you all to know Who's in effect

Don't compare us to others We demand respect

[DR. DRE] Turns out, we're actually ha vin' fun recordin' this record.

And the money that we made on the ♪ Fad album

helped fund a lot of the albums that came next.

It was the first gold record on Ruthless Records.

♪ FAD: [RAPPING] Yeah, that's it

Supersonic motivating rhymes are creating

And everybody knows that ♪.♪. Fad is devastating

DEE BARNES: The interesting thing about ♪.♪. Fad is that

Eazy wanted something commercial

to make radio stations say, Oh, Ruthless Records.

We're gonna be anticipating the next record that drops,

so the next thing you know, they slipped in that Boyz N The Hood.

A female group opened the door for N.W.A.

[RAPPING] It was once said by a man who couldn't quit

Dope man, please, can I have another hit?

The dope man said cluck I don't give a shit

If your girl kneels down and sucks my dick

Man, I can't believe they just said that.

This music is incredible, but MTV is not gonna let any of this happen.

[RAPPING] Young brother getting over by slanging cane

No, nope, that's not my son.

I was in total denial at first.

I said, Why does he have to talk so bad?

He says, if he rapped normal, they wouldn't wanna listen to it.

You know, it took me a while.

[RAPPING] Dope man, dope man Yo, man, fuck that shit

It was just weird, because when we were all together,

that's not how they talked.

[EAZY-E] [RAPPING] Suck this, bitch

And that is Eazy all the way.

He said, Any publicity is good publicity.

Rhythm Rock Live. We're on location tonight to talk to

probably the most controversial rap group in I.A. right now.

How close are you to what your records are?

We're just as real as this gun.

See this chamber right there? That's no bullshit.

[ALONZO WILLIAMS] Me, Dre, Yella.

We all were into paintball, back in the day.

We were the first black people into paintball.

We had all bought these paint guns, masks, the whole nine yards.

Drive out to Malibu. Only black guys out there.

Our crew was called Just Us.

Eazy bought a paintball shotgun.

Everything you hear on our records is true.

[ALONZO] Him and Dre decide to ride down the Harbor Freeway,

stickin' this paintball shotgun out the fuckin' window and barn!

Creatin' havoc on the motherfuckin' freeway.

- [DR. DRE] Freaking people the fuck out. - [AIR GUN FIRING]

[ALONZO] So highway patrol got wind of these fools.

Ten, 15 minutes after that, the police is behind us.

Pulled us outta the car with guns drawn.

Laid us face down on the freeway.

Really aggressive and the whole nine, as they should have been.

[ALONZO] They jacked these motherfuckers like they robbed a bank.

They lucky they're alive today.

They come back to my house shakin' like a motherfucker, okay?

Man, fuck the police. Them motherfuckers...

They did this, they put guns at our heads.

I said, What the fuck y'all do?

Oh, man, all we did was ride down the street with some...

With the paintball gun shootin' at people's cars.

You did what?

[ALL SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY]

[ICE CUBE] You know, him and Eazy was runnin' around fuckin' up,

you know what I mean?

So Dre had to check himself into jail every weekend.

And as a teenager, weekends with Dr. Dre,

you in the club, you partyin'.

The music is bangin'. You're around hip-hop.

He go to jail. All that stopped.

So our weekends was borin'. Bump.

We was back on the block.

We was just not doin' nothin'.

So I was just mad that all the fun stopped, and Dre had to go to jail till Monday.

So I wrote Fuck Tha Police, you know what I mean?

Because it was, like, enough is enough.

I knew it was the shit,

but when I said it to Dre, he was like, Dude, I'm not doin' that record.

I gotta go to jail Friday.

They're gonna kick my ass up in there. I ain't 'bout to do that.

So I ripped it out,

and bailed it up and threw it away.

And my friend, Phoenix Phil, reached in the trash

and was, like, No. This is too good.

And he spread it out and put it back in my notebook.

You can't throw this song away.

So when it was time to do the N. W.A. record and we was thinkin' of all these ideas,

I waited till everybody was in the room.

And I was, like, Man, I got a record called Fuck Tha Police.

- [LAUGHING] - D.O.C. went crazy.

Whoever thought of this shit was genius.

[ICE CUBE] Ren almost did a back flip.

Eazy was like, Say it. Let's go. Let me hear it.

[MAN] Yeah, do it. [LAUGHS]

Wow. We really gonna talk about the police like that?

I knew we had something that was gonna be dangerous.

I knew we had somethin' that we could potentially get in trouble for.

