Original subtitles

03 The Defiant Ones - Part 3 English

[BONO] There's something in him that's attracted to rage.

That's the thing, I think, to explore.

[MAN] Oh, the bear, Jimmy.

[CHUCKLING] What is it about the bear, by the way?

I like bears more than I like, probably...

It's my favorite animal, because,

not only can it get you on land,

if you go in the water, it will come for you there,

and it is faster than you on land and in water.

And it's big as all hell.

That is the ultimate machine as far as I'm concerned.

God got that one really right.

[SNOOP DOGG] [IMITATING ITALIAN ACCENT] Jimmy Lovine.

That's how you say his name in Italy.

Jimmy is Italioni.

That's why they can't really fuck with him like they really want to.

You know what I'm sayin'? Overplay the fettuccine.

[JIMMY] My mother was very intense.

[JANET] She felt that everyone was taking advantage of him.

She was always looking at the angle that someone might have.

And Jimmy picked up that.

[JIMMY] She loved me, but she worried a lot.

And that just made me twitch, literally.

[LAUGHS]

In my neighborhood, either you could punch good, duck good,

or have a great sense of humor.

And I was the latter.

I was nowhere near a tough guy, but there were sure a lot of tough guys around.

Everyone in the neighborhood, they wanted to earn a few extra bucks.

As a longshoreman, my dad used to tell me there were extra things lying around the pier.

He'd bring home 12 catcher's mitts.

And I said, What am I gonna do with 12...

My uncle would bring things home,

my next-door neighbor would bring things home

and they would trade them.

And that was the culture.

[STEVE STOUTE] So, you're dealing with Italian, short-man complex from Brooklyn.

You're dealing with a lot of energy.

And he took that into the record business.

Jimmy's one of those guys that if you think you killed him,

you better go back and shoot him again because he'll get up. [LAUGHS]

It's opera.

Italians love the opera.

Big emotions, violence.

That energy, that rage...

He has it. He just doesn't come off as angry.

But under the skin of it, he likes blood and bones.

[HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYING]

[YELLING]

Man, they looking for that rock.

Nigga used to wanna shoot at me, now he wanna rap with me.

[DR. DRE] The first time I heard Snoop, a friend of mine had a bachelor party.

I'd met Snoop before that, he was sellin' drugs.

And my stepbrother Warren G, pops this tape in.

♪ Rollin' in my 6-4 ♪

I'm like, That's Snoop?

I'm like, Man, this is a fucking diamond in the rough and we need to polish it up.

So, it went from that to me receivin' a phone call.

But I hung up.

Like, Nigga, this ain't no motherfucking Dr. Dre.

Nigga called back like, Nigga, be at the studio Monday.

[DR. DRE] So, Snoop comes in the studio,

I put this track up for him and he just freestylin'.

And this shit was super sick.

And then the thought of my solo album started becomin' a reality in my mind.

Had Snoop, Warren G and D. O. C. help outwith the lyrics.

That's a great beginning.

♪ Creepin' down the back street on D's ♪

♪ I got my Glock cocked ♪ ♪ cause niggas want these ♪

♪ Now soon as I said it, ♪ ♪ seems I got sweated ♪

♪ By some nigga with a TE ♪ ♪ C-9 Tryin' to take mine ♪

♪ You want to make noise, make noise ♪

♪ I make a phone call My niggas ♪ ♪ comin' like the Gotti boys ♪

[DR. DRE] I had just got a new house in Calabasas,

completely empty with the exception of my bedroom and downstairs studio.

So we downstairs makin' songs with no furniture.

Some nights it would be me, him.

And then some nights, there would be about 1,000 motherfuckers in there.

A lot of people have come out... Hold up, baby.

[DR. DRE] Kurupt stayed there, Snoop lived there, Daz, Nate Dogg.

It's just full of really creative people.

We would party for a while.

I'd hear somebody go,

With my mind on my money and my money on my mind.

Barn. Yo, hold that. Let's go in the studio. Let's lay that.

[SNOOP DOGG] We created some great fuckin' music.

[MOUTHING]

But it was domestically dysfunctional.

You know what I'm sayin'?

[DR. DRE] People fuckin'in the bathrooms.

People fuckin' anywhere except my room.

[SNOOP DOGG] But we wasjust happy to be outta the hood, workin' with Dr. Dre.

I was on house arrest.

[SNOOP DOGG] This was one of the baddest motherfuckers to ever do it.

I mean, his ear is different.

You can't really say, Why did he pick me

outta all of the rappers that was rappin' in the '80s and say,

'Well, I 'mma put you down with me '?

I don't know why, but he always put me up.

Hey, Snoop Doggy-Dogg, welcome to Yo! MTV Raps.

Wassup, Fab.

[FAB 5 FREDDY] Snoop really was a street guy,

but he was the personality I had not seen in rap.

It was a whole other flow.

[SNOOP DOGG] My thing back then was freestyle.

Like, I didn't know how to write.

But D.O.C. was my teacher.

He was the one who showed me, Do this like this and that and this and...

He gave me that line, you know what I'm sayin'?

And then, there was some white boys,

and they had a truck,

and motherfucker had some sort of device, mechanism.

And he was like, Dude, this is the hydroponic.

It's hydroponic, man.

Like, we was just smokin', niggas was gettin' fucked up.

I'm becoming a hippie. I'm becoming a stoner.

By the end of the night, niggas was like, Nigga, that hydroponic, nigga.

Nigga, that hydro-chronic is the shit.

We fucked around and fucked the whole name up.

Yeah, he like, Nigga, this shit is bomb, nigga.

Your album should be called The Chronic, nigga.

And I was wearin' that white hat with the green leaf on it.

It was like everything was comin' together like magic.

[BOY] I love you, Mommy. [VICKI] I love you, too.