Something the group was really excited about

and proud of because of the way it sounded.

I mean, we did the whole court thing at the beginnin'.

I played the judge, and D.O.C. was playin' the lawyer on the record.

Judge Dre residing.

In the case of N.W.A. v the Police Department,

prosecuting attorneys are...

MC Ren, Ice Cube and Eazy-motherfuckin'-E.

Wait a minute. Hold it, hold it. Order in the court.

Ice Cube, take the motherfuckin' stand.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth,

and nothin' but the truth, so help your black ass?

You're goddamn right.

Well, why don't you tell everybody what the fuck you gotta say.

[RAPPING] Fuck the police comin' straight from the underground

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

And not the other color so police think

They have the authority to kill a minority

Fuck that shit, 'cause I ain't the one

For a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun

To be beaten on and thrown in jail

We can go toe-to-toe in the middle of a cell

Fuckin' with me 'cause I'm a teenager

With a little bit of gold and a pager

Searchin' my car, lookin' for the product

Thinking ' every nigga is selling ' narcotics

Fuck the police

Fuck the police

Fuck the police

Fuck the police

[DR. DRE] The jury has found you guilty of being a redneck, white bread

chickenshit motherfucker.

[COP] But wait! That's a lie! That's a goddamn lie!

[DR. DRE] Get him out of here. [COP] I want justice!

[DR. DRE] Get him the fuck out of my face! [COP] I want justice!

[DR. DRE] Out! Right now!

[COP] Fuck you, you black motherfucker!

- [RAPPING] Fuck the police - [FIRING GUN]

[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]

[TYPEWRITER CLICKING]

[FAB 5 FREDDY] The FBI letter.

There was no precedent to the FBI sending a letter,

Please stop singing these records.

When that came through, the news was all over that.

Then of course, with media and controversy, it all just worked to sell more records.

Because N.W.A., they were like, No, we're gonna go right back at that.

We're gonna do these records.

Eazy was clearly a marketing genius.

He had a great sense for what buttons to push

to create controversy at different levels.

[ICE CUBE] It became political once these forces started comin' against us.

It let us know that, We're more than a group.

We're a political statement.

It just knocked us into that position.

[YELLA] I remember bein' on tour somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

I'm wakin' up. We were asleep, and the bus was stopped.

And I hear crying '.

And I go to the back of the bus, and it was Dre.

[DR. DRE] I had a call, and it was about my brother, Tyree.

[VERNA] Andre was his idol, and I think he wanted to be like his big brother.

And he had started writin' little raps.

[YELLA] Tyree was gonna come on tour.

But I don't think Dre was gonna let him come.

So it was like, If I'd have let him come...

[SIRENS BLARING]

[INDISTINCT POLICE RADIO CHATTER]

[VERNA] I used to always warn them about cruisin' Crenshaw.

And there was a confrontation.

And this big guy, they said he came from nowhere out of the back seat or somethin'

and grabbed Tyree and slammed him.

Well, I think it broke... I think it broke his neck.

And... And, er... And so, when...

So when I got back, and...

I see two men standing at the door with briefcases.

Ma 'am, your son was involved in an altercation

and he didn't regain conscious.

I don't remember anything.

All I know is that I was down at about three blocks running and screaming.

Mmm-hmm.

[INDISTINCT POLICE RADIO CHATTER]

[SIRENS BLARING]

And I remember him leavin' off the tour to go to the funeral.

He went home, and he missed one show, I remember that.

[VERNA] I remember him coming in and that was the first time

that I had seen him cry, except for when he was a little kid.

He didn't take it very well.

[REN] When Dre came back,

I was thinkin', like, he was gonna be, like, just down, you feel what I'm sayin'?

But he held it together, man. He was strong.

Like, just come back and pick it back up like nothin' ever happened.

He was back to normal.

When he came back, it was just, like, Okay, let's do it. Let's finish this tour.

[DEE] But I just know, like... I noticed that there was a change in Dre.

Like, I think the drinking was happening.

Like, 'cause he was never really a drinker.

He just was heavy. He went from that lighthearted Dre to heavy.

You know, here he is at the height of, you know, popularity,

and he didn't seem happy.

Every time that I felt like I was at the bottom, it's always been because of death.

[INTERVIEWER] What happens at the bottom?

It's like, you know,

it's almost like I can identify with somebody that's on drugs that's at the bottom.

You just feel fuckin' empty, like there's nothin' left here for you.

It's just like, Why the fuck am I here?

You know what I mean, and, What the fuck am I doin'?

There's nothin' that's important to me anymore.

[INTERVIEWER] What's the longest you been in that space, though?

You're never outta that space, especially when it comes to death.

When it comes to death, if it's somebody that

you really love, like a brother or a son, you're never outta that space.

You just figure out ways to deal with it because

there are still people here that need me.

So I gotta pick my shit up and...

Suck it up and get active, man.

I turn to music as an outlet,

to have a place to go, like the studio, to be creative.

It absolutely, like, it helps

get your mind out of the dark areas.

You know what I'm sayin'?

And, er, that's my way of coping with it.

[CHUCKLES]

After we finished our tour,

I had to pick myself up and just strive

because the loss of my brother, my best friend...

I was really determined to be a success, you know?

We're buildin' from ground up and we have artists comin'.

We've got Michel'le, Above the Law.

We've got The D.O.C.

And me and D.O.C. had already created a friendship and a bond.

D.O. motherfuckin' C. in the house.

[DR. DRE] Almost like a big brother-little brother type thing.

And for me, it's like he came in and filled this space that was missin'.

And it really motivated me to make sure that his record was the shit.

I'm gonna be a big star one day, man.

I'm gonna buy you a drink.

[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]

[DR. DRE] D.O.C. was just incredible in the studio.

I mean, one of if not the best at it.

[RAPPING] One, and in comes The two to the three and four

Then I drop the beat I have in store

Lay dynamics on the top like a rug

Make it sound smooth and later make a dub

[DR. DRE] His position was, I'm not gonna cuss on my records.

[RAPPING] I am not illiterate, no, not even a little bit

Nothin' like an idiot

[DR. DRE] I'm a real MC. I don't want to be compared to N. W.A.

I don't need to do that.

[RAPPING] Shake it 'cause it makes you

[DR. DRE] And he was kind of like the antidote to that.

[RAPPING] Go in like a knot, don't be a puff

And I let it play 'Cause Dre said it's funky enough

[DR. DRE] We were on a roll at the time and working on two videos.

But he was hanging outwith this young lady,

having this wild sexcapade with ecstasy pills.

[RAPPING] It's gettin' funky, it's gettin' funky

[DR. DRE] And he decided he wanted to drive home

still under the influence.

And he fell asleep on the freeway.

- [TIRES SCREECH] - [CRASHING]

His car flipped, he shot out of the back window.

[GLASS SHATTE RS]

He bounced up and down on the freeway,

and they found him hanging off the side of the freeway

from his leather coat, and his four front teeth were in a tree.

[INDISTINCT POLICE RADIO CHATTER]

I get a call from Mike Concepcion.

He says, Listen, man. Your boy got into a really bad car accident.

He's at Kaiser Hospital. You should go check him out.

I remember walking in the room at the hospital, looking at him

in disbelief.

I couldn't even recognize him.

He went through 14 hours of plastic surgery to just rebuild his face.

Everything was put back into place.

He looked the same.

Everything was the same, except for his voice.

His voice was gone.

[D.O.C.] Y'all can feel the lyrics? All right.

[RAPPING] One, and in comes the two to the three and four

Then I drop the beat I have in store

Lay dynamics on the top like a rug

Make it sound smooth and later make a dub

Enunciate well, so that you can tell

I am not illiterate, no, not even a little bit Nothin' like an idiot

Get it You want the record, cool, I'm with it

Let the rhythm take you Shake it 'cause it makes you

As I turn the knob to the door you escape through

Go in like a knot, don't be a puff

And I let it play 'Cause Dre's said it's funky enough

[MUSIC PLAYER CLICKS]

[SIGHS]

What's weird is...

Hmm.

What's weird is,

after that record came out and that thing happened,

it was a real problem even listening to that stuff, you know?

Because I was pretty good, you know, back in the days, man.

But my job was just to play my role to help them build their art.

And I don't think anybody was in the studio besides Dre more than me.

You know, because I went when he went.

When he went home, I went home.

And when the interviews came and they would sit down,

I would have to stand just outside of frame, you know?

And they would talk about stuff that I wrote.

That's why you gotta call us bitches.

She called... Right off, she calling herself a bitch.

[D.O.C.] I think to myself, That ain't it. That ain't why I wrote that.

And I gotta sit in the chair like... [GROWLS] You know?

And it was tough. It's tough.

It was tough for a 19, 20-year-old kid to have to deal with that emotion.

But doing my record, it was great.

You know, it was, er...

I felt validated.

And when they tell you you're the greatest,

then didn't take me long before I start...