[JIMMY] In 1989, I wanted to stop producing records.

I didn't wanna be out all night producing records and not seeing my kids.

So, I went to a couple of friends.

I went to David Geffen, seek their advice, you know.

[ALLEN GRUBMAN] Geffen, Geffen, Geffen.

Let me get you to understand this properly.

You don't have to say Madonna's last name.

You don't have to say Cher's last name.

You don't have to say Bono's last name.

You don't have to say David's last name, got it?

Jimmy used to sit on his knee and learn from David.

My first impressions of Jimmy were that he was a sponge.

That he picked up everything he heard or saw.

[JIMMY] David had a record company and it was really successful,

and I always admired David.

So, I said, Man, maybe, I could start a record company.

He wanted to make a lot of money.

And record producers don't make that much money.

People talk about those things.

[JIMMY] David taught me the an' of business in music.

And I was going in not knowing anything about business.

And because David sold Geffen Records,

everybody wanted to get in the label business.

And it was incredible competition.

So, then, there was a guy named Ted Field who was starting a record company.

And we really hit it off.

DAVID: Ted Field was the renegade of the very wealthy Marshall Field's family.

He didn't want to take over any of the family businesses,

and he had a passion for entertainment.

[JIMMY] So, we decided to do this together.

And I brought along Doug Morris from Atlantic.

I said, Jimmy, you wanna start the label?

You know, I'm in for half if you want it. I was always in for half.

[JIMMY] And that's how Interscope came about.

And naturally, because Atlantic's our partner,

they brought along Time Warner, 'cause Time Warner owns Atlantic.

You get a guy you know is gonna get hits, you make him the boss.

He's gonna bring in the music.

And the other people who do the other stuff, they do the other stuff.

[JIMMY] Everyone thinks that I'm gonna come in and do rock and roll, and they...

'Cause I came from U2 and Tom Petty and Springsteen and all this stuff.

But I came in and wanted a hit.

So, I came back from lunch one day with Ted,

and all of the secretaries are lookin' at this video.

And it was in Spanish.

They said, Oh, we love this guy. He's so beautiful.

And they're all singing this Rico Suave.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Man, fuck it, we're gonna sign this.

What? This is gonna be our first signing?

Is this what we're going to be known for as a record company?

He goes, I don't care, we're just signing it.

[RAPPING IN SPANISH]

[TOM WHALLEY] I said, Well, if we're gonna sign this,

I'm gonna go find something that is so out there

that people won't know what the heck we're doin'.

So, I hit the road and I end up finding a group called Primus.

♪ Hello, Mr. Krinkle How are you today? ♪

♪ Seems the rumors are about ♪ ♪ your team might move away ♪

[TOM WHALLEY] The odd part was, Primus liked odd things in the world.

And one of the reasons they signed with us

is because they thought it was the coolest thing

that we had a company that had Rico Suave.

Go figure. I didn't know Gerardo would be a hit, but it was.

Huge hit. Put us on the map.

So, next thing you know, it felt like everyone wanted to be with Interscope.

[JIMMY] It was a complete free-for-all.

Primus, Helmet, 4 Non Blondes,

Tupac was signed by Tom Whalley.

And then Mark Wahlberg, who was known as Marky Mark,

with his brother, Donnie.

And No Doubt.

- [FEMALE REPORTER] What's your name? - I'm Gwen.

[FEMALE REPORTER] Gwen is now going to glue her costume.

Follow me.

Okay, here we go.

[MALE REPORTER] ls it true that you wanna be a big star and tour the world?

Yes, I wanna be a star. Yeah.

[CHUCKLES]

[GWEN STEFANI] The first time I met Jimmy was at a showcase.

Probably '91. I had no idea what Interscope records was.

I didn't know who Jimmy Lovine was.

♪ I chose a road when I was young ♪

♪ In search of fun, temptation won ♪

♪ And all my soul I did surrender... ♪

[GWEN] It was just them there and us playing and there was no audience.

And we knew that these were, like, guys that can help us make a record.

But I was super naive. I didn't know anything about getting signed.

I just sang and wrote songs and made clothes.

♪ Sometimes I hide somewhat ♪ ♪ Like a bulb behind a shade ♪

But I remember Jimmy came up to me and kinda pulled me aside.

And he said to me, You're gonna be a star in six years.

And I was like,

Okay, first of all, I'm gonna have, like, ten kids by the time six years comes around.

And I won't be doing this still.

And, um, who are you?

And why six years? That's a weird number, you know, but he was right.

I hadn't gone through what I needed to go through

to write the record that was gonna actually make a difference and touch people,

you know, and so, he bought us an eight-track recorder.

We built a studio in our garage.

And we went in there and we learned how to write music.

But we'd write, like, a few songs and be like, Okay, let's go play it for Jimmy.

And it would always be, like, a bit of a, like... [SIGHS]

Write another song, write another song, write another song.

And it was a frustrating relationship,

because when you're an artist, you think you're done.

And in his mind, you're never done.

We had very few releases in '91.

And Jimmy was a renowned producer, very creative.

But he wasn't renowned as a businessman.

[JIMMY] So, you know, I didn't feel comfortable around executives,

I felt comfortable around artists and record producers.

Because they know how to get the best out of artists.

And then I found my niche.

I said, Okay, I gotta find great producers, and I produce them.

♪ Why are you doing this to me? ♪

♪ Am I not living up To ♪ ♪ what I'm supposed to be? ♪

[COHEN] Our first real adventure was getting Nine Inch Nails.

♪ I think you owe me a great big apology ♪

♪ Terrible lie... ♪

1991 was when Jimmy first got a sniff of Nine Inch Nails.

Holy shit, this guy's incredible.

Every day, conversations about We gotta get Nine Inch Nails.

But it wasn't just a band on the free market that everybody was trying to sign.