Hmm... Maybe I am the greatest.

And so maybe I started really going overboard then, with the excesses.

I had it all. It was right here.

It was right here.

And within moments,

it was all gone.

[STEVIE] I really did love Jimmy,

but I just couldn't be that person in his life.

[JIMMY] There was a lot of drugs around, you know,

and I was always such a control freak

that it got in the way of work and things like that.

And it got nuts. And...

[STEVIE] There was just a point where it was like, I can't do this to him anymore.

If love is love and I love this man and I care about him,

I cannot morally hurt him anymore over this.

And this situation is not gonna get better for a while.

[JIMMY] After Stevie and I broke up,

I was really lonely and I was freaked out.

I didn't know what the hell was going on.

The '80s were tough for me,

because where I had been into breaking artists,

I had suddenly moved to Dire Straits,

Stevie Nicks and Bob Seger, which were successful artists.

The A&R guys didn't want to give me the new artists.

Thought I was too expensive, thought I would, you know, take too long.

I have too much to say,

or whatever the stuff is that people at the labels think.

And maybe rightfully so, they thought it about me.

So I was really down.

[KID SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY]

[JANET MORMILE] My mother and I being at home in New York,

and Jimmy's in California by himself. We're worried.

Is he eating? Does he have food?

So every vacation we took was to California.

To support him, or to see where he was in his career.

Because his success wasn't complete unless we could enjoy it with him.

And Jimmy liked us around,

because he had somebody to take care of him.

But when Vicki came into the picture,

she was my mom and I together,

you know, self-sufficient. She was smart. She was gorgeous.

[JIMMY] She was a lawyer from Cambridge University

in England, and Hastings and Berkeley.

And yeah, she was a Playboy centerfold.

But I like strong personality women.

I like women that have an idea of how they want to live

and what they want to do.

And she was incredible.

[VICKI] I was at a party, and there was Jimmy,

and he followed me out.

And he said, If you give me your phone number

and I remember it, can I call you?

And he called me about 10 times the next day and he asks me on a date.

And when it was the appointed hour,

a maroon limousine pulls up in front of my house.

I get in. There's no Jimmy.

But there are napkins with my name printed on them

and matches with my name printed on them.

So I'm thinking, This is so weird. Where is this guy?

And then I realize we're on our way to his house to pick him up.

That should have been my first indication.

He doesn't want to wait for people.

[CROWD CHEERING]

[VICKI] This is Vicki McCarty for the Westwood One Satellite Network.

I'm backstage with Bono Vox from U2.

[BONO] Could I just correct you there? [VICKI] Yeah, I wish you would.

[BONO] My full name is Paul David Hewson.

People call me Bono.

- [VICKI] Should I call you Paul or Bono? - Call me Bono.

- [VICKI LAUGHS] - [SINGING]

Oh, oh, oh

I can't believe the news today

I can't close my eyes and make it go away

How long, how long must we sing this song?

[BONO] U2 was playing the US Festival.

It was David Bowie, The Clash, quarter of a million people.

And we were being interviewed

by this rather attractive Irish-American journalist, Vicki McCarty.

And she was, like, pushing this other dude... [LAUGHS]

Turns out her boyfriend, saying, You guys were meant for each other.

[SINGING] And bodies strewn across the dead-end street

[JIMMY] So I went down there,

and the guy in the front had that thing that Springsteen had.

He had that edge.

[SINGING] My back up against the wall

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

[BONO] But just based on clothes, cars and hairdo,

there was nothing I was gonna have in common with Jimmy.

Because we're coming out of punk rock.

And punk rock was not about shiny things.

Actually, it was about defacing shiny things.

And Jimmy was a bit slick for us.

But he... He happens to you.

[LAUGHING] He's like a virus

that enters the system uninvited,

takes over all your main organs, gets to the brain.

It's like, he knows

this is going to work out well for both of you.

I didn't.

[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]

[CROWD CHEERING]

[BONO] Here we go!

[SINGING] Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

- [MUSIC STOPS] - [CROWD CHEERING]

[BONO] And then Jimmy just chased us around the world

until we agreed to go into the studio with him.

He would not take no for an answer.

So we did Under a Blood Red Sky. It was a live album.

And we went to New York to do the mixing.

And he showed us around New York.

And that's where we really understood the Italian aspect of him.

Family. The food.

You know, that's when we realized that, really, Irish people are Italians.

It's just we don't eat as well,

we don't dress as well, we don't play soccer as well.

But we can sing.