They were signed to a label and they fuckin' hated that label.

IVI was just a collection of shit.

[STEVE BERMAN] And the guy who ran that label

wasn't gonna make anybody's lives easy.

Trent and I began to have a little bit of... [STAMMERING] Difficulty.

[COHEN] He had 'em signed for seven albums.

And everybody in the business knew they wanted off the label.

This is what, personally, I'm looking for.

That next guy that can write these lyrics and have this attitude.

And he had the stage presence, he produced those records himself.

He had every ounce of it.

♪ Terrible lie ♪

[TRENT] You know, the thing, I mean,

the thing that was so frustrating to me at that time

was, my whole life, I knew I wanted to be on stage doing this.

And I remember it was the slow build where each little moment you could savor,

like, hearing my song on college radio first time.

Holy shit.

You know, that was, like, the greatest thing in the world.

I'd finally, through a combination of hard work and luck,

cracked the door open and signed to TVT.

And I recorded a collection of songs that we felt proud of.

Turned it in to Gottlieb and he said, Well, this record's an abortion.

And that's a blow coming when you've never made a record before.

He's put records out, maybe he knows more than I do.

And he said, You fucked up what could have been a good career.

But that was the album, and we put it out and we just toured.

And as each small tier of success started happening, the record started to sell.

And I thought that would result in Gottlieb saying,

III Hey, you did know what you were doing -

But instead, it was, If you sold a million copies of this album,

well, we need to sell four million on the next one.

Um, I didn't see it that way.

And I knew he wasn't going to get outta the way.

Trent would not be the first artist who thought,

Gee, now, I'm having a taste of success.

Wouldn't it be nice to be off an independent label and on a big label.

[WHALLEY] Pretty much every major label were all willing to fund a lawsuit

to help them get out of their contracts

'cause they think Nine Inch Nails is that great.

This is the first time I saw Jimmy thinkin', like, kinda three-dimensional.

He said, We won't win if we go down the lawsuit route.

Everyone else is gonna do that, so, we gotta do something different.

[JIMMY] The only way to really facilitate this

is somebody goes and convinces the label to take on a partner.

I said, Well, how are we gonna do that?

[BONO] The phone. That is his theater of war.

That's where he is deadly.

[STEVE] He started to speak to Steve Gottlieb every day for one year straight.

He lived in the bathroom for a year, on the phone.

Every morning at 6:00, I'd call everybody involved.

And he'd sit on this director's chair, feet up like this.

At the same time, signin' Nine Inch Nails,

at the same time, workin' TVT,

treating both of 'em in a way that he could see the resolution.

They couldn't see it.

[JIMMY] The lawyer, Steve, Trent's manager.

And he used anger, charm, guile, deviousness.

[VICKI] He had a red, hot focus.

It was nuclear.

I'm just gonna sit here, I can outlast anybody.

[VICKI] He did not come out of that bathroom for one year.

The kids, I just kept saying, You know, Daddy's living in the bathroom.

It was painful.

Jimmy wouldn't give up.

[WHALLEY] And when Steve realized that he was not going to win this battle,

he agreed to sign over the contract to lnterscope.

Anybody knows Steve Gottlieb,

just getting him to that point was something that only Jimmy could do.

Empathy-

Um, I think his ability to take the other person's point of view

and to understand it and appreciate it and put himself in those shoes,

that also informs why he's so good as a marketer...

Um,

you know, in terms of his being able to understand people

and really think about, you know, their primal motivations,

their desires, and really try and have this kinda,

Vulcan mind meld of what is gonna move them.

[JIMMY] So, after all that, I still hadn't met Trent in person.

By that time, he was completely allergic to record company executives.

[TRENT] I was in a hotel room and I'd purposely turned the lights down.

And I just thought, I'm gonna have to portray myself

as not someone that you wanna deal with.

[JIMMY] I went to this room, it was dark and there's candles.

I mean, it was like a meeting with Dracula.

[TRENT] You know, he kinda said, What do you want?

And I said, Well, I'd like you to give me an advance for an album,

and then just leave me alone.

And I'll give you the album and I'll give you singles and I'll give you the artwork.

But I don't want someone sittin' in the studio.

I have an idea, please don't ruin it as it's trying to come out of me.

Okay, what else do you want?

Um, well, I'd like to have a record label

where I could sign other bands if I felt like that.

Okay, what else do you want?

And I couldn't think of anything else, you know?

So, I said, By the way, here's Broken, you could put that out.

[COHEN] They actually gave us Broken as a free additional record.

It was amazing, because after all we had been through with them...

Nobody really knew about it,

but we were sort of scrambling for cash for a minute.

[STEVE] Interscope wasn't doin' great at that moment.

And Jimmy had this mad, obsessed focus on the big picture.

[JIMMY] The '90s were really volatile times in America.

And music was incredible. They really had something to say.

And we wanted a record company in the spirit of Atlantic Records in 1970,

when they had Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones.

Those were the greatest artists of their time,

both from the urban world and from the rock world.

And that's what we were trying to do.

[STEVE] I walked into Jimmy's office one day.

He goes, Steve, you know what your problem is?

And he drew a straight line. And he goes, That's you.

He goes, You know what we gotta bring into your life?

And he squiggles, We gotta get some of that.

[PEOPLE SHOUTING]

Fuck the police!

We go to Westwood, Brentwood, Whitewood, all that.

[MALE REPORTER] It began as a high-speed chase

according to the California Highway Patrol

and ended early Sunday morning

with Rodney King being brutally beaten by Los Angeles police officers.