[SINGING] Up, up, pull the teeth, black fur

You sin like cinema Hate that girl

So, seventeen stolen and why go down? You say

All your friends are movin' Can you sing

Hey Sonya 's coming 'round

She's gonna blow your house down

See, but you guys are stopping.

And underneath your stop,

Larry is coming in on the tom-tom, on the bass drum,

starts playing it again, so it never really stops.

I think that could work.

[BONO] A great idea

has a lot in common with a great melody,

and Jimmy's gift is the clear thought.

But also outside of music, in the room, the clear thought.

When others hear harmony or counterpoint, he hears the clear melody.

So he applies that wherever he is.

Why don't you sing what you sang me when I first got here?

- Er... - Do you remember it?

Yeah, well, that was more like...

It was a little different than that.

It was a little more to it.

- It had... - It was more like a, er...

Lyrical idea.

It sounded really good.

[JIMMY] Bono and I hit it off.

We became friends.

But that was the beginning of a tough time for me.

[PHONE RINGING]

- [PHONE RINGING] - [LOW INDISTINCT CHATTER]

Jerry, Yella's on one.

[JERRY HELLER] You know, you're talking about the most controversial time

in the history of the music business.

I'm the general manager of Ruthless Records.

I'm Eazy-E's personal manager.

And it might be oversimplifying by saying

that I financialize his dreams.

But probably that's what I do.

[WOMAN] And playback.

- [UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING] - [GUNS FIRING]

[INDISTINCT SHOUTING]

Yo, we in the house, Eazy and Dr. Dre's wild and wet pool party.

And we drunk as a motherfucker.

[RAPPING] The appetite is tremendous So I'm gonna spin this

Drop up some violence because they ask me to end this

Some trouble that I caught 'cause I was noisy

A nigga tried to take advantage because of the kamikaze

He took a swing for my head Thought I was faded

Start runnin' for the door but the fucker never made it

The sound of the nine went bang

[YELLA] It was just the beginning of us making some real money,

after years of nickels and dimes.

Now we be able to buy houses, cars.

Rich.

[YELLA] That was the first time we ever had contracts.

But Cube wanted somebody to look at the paperwork.

I still got me a little Jeep.

I'm at my mother's house.

Now, this is when the trouble started.

Ice Cube left in a bitter dispute.

I don't like the manager, because he wasn't paying me my money.

That's the bottom line.

Bottom line. That's it. No more N.W.A.

No more N.W.A. questions, please.

You're gonna leave?

[DR. DRE] I got Cube on the phone. He felt he was getting fucked,

and Jerry was the reason for it, and Eazy was condoning it.

He was talking to me about...

Dre, you gotta take a look at your financials, dude.

[DR. DRE] And then Suge Knight enters the building.

D.O.C. introduced me to him.

[D.O.C.] Suge was my guy.

Big-ass dude. Super friendly.

And Suge says, Let me take you to this guy. He can help us out.

[DR. DRE] So Suge took my contracts to a guy named Dick Griffey.

He started telling me I should be getting this amount of money

and this amount of points for each record.

And you're only getting this.

So I'm, like, Okay.

Went back to the studio

not knowing if Eazy knows about this shit or not.

And Eazy is just going crazy.

Fuck Cube this, fuck Cube that.

[SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY]

[DR. DRE] Up until then, everything that we had done

was like the ultimate brotherhood,

at least from my perspective.

And all of a sudden it just turned into business.

It turned into pressure.

[REN] You know, there was a lot of distractions,

but to me, Dre had always seemed driven in the studio.

Had people coming in playing bass and instruments,

so it was a lot more funk to it.

I'm trying to prove myself as an engineer, as an artist, as a producer, without Cube.

For me, it all became just a point to make.

[D.O.C.] Cube was, I'd like to say, the spirit of N. W.A.

His anti-establishment feel drove that early sound.

[DR. DRE] And Cube's our lead guy.

He's gone, so I'm hearing different shit around the streets.

N.W.A. is nothing. They're gone.

That started touching my ego a little bit.

[ICE CUBE] and find out what's going on on my new solo project,

AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted.

[DR. DRE] Ah, Cube in y'all ass, man. What the fuck y'all gonna do?

[DEE] Pump It Up was a nationally syndicated music video show.

I was a fan of the music, so I wanted to present that to other fans.

Let's see if success and money has changed the meanest men in rap.

They agreed to do this interview for me, because it was Dee, their home girl.

And the interview I wound up doing with N.W.A., awkward.

Excuse me. Hi. ls Eazy-E here, N.W.A.?

Hey, what's up, you guys? Come here.

What's up?

- Everybody knows this is Eazy-E. - Yo.

Dr. Dre.

From the very moment it started, the energy was bad.

Wow, it's too quiet. Y'all gotta wake up. Come on, y'all.

And it seemed like with every question, they found a way to get verbal jabs at Cube.

Do you guys still communicate with him or...

Only time we communicate is when they have little run-ins, you know.

So the interview's done, and it hadn't aired yet.

Next thing I know, my producer wanted to film Ice Cube's rebuttal

and put it in the show with N. W.A.

Personal beef. Let's milk this for what it is.

This is Ice Cube on Pump It Up. I got all suckers 100 miles and running.

[IMITATING D.O.C.] Like to give a shout to the D.O.C.

[NORMAL VOICE] Y'all can't play.

That was their mentality. Sensationalism.

Sista Dee, always in the middle of controversy right here on Pump It Up.

I was 22 at the time. I'm not Oprah.

I didn't know that there's still more internal struggles in the group.

Not even after Cube left. I just figured, Okay, ego.

But out of the four remaining, I was like, Hmm. Whose ego is gonna be next?

[DR. DRE] The ego was a motherfucker.

It's almost like the little pilot light, and fame is the gasoline.

And once gasoline gets poured on that ego,

you never know if the pilot light is gonna go out

or if it's gonna turn into a motherfucking bonfire or some shit

that nobody can control.

[REN] I remember us being in the studio

and Dre was trying to talk to E about the money.

And E would always be, like, Talk to Jerry.

And Dre don't want to talk to Jerry.

I said, Listen, man. Fuck all of this going back and forth shit, man.

Either Jerry goes or I go.

And he looked me in my face and said, I can't get rid of Jerry.

That was the end of me and Eazy-E's relationship.

[REN] He had to really trust Jerry to get rid of Dre.

Because Dre was the main ingredient.

The feeling I had at that moment

was, um...

Similar to losing a brother.

Seriously broke my heart.

All I remember is walking out of the studio and everything just being a blur.

Like a slow-motion walk to that car.

There was so many things going on, and all the loss.

It was a terrible space for me at the time.

And I guess, you know,

a lot of people have their ways of dealing with things of that nature.

I turned to alcohol.

[DEE] So it was the night before the American Music Awards.

And it was a Def Jam party.

I spotted Dre.

He was drunk.

And I think he looked my way, but he didn't smile.

And it looked like he wasn't gonna speak to me at all.

And the next thing I know, he snatched me up.

When I say he snatched me up, my feet were off the ground.

I was like, Shit.

You know, like the strength and the rage.

And, uh, you know, everybody knows the story from there.

In Los Angeles, Dee Barnes, host of the Fox TV rap show Pump It Up,

is filing a civil suit against Dr. Dre and claims that last January at an I.A. club,

Dre assaulted her, grabbing her hair,

slamming her face and body into a wall, and kicking her in the ribs.

Barnes' attorneys say that Dre was apparently upset

that one of Barnes' producers

inserted her interview with ex-N. W.A. member Ice Cube

into a Pump It Up show last winter featuring N. W.A.

N. W.A. 's independent publicist says, quote,

I know Dr. Dre as a gentle soul, the loving father of a baby boy.

[DR. DRE] I don't think I was out of touch with reality,

but I was Dr. Dre,

and this was a very low point in my life.

And, uh...

I've done a lot of stupid shit in my life.

A lot of things that I wish I can go and take back.

I've experienced abuse.

I've watched my mother get abused, you know?

So it's like, there's absolutely no excuse for it.

No woman should ever be treated that way.

Any man that puts his hands on a female is a fucking idiot.

He's out of his fucking mind,

and I was out of my fucking mind at the time.

I fucked up.

I paid for it. I'm sorry for it.

And I apologized for it.

I have this dark cloud that follows me.

And it's gonna be attached to me forever.

It's a major blemish on who I am as a man.

And every time it comes up, it just makes me feel fucked up.

So it's just like, what do I do?

What do I do to get rid of this dark cloud?

I don't know what else to do.

I'm learning.

I'm trying to become a better person and become a better man.

From a personal standpoint,

I feel like I've handled it well.

I had to stand up

just because I would probably never forgive myself if I didn't.

[REPORTER] Dee Barnes's civil suit charges him with assault and battery,

inflicting emotional distress, and defamation.

Barnes seeks damages over $10 million.

I called the police on Mr. Fuck tha police.