♪ Tonight's the night I get in some shit ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Deep cover on the incognito tip ♪

♪ Killin' motherfuckers if I ♪ ♪ have to Peelin' caps, too ♪

♪ 'Cause you niggas ♪ ♪ know I'm comin' at you ♪

♪ I guess that's part of the game ♪

♪ But I feel for the nigga who think ♪ ♪ He just gonna come and change thangs ♪

♪ With the swiftness. ♪ ♪ So get it right with the quickness ♪

♪ And let me handle my business, yo ♪

[DR. DRE] During the making ofThe Chronic, LA was literally on fire.

Niggas was coming in the studio with TVs and toasters and all kind of shit.

It was like the fucking swap meet in the mic booth.

Like, man, What the fuck are you guys doing?

We're trying to work on a fucking record.

I, personally, was like, Fuck that, nigga.

'Cause I went out looting and stole all kinds of shit

and brought it all back to studio.

We nabbed D.O.C., Yeah, get your ass in the park, nigga, come on.

[MALE REPORTER] A Los Angeles Times poll out today

says that Californians cited a breakdown of moral values

and a lack of economic opportunity

as the two leading causes of the Los Angeles riots.

Well, young rap musicians have some ideas of their own

about what caused the deadly violence.

Yeah, well, you know how dogs think that...

Dogs is mainly, you know...

They cool as long as you don't fuck with them or irritate them.

Once you irritate them, they react, you know, and that's how we are. You know?

We cool and all, but, you know, once something pop, everybody...

[BARKING]

Wow. New York, just like I pictured it.

Skyscrapers. Everything. [LAUGHS]

[SNOOP DOGG] Where the chicken place at?

The Chronic took about eight months to a year to make.

And then the part of shopping it, that's a whole nother deal.

Where's that leg at?

[DR. DRE] This was that do-or-die album.

Put my body into this record and my soul into it.

I had mixed it, mastered it, did all the artwork and everything.

The way it is in the stores right now is the way I was shopping it.

I'm going to every record company there is in Los Angeles, fly out to New York.

I'm playing it for everybody.

For some reason, everybody's turning me down-

There was so many companies out there that turned Death Row down,

that didn't even wanna be dealing with that coming off of the N.W.A. situation.

Nobody wanted to deal with this gangsta rap thing.

[DR. DRE] Some of the companies was saying

they didn't wanna deal with the situation I was in

as far as Ruthless and the contracts.

And Eazy-E and Jerry Heller,

they're trying to starve me out to get me to come back in on my hands and knees.

And I started second-guessing myself.

Is it possible that what I think is good isn't good,

because everybody is telling me it's not working?

[MALE REPORTER] And this was what they were calling trash,

cassettes and CDs of rap they say is offensive.

1992, there was tremendous hostility to the rap business.

The police were very sensitive to what had happened in Los Angeles.

And a guy named Bill Bennett with C. Delores Tucker adopted this topic.

That's what gangsta rap is doing to our children,

turning them into gangsters.

[FUCHS] It was a very high-profile war.

[STOUTE] The record companies were scared.

Not because it wasn't making money, they were afraid to deal with the people.

[JIMMY] We'd come out of the rock and roll world, you know,

so, I wasn't really understanding hip-hop, and I'm the first person to admit that.

But I had a lot of respect for John McClane.

And John came to me and said that

he had this record by this producer that was extraordinary.

It was the guy from N. W.A.

I didn't know who Dr. Dre was.

But just like Trent Reznor,

there was three or four different lawsuits pending.

There's a lot of complications, a lot of weird stuff.

No one wanted to go near it. It was a mess.

All I remember is that Dre and Suge came in to play us The Chronic.

[HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYING]

I said, Dre, who recorded this for you?

He said, What do you mean?

I said, Who's the recording engineer? And he said, Me.

You produced it and you were the engineer? Yes.

I said, Wow. This guy will define lnterscope.

♪ One, two, three and to the four ♪

♪ Snoop Doggy Dogg and ♪ ♪ Dr. Dre Is at the door ♪

♪ Ready to make an ♪ ♪ entrance, so back on up ♪

♪ 'Cause you know we're ♪ ♪ about to rip shit up ♪

♪ Give me the microphone first ♪ ♪ So I can bust, like a bubble ♪

♪ Compton and Long Beach together ♪ ♪ Now you know you're in trouble ♪

♪ Ain't nothing but a G thang, baby ♪

♪ Two loc'ed out niggas, so we're crazy ♪

♪ Death Row is the label that pays me ♪

♪ Unfadeable, ♪ ♪ so please don't try to fade this ♪

♪ But, um, back to the lecture at hand... ♪

[JIMMY] Dre's sonics were far superior

to any rock record being made or any hip-hop.

It just sounded better than anything else on my speakers.

Jimmy was unlike any other record exec that I ever met.

He wasn't talking about how many records we were gonna sell.

It was a conversation about the an'.

[JIMMY] I said, Wow, these guys remind me of when I first saw The Rolling Stones.

They're the same as Mick and Keith.

They scare you, but their music brings you in.

♪ But now it's time for me ♪ ♪ To make my impression felt ♪

♪ So sit back, ♪ ♪ relax And strap on your seat belt ♪

♪ You never been on a ♪ ♪ ride like this before ♪

♪ With a producer who can ♪ ♪ rap And control the maestro ♪

♪ At the same time With the ♪ ♪ dope rhyme that I kick ♪

♪ You know and I know I ♪ ♪ flow some old funky shit ♪

I said, I'll tell you what, if you guys don't move on me,

and give me two to three weeks, I can clear up all these lawsuits.

And Suge and Dre looked at me and said...

Okay, that sounds good to me.

[STOUTE] I don't know any other white executive

would've took on what Jimmy took on,

which was one of the biggest headaches to come through the industry ever, probably.

[STEVE] I remember sitting in the meeting and the promotion guys were saying,

We ain't gonna get radio to play that.

And Jimmy's like, I want you to buy radio spots in the top markets.

All of them.

Get this hook played, because the hook is undeniable.

I'm the boss. Go do it.

92.3 The Beat. What you wanna say to The Beat?

♪ It's like this. ♪ ♪ And who gives a fuck about those? ♪

♪ So just chill till the next episode... ♪

[NAS] When The Chronic hit, it changed the world.

Musically, he's now left Earth.

Funk, break beats, reggae.

The whole fanatic development, the ebb and flow,

the stories about the uprising, the riots, coming out of that dark period.

And he delivered Snoop on a silver platter with bullet shells around him.

♪ Falling back on that ass ♪ ♪ With a hellafied gangsta lean ♪

♪ Getting funky on the mic Like ♪ ♪ a old batch of collard greens ♪

♪ It's the capital S, oh yes, ♪ ♪ I'm fresh N double-O, P ♪

♪ D,O, double-G,Y,D,O, ♪ ♪ double-G, you see ♪

[SNOOP DOGG] When Jimmy Lovine was like,

Snoop, I wanna get you guys on the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine.

You guys are like Mick and Keith.

I'm like, Who the fuck is Mick and Keith, nigga?

Fuck the Rolling Stone magazine, nigga,

I wanna be on The Source magazine cover, nigga.

Do you know that is hip-hop supremacy?

No, no, the Rolling Stone magazine is the...

I'm like, Man, I don't even fuck with The Rolling Stones.

I couldn't tell you one of them niggas' songs, man.

Fuck them.

And that motherfucker blew up, nigga. That motherfucker was everywhere.

I started going on tour

and it was just white folks coming up to me left and right like,

Oh my God, we love you. Snoop Doggy Dogg.

All around the world, like, Damn, Jimmy Lovine,

I ain't never had that many white people coming for me in my whole life, cuz,

telling me how much they love me, cuz. Thank you, I appreciate that.

We started having success right away.

So, Iput Suge and Dre and Death Row Records

right next to me on the same floor.

[COHEN] Jimmy took Suge under his wings.

I mean, Jimmy used to have football games at his house.

He would have Suge over there every Sunday with the Kennedys.

All right, team, go, team!

Every Sunday, it was football at the lovines'.

How many people have a football field at their house?

[JANET] We would never know who was going to show up.

[PAUL WACHTER] Wayne Gretzky would show up, and Bon Jovi.

- Gene Simmons. - Tom Jones.

- John McEnroe. - [PAUL] Eddie Van Halen played.

And it was an honest to goodness, serious football.

You didn't! You blocked me the entire way up!

I did not!

- Second down. - No, no.

- Second down. - Not complete, third down.

- Second down. - Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.

- Ball's up there. - Jimmy.

[FUCHS] Jimmy was very serious about winning.

But I gotta tell you, we were all serious about winning.

[COHEN] The reason Interscope was successful

versus a lot of the other start-ups at the time,

was Jimmy was an animal.

I mean, the most driven and brilliant person at the same time.

He was never off.

And he didn't understand why everybody else wasn't the same way.

[VICKI] We were both in production mode.

I was producing kids and a family, and he was producing his company.

We had the goal to make this incredible career.

Vicki's an attorney.

Vicki's just, you know, she was very, very smart.

And Vicki ran their life.

[VICKI] The vision was,

we knew that Jimmy's thing was going to be the thing that would change the world.

So, it was worth it for me to make small sacrifices.

I mean, Jimmy used to talk to his artists every single night.

He would literally have panic attacks on the weekends

because it was the weekend and he couldn't get a hold of people.

Like, he would just call, call, call, call.

Like, obsessive,

because he didn't really care at all about anything but hip-hop.

Let's face it.

[STEP JOHNSON] The street game is about money, getting that paper.

Jimmy admired Suge. They cared about each other.

They was making money together, winning.

But I don't think Jimmy realized how deep the culture shock was

that he was getting ready to get into at the time.

And they call it What's My Name? It's called Who Am I?

- WOMAN: Who Am I? - Yeah.

[STEP JOHNSON] After The Chronic came out, the most anticipated album,

not just in America, but over in Europe, everywhere,

was gonna beSnoop's first album, Doggystyle.

♪ Snoop Doggy D099 ♪

♪ Snoop Doggy D099 ♪

♪ It's the bow to the wow ♪ ♪ Creeping and crawling ♪

♪ Yiggy yes y'allin, Snoop Doggy Dogg in ♪

♪ The motherfucking house like everyday ♪

♪ Dropping shit with my nigga Mr. Dr. Dre ♪

[STEP JOHNSON] I mean, it was laid out.

I mean, Jimmy and them had learned a lot from The Chronic.

Great marketing plan.

[FUCHS] And, also, music had converted to CDs.

And people didn't understand that it cost a lot less to make a CD

than it cost to make cassettes.

So, that was the most lucrative time in the history of the music business.

[STEP JOHNSON] We knew we was getting ready to make a killing with this music.

[NAS] Oh, It was crazy.

But you know what that means,

when that word million is hitting the street in the '90s,

street guys rapping about the streets.

Now, we attach the word million to their name,

it flipped the streets.

'Cause, now, even/body's muscling their way into rap.

[FAB 5 FREDDY] In fact, what happened in the shooting of that video,

first morning, crowd gathers.

My assistant directors are coming over to me, going, Fab, we got a problem.

I'm like, What? These guys are not listening to anybody.

They were trying to ask people to step back.

One fight breaks out over there. Another fight breaks out.

Yo, fuck you. We ain't moving nowhere, cuz.

Dre said, I can't say nothing to them guys.

Next thing I know, police helicopters hovering.

So, we shut down the shoot.

[SIREN WAILING]

[FAB 5 FREDDY] And so, later, we went back to Dre's house, and we huddled.

Dre said, Look, Fab, if you can hang, you're welcome to stay here.

And, like, we will get this video done.