But little by little, the work started drying up.

It was as if I had ruined his career

by being that disturbing footnote in his legacy.

But I went through the anger and the dismay,

and, you know, I worked those things out

to where I got to a place of peace.

Forgiveness is about...

It's not really about the other person.

Forgiveness is about... For you.

You do it for yourself,

because what're you gonna do with all that anger?

Hmm.

[DR. DRE] In the end,

I've hurt people that I care about and for that, I'm really sorry.

[JIMMY] In 1984, I went with my father to his father's funeral.

And the next morning, I went back to I.A.

and I get a phone call from my sister that my dad had a heart attack.

So I rushed back to New York,

and about six weeks later, his mother died.

And then two days after that, or something like that, he died.

And at one moment,

he, his mother and his father all died within six weeks.

And it was easily the worst day of my life.

It is still the worst day of my life.

We were very, very close.

I had no idea he was gonna die.

He was my best friend in the whole world.

I think he still is my best friend in the whole world.

[JANET] We were very, very much in mourning, all of us.

This man of 63 years old,

this firecracker, you know, was just erased, you know.

So Jimmy and Vicki decided just to get married.

My father died in January, and Vicki said,

With your father gone, it will never be a good time to get married.

Let's just do it.

And she was incredible.

I mean, if he didn't have her there,

you know, with him when my father died, I don't know what would have happened.

Because it was so devastating to him.

I'm sitting on the floor of my sister's house.

And I said, I don't know how I'm gonna get through this.

I just don't know.

So I thought, I know.

My dad loved that I was in music, you know?

And he loved Christmas.

I said, I'm gonna make a Christmas album and dedicate it to him

and give all the money to charity.

Get money out of the equation.

Let's use all of our friends.

Let's do something really powerful.

And it sold so many copies that over the years,

we gave Special Olympics $100 million.

And to do that for my dad was just everything to me.

And it really helped me move on.

[TOM] Though he continued to produce records,

he was getting more and more involved in business.

And I felt like that was overtaking the artistic side of him.

So like, he did Graham Parker,

and the guys in his band would tell me,

Look, when we went to the studio, he never did anything but talk on the phone.

And I'm not surprised by that,

because more than one time I took the scissors and just cut his line.

You know, I just... [IMITATES SNIPPING] Cut it.

Music, you know, we're doing music.

[INTERVIEWER CLEARS THROAT]

- Jimmy, you got water over there? - Yeah, I'm cool.

[STEVIE] And see, that was very hard for any of us to understand.

How could you possibly be such a great music producer

and actually want to be in an office with a desk and a phone?

[JIMMY] I don't know. I don't look as producing as like this big thing.

You know, I really consider it a job.

I don't consider it any kind of great achievement.

I really don't. I never did.

I'm there to help a guy make a record.

And, er...

Anybody wants to work with me, I think it's a gas.

Sometimes I can't believe they want to work with me, you know?

But I just think it's really cool.

But, I don't know. Anybody that tells you that, you know,

I... I... I... I did this and I did that,

they're full of shit, because it doesn't exist.

Ninety-nine percent of what's going on is the artist in the studio.

I gotta tell you something.

I wished that I was someone who said, Wow. I'm doing this.

You know? It would been a lot more fun for me.

But I was focused and miserable.

I was working 24 hours a day.

I never did anything other than work.

I didn't want to do anything other than work.

I didn't feel as natural as I felt in the '70s.

When I'd walk into a room, I knew exactly what to do.

Now all of a sudden, I was feeling off-balance.

[BONO] What, you ran out of tape there, did you, Jimmy?

[JIMMY] Yeah, we want you to have 30 seconds of that last ending.

That's why when I came out here, we started again.

- [BONO] Okay. - I think we can just fix it.

Okay. We got one more and we call it a day on this song.

[JIMMY] Okay.

[BONO] I think Rattle and Hum was Jimmy's last stand.

I think we broke him.

[JIMMY] We did two albums and a movie.

And we went on the road and recorded 18 shows.

And those guys, they worked like Springsteen.

They just go-

[BONO] There was a song on Rattle and Hum called Hawkmoon.

And we did 269 takes.

We actually wore the tape out.

That's never happened. We wore out the tape.

And he's like...

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[BONO] It's hard to be around artists.

You can only do it for a certain amount of time.

And U2 can be very, very wearing.

We're just... We just go too far.

[JIMMY] At that moment, I just needed to stop.

I didn't want to see a studio. I was done.