[PIANO PLAYING]

That whole summer, I felt like I was living in the record, The Chronic,

because the sex, the violence, the hood, it was a wild scene.

[MAN] Dr. Gin and Juice.

[FAB 5 FREDDY] But I remember after three shoots where Snoop didn't show up,

I was like, Dre, man, when is Snoop gonna get here?

And that's when Dre explained to me that somebody had been shot and killed

and that Snoop was on the low.

[MALE REPORTER] It happened in this Los Angeles park.

Snoop's bodyguard shot and killed 24-year-old Philip Woldemariam.

Snoop didn't pull the trigger,

but he, the bodyguard and a third man were all charged with murder

because prosecutors say they hunted down Woldemariam

after an earlier argument.

Snoop Doggy Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus,

claims self-defense.

[MALE REPORTER] This would be appropriately characterized

as a gang-motivated type killing.

[JIMMY] I remember Suge calling and saying,

You're about to hear something on the news.

Just know that our guys are all right

and it's all gonna be okay.

Next thing I knew, cops everywhere, surrounding the building.

That was rough. You know, we'd never been involved in something like that.

D.O.C.: That caught me completely off-guard.

But by that time, gangbanging had showed up.

You know, and Suge would show up with these big dudes,

red everywhere, and Snoop had his crew in blues,

and it was just nuts.

Yeah, you know, um, it was kind of exciting

because the environment was kind of thuggish.

It was Bloods on this side, Crips on this side,

and I'm hearing all these different war stories.

And I feel like it was something I needed,

because if I'm producing a record for a particular artist,

it's like you have to get into the type of vibe that they're in

and understand the type of environment that they're coming from, creatively,

and just, you know... You have to almost be that person.

[COHEN] Marilyn Manson?

Yeah, he was pretty rough.

Trent insisted that we sign him.

[TRENT] He was a really smart guy

that I thought was making really compelling music, you know,

and believed it.

Were we both 100% aware

that we were using mechanisms to shock people?

Yeah, of course we did.

♪ [SNOOP DOGG] ♪ ♪ This is for the G's ♪

♪ And this is for the hustlas ♪

♪ This is for the hustlas ♪ ♪ Now back to the G's ♪

[TRENT] So, we were looking at some houses to rent to set up studio in a house,

'cause that's what we wanted to do,

just live and breathe and constantly make music and see what happens.

- And one house in particular... - [DOG BARKING]

Which happens to be the cheapest, was on Cielo Drive.

Nice yard, beautiful view, you know, peaceful vibe.

Then to find out that's where the Manson-Tate murders took place.

And thought, Well, fuck it, let's rent that house.

[JIMMY] So, Dre had Snoop, and Trent had Marilyn Manson.

And when you have great artists like that,

you want their message and what they're doing as pure as possible.

What you do is you give them the keys and you say, Drive.

♪ You let me violate you ♪

[DR. DRE] Back at that time, I loved fast cars. I had a white Testarossa.

♪ You let me desecrate you ♪

[DR. DRE] Ispeed out on Wilshire Boulevard.

♪ You let me penetrate you ♪

[DR. DRE] A cop gets behind me.

Woop, woop.

♪ You let me complicate you ♪

I put it in gear and I take off.

♪ Help me. I broke apart my insides ♪

[DR. DRE] Somewhere between 100, 120 miles an hour, I see more lights behind me.

So, I decide I wanna go a little faster.

Now, I'm in a high-speed chase.

♪ Help me get away from myself ♪

I don't know what he was doing. It was ridiculous.

♪ I want to feel you from the inside ♪

♪ I want to fuck you like an animal ♪

♪ My whole existence is flawed ♪

♪ You get me closer to God ♪

Andre got into the high-speed chase in that Ferrari

about a year

into us dating.

I suppose I was innocent and naive

about all of the stuff that has to do with Dr. Dre.

I loved that he was confident and yet humble.

It's such a great combination.

We were incredibly compatible.

But my family and friends were leery

because they only knew Andre through media.

They didn't know the Andre that I knew.

But I think a persona was connected to him that wasn't true.

They knew Dr. Dre.

Her family is giving her pressure about me

because they're reading about a lot of the bullshit that was happening with me.

And the fucked-up part about that is, we'd just started dating when...

I had to turn myself in for five months.

Money.

[DR. DRE] Hey, hey. [COREY HAWKINS] There he is.

[DR. DRE] What's up with it?

There he is.

- How you doing, man? - I'm good.

- How you doin'? - I don't know. It's bittersweet. [LAUGHS]

Last night, huh?

- Say hi to Mr. Young again. - Hi. How you doing?

- You coming to the party? - Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

This is the last night of shooting. I'm excited.

Yeah, I told her you're gonna learn a lot about Dad. [LAUGHS]

- [COREY] What have you learned? - A lot.

[LAUGHING]

- I might go to the studio tonight after the set. - [COREY] I might follow you.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

[MAN] People that inspire you

may not necessarily be the nicest people to be around.

Yeah.

Yet they inspire you. Right?

- It's a hell of a motherfucking gray area. - Yeah.

You know? And you gotta be vigilant about...

[DR. DRE] What's important right now

- are the fills at bar two and bar four. - [SUGE] Okay.

- Light ones at two, you know what I mean? - Okay, let me do a take...

- And then stronger ones at eight. - Okay.

[VOCALIZING]

- [SUGE] Okay. - [DR. DRE] Or... [VOCALIZING]

[SUGE] Okay, see which one. Okay.

Every now and then, switch it up-

Okay, Okay-

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[DR. DRE] I'm not feeling the snare drum sound yet.

Punch in a little bit later.

Make me feel it, Suge.

What happened to that crash, Suge?

I need something a little bit more impressive.

[SNARE DRUM PLAYING]

[SNARE STOPS]

♪ I shall not fear no man but God ♪

♪ Though I walk through ♪ ♪ the valley of death ♪

♪ I shed so many tears ♪

♪ If I should die before I wake ♪

♪ Please God walk with me Grab ♪ ♪ a nigga and take me to heaven ♪

♪ Back in elementary I thrived on misery ♪

♪ Left me alone I grew up ♪ ♪ Amongst a dyin' breed ♪

♪ Inside my mind couldn't ♪ ♪ find a place to rest ♪

♪ Until I got that Thug ♪ ♪ Life Tatted on my chest ♪

♪ Tell me can you feel me? I'm not ♪ ♪ livin' in the past, you wanna last ♪

♪ Be the first to blast, remember Kato ♪

♪ No longer with us, he's deceased ♪

♪ Call in the sirens. ♪ ♪ Seen him murdered in the streets ♪

♪ Now rest in peace ♪

♪ Is there heaven for a G? Remember me ♪

♪ So many homies in the ♪ ♪ cemetery Shed so many tears ♪

♪ I suffered through the ♪ ♪ years And shed so many tears ♪

[JIMMY] Five years before he was on Death Row,

Tupac was on Interscope and did three albums.

In the beginning, it was a social class thing that he was confronting.

He really wanted to represent disillusioned youth.

[TU PAC] This world is such a Gimme, gimme, gimme.

You know, everybody's, like, you're taught that from school...

Everywhere, big business. You wanna be successful, you wanna be like Trump?

Gimme, gimme, gimme, push, push, push, push, step, step, step, crush, crush, crush.

I mean, can you imagine somebody havin' $32 million?

Thirty-two. $32 million.

And this person has nothing? And you can sleep?

[WHALLEY] It was the systems that prevented the poor

from finding opportunity in life that he was confronting.

And what made him great is that he was highly emotional.

But all of a sudden, things went strange.

[MALE REPORTER] Shakur is no stranger to violence.

In November 1994, he was shot during a robbery at a Manhattan recording studio.

$40,000 worth of jewelry was taken from him.

He also has a rap sheet as long as some of his songs.

This was his reaction after his latest conviction.

Nothin' the court can do can punish me more than I've been punished already.

- [FEMALE REPORTER] In what way? - By bein' shot five times.

Twice in the... I mean, nothin' the judge could tell me coulda made me not wanna

carry a gun more than gettin' shot.

So, I'm pickin' up, feel me?

[DOUG] These kids were real. This stuff was really real.

And we were right in the middle of it.

When you take those extremes and you nurture them

and not interfere with what they're doing,

the potential is limitless.

And that's what Interscope was about, empowering those artists.

[DOUG] And I'll tell you what we got from it.

We got some anxiety, we got a lot of laughs.

And we huddled in the foxhole.

♪ And I don't want you ♪ ♪ and I don't need you ♪

♪ Don't bother to resist, ♪ ♪ or I'll beat you ♪

♪ It's not your fault ♪ ♪ that you're always wrong ♪

♪ The weak ones are there ♪ ♪ To justify the strong ♪

♪ The beautiful people, ♪ ♪ the beautiful people ♪

♪ It's all relative to ♪ ♪ the size of your steeple ♪

♪ You can't see the forest for the trees ♪

♪ And you can't smell your ♪ ♪ own shit on your knees ♪

[MALE REPORTER] Marilyn Manson, the most controversial act on the road today,

coming to a sold-out arena near you.

[MALE REPORTER 2] He is causing cultural fights all over the country.

Marilyn Manson is evil.

♪ Hey you, what do you see? ♪

[MALE REPORTER 3] In every city, Manson's arrival stirs protests and angry headlines.

I've always identified with the character of Lucifer in the Bible.

[MAN] We are here to worship Satan.

Criminal charges can be a career ender.

But not in the case of Snoop Doggy Dogg.

Some accuse the rapper of making crime pay.

Murder sells, that's why people do videos on sex and murder.

[COHEN] From our point of view,

everybody had the right to say what they were saying

as long as they weren't breaking the law.

If anything, we were always trying to calm things down.

It was just impossible.

Some of y'all don't appreciate what we talkin' about.

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

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

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

The rap star Tupac Shakur is free on bond tonight

after his arrest this weekend in Atlanta.

Charged with shooting two off-duty police officers.

[FEMALE REPORTER] He had been criticized for anti-police lyrics.

[TU PAC] I don't gotta be a role model.

I don't gotta hold your hand. I don't gotta do shit.

[MALE REPORTER] Marilyn Manson's latest album recently went triple platinum.

[CONGRESSMAN] And on the next page, the words go,

It's not about East or West.

It's about niggas and bitches,

power and money,

riders and punks.

Which side are you on?

And there's the sound of a gun cocking and firing.

[ELECTRICITY CRACKLING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

And it ain't over!

♪ The beautiful people, ♪ ♪ the beautiful people ♪

♪ The beautiful people, ♪ ♪ the beautiful people ♪

♪ The beautiful people, ♪ ♪ the beautiful people ♪

♪ The beautiful people, ♪ ♪ the beautiful people ♪

[TU PAC] Happy New Year to you, too. You did your job. I'm outta money.

I'm outta all my resources.

You made me look like the bad guy in my own community,

and I appreciate it.

[CONGRESSMAN] These niggas are still fucking talkin'.

You niggas still breathing.

Fuckin' roaches.

[CHATTER ON RADIO]

[BEEPING]

[JIMMY] New York Times magazine section did a story on me.

And from what I understand, this guy, Jonathan Leo,

was at someone's house in the Hamptons.

And they were saying,

Who are the most disgusting purveyors of shmut in the world?

So, this guy Jonathan Leo says, Look what Time Warner's doin'.

They just bought 25% of this guy's record company for $100 million.