[SINGING] I wanna run

I want to hide

I wanna tear down the walls

That hold me inside

I wanna reach out

And touch the flame

Where the streets have no name

Oh, oh

Where the streets have no name

Where the streets have no name

We're beaten and blown by the wind

Blown by the wind

But when I go there

I go there with you

It's all I can do

- [MUSIC CONTINUES] - [CROWD CHEERING]

[TOM] Jimmy's heart was in business.

He had a calling, just like you have a calling to be a preacher.

His calling was to be a great businessman.

And that's what happened.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Meantime, speaking of N.W.A., their new album Niggaz 4 Life

recently entered the Billboard chart at number two,

then went to number one,

and has already gone gold in less than a month,

with no radio or video support.

[RAPPING] Ninteen-ninety-mothafucking-one

N.W.A back in this mother fucker, yo

Takin' out all you commercialized-ass niggas

And we're on this laid-back track

And we're doin' this one kinda smooth

So whatcha gonna do, Dre? Kick it

And so on, let the shit flow on

Because I need somethin' to go off on

The mothafuckin' D-R-E servin' a death wish

So I 'mma hit you like this

Early in the morning, hop into the B-en-z

I got 44 ways of gettin' paid

Sittin' in my lap as I roll up the Compton blocks

To scoop up Ren, I heard shots

One, two, three

[RADIO ANNOUNCER] This is the number-one album in the United States.

And this is the filthiest album ever

in the history of the Billboard charts to go to number one.

[REPORTER 1] And they call their number-one album Niggaz 4 Life.

If you consider that offensive, brace yourself,

you may be in for a shock.

[REPORTER 2] So popular, it became the best-selling album

in the whole country last week,

even though MTV banned it

and most radio stations have refused to play it.

[YELLA] We broke up at number one.

We was planning to go on a tour, too.

And that never even happened.

Outsiders.

[REN] Everybody had their own little cliques around them,

groupies or whatever you want to call them, in everybody's ear.

[YELLA] Other people's telling people

You should get this, that, that. You know, just...

[REN] Gassing everybody up.

That was just the demise of everything. Everything was just falling apart.

[YELLA] This whole thing was never about money.

It was always fun.

Money only ruined it.

So after I left Ruthless Records,

it was like, here I go again.

I'm out on my own. I gotta start over.

I don't know what I'm gonna do.

I don't know where I'm gonna do it. And I have nothing.

Not too long after leaving Eazy, I hooked up with D.O.C.

[D.O.C.] So I say to Dre,

Suge Knight and I are trying to put together a record label.

This guy's a good guy. He can help us.

We got a chance to go do our own thing now.

[DR. DRE] I remember them taking me on a tour of the Solar Records building.

On one floor, there was these lawyers' offices.

And in the third floor,

there was this big rehearsal hall that was all decked out.

And then down the hall, I found the first love of my life.

The SSL board,

mixing board that I had always dreamed of working on.

That's how they got me.

[RAPPING] Wake up, jumped out my bed

I'm in a two-man cell with my homie Lil' Half Dead

Murder was the case that they gave me

Dear God, I wonder can you save me?

I'm only eighteen, so I'm a young buck

It's a ride, if I don't scrap, I'm gettin' stuck

But that's the life of a G, I guess

Ese's way deep, shanked two in the chest

Best run 'cause brothers is droppin' quicker

Ugh, too late, damn Down goes another nigga

Bouncin' off the walls, throwin' them dogs

Gettin' that rep as a young hog

It ain't nothin' like the street life

You better be strapped with your shank

'Cause ain't no fistfight

So I guess I gots to handle mine

Since I did the crime, I gots to do my time

Them say me grow up to be nothing Look at me now

And tell me what you see I am what I am, it's only me

Little ghetto boy

Playing in the ghetto street

Whatcha gonna do when you grow up

And have to face responsibility?

Now I'm holdin' the dub, sittin' on swoll

Twenty-seven years old, up for parole, stroll

I'm back up on my feet with my mind on the money

That I be makin' soon as I touch them streets

Things done changed on this side

Remember they used to thump, but now they blast, right?

But it ain't no thang to me

'Cause now I'm what they call a loced ass O. G.

The little homies from the hood with grip

Are the ones I get with 'cause I'm down to set trip

Nigga, I'm bigger than you So whatcha wanna do?

Didn't know he had a .22

Straight sittin' behind his back

I grabbed his pockets and then I heard six caps

I fell to the ground with blood on my hands

I didn't understand

How a nigga so young could bust a cap

I used to be the same way back