So, the next day, in U. S. News and World Report,

he wrote a story sayin',

Time Warner buying 25% of Interscope is like buying 25% of a mustard gas factory.

So, I'm like, Oh, man. Here we go.

There has never been a time in the history of the world

that so much sex and violence masquerading as entertainment

has been easily and readily available to so many people.

Never.

We do have a responsibility to assess the impact of your work

and to understand the damage that comes

from the incessant, repetitive, mindless violence

and irresponsible conduct that permeates our media all the time.

[BOB DOLE] A line has been crossed.

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

You don't have to degrade our women.

To kill people, to disrespect each other, well, it's not all right.

Those who pay them have a responsibility.

The corporate executives who hide behind the lofty language of free speech

should understand this,

we will name their names and shame them as they deserve to be shamed.

- Time Warner. - Time Warner.

[MAN] Time Warner's the biggest.

Time Warner owns a company called lnterscope.

The Death Row lnterscope coup.

[BOB DOLE] Which columnist John Leo called

the cultural equivalent of owning half the world's mustard gas factories.

To me, this music is the equivalent of yelling Fire in a crowded theater.

The fire starts. Meanwhile, simultaneously...

The media and entertainment industries are buzzing over what may become

the third mega-media merger of the summer.

The deal would create the biggest media company in the world.

But both sides say there are still major issues to be worked out.

Because of the proposed merger with Turner,

Time Warner needs tremendous amounts of regulatory approval,

and wanna be looked at with a great deal of favor.

[JIMMY] Jerry Levin called me in his office in the height of the insanity.

And Jerry was a very decent man.

He was the CEO of Time Warner.

He said, Jimmy, my son teaches with Tupac's lyrics in Harlem.

I get it. He said, I got a problem.

Dole has got the cable bill and I need his help.

And I gotta sacrifice somethin'.

So, I said, That sounds reasonable. But that's his problem.

[MALE REPORTER] All this means continuing headaches

for new Time Warner Music Group chairman, Michael Fuchs.

I was coming into chaos. This is probably why I was given the job.

The board was sick of what was goin' on.

So, I was told, It's time to clean house.

Maybe they thought I should be more respectful or something, you know.

[JIMMY] We meet with Michael Fuchs.

He says, The next six months, I'm gonna evaluate each and every one of you.

And he points to me as well.

And he goes, I'm the Michael Jordan of management.

So, I look at Michael Fuchs and I said, But Michael, this is baseball.

This guy went nuclear.

JIM MORET: Time Warner's music division has been in turmoil for months.

Heads have been rolling as the new boss cleans house

while the company remains under attack from foes of gangsta rap music.

Fuchs spent the summer ousting the rap label's defender, Doug Morris,

from his chief executive post.

Michael Fuchs just panicked.

[FUCHS] I fired Doug.

I felt there was a loyalty to the music industry,

but not necessarily loyalty to the company.

We were doin' great.

And suddenly, we're out the window, goin' splat on the pavement.

Not him. Me first. I hated the fact that it was me first.

The music business is very tight.

Tight like a pack of thieves, you know.

You got some guys from Brooklyn in this war with all of these

enormously powerful entities.

And Time Warner's first instinct

was to buy the whole thing and attempt to clean it up,

Death Row Records, which was an absurdity.

[JIMMY] I get a phone call at midnight from Suge Knight.

And he says to me, Yo, who's the guy we hate at Time Warner?

I said, Michael Fuchs. He goes, Yeah, that's him.

They want me to meet him and Melba Moore and Dionne Warwick

at Dionne's house tomorrow morning.

I said, Where? Who?

Melba Moore and Dionne Wan/vick and Michael Fuchs?

Yeah.

And they're gettin' the mayor of Compton to come.

I'm like, What the fuck is this guy doing?

I was told to police the lyrics a little more.

[JIMMY] Michael Fuchs wants to talk to me about a deal.

[FUCHS] Dionne Warwick said, Fly out here.

Suge's like my nephew. He lives in the neighborhood.

He'll come over. You'll talk about things.

I'm a partner of his. We own the label as much as he does.

For him to fly out and meet with one of our major labels

without calling us is unacceptable in any form of business.

So, I call Suge.

I said, Suge, meet me tomorrow morning at Jerry's Deli at 8:00.

So, I go to Jerry's Deli.

I meet Suge and David Kenner, Suge's lawyer.

And I know that if Suge walks into that meeting,

Michael Fuchs, he would do anything to either put Interscope outta business

or get this thing done with these lyrics.

So, Suge and I were gonna stay in that restaurant with David Kenner

and just wait until Michael Fuchs left.

Dionne kept tryin' to call Suge.

[JIMMY] And Suge was incredible.

So, every time Warwick would call and say,

Hi, baby, when are you getting here?

He would say, I'm down the street, and hang up.

And he'd say, I'll take a chicken breast, Cheerios. And another hour passed.

Hey, where are you? I'm almost there. I'm at the light. By 3:00...

I realized Jimmy was hostile.

[JIMMY] She says, Michael said if you guys want more money, it's cool.

He goes, Yeah, I'm on my way.

And he never goes.

G RU BMAN: I don't even think it was just money.

I think it's a matter of principle.

By taking their money, he would've lost control.

[JIMMY] By 5:00, Fuchs had to leave.

Who had time for that?

So, she calls up, You embarrassed me. What are you doing? I looked foolish.

And Suge looks at the phone and goes, Hey, you're the psychic.

How come you didn't know I wasn't comin'?

And hangs up.

[PHONE RINGING]

Don't worry about this.

[MAN] Over there.

[FEMALE REPORTER] So, you're saying that

Death Row does not present any negative images to black youth?

No, I think it's a positive image.

I think Death Row's real positive to black youth.

I mean, it's lettin' people know that you can be yourself

and still be a child of God and still be successful.

[INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER]

[DR. DRE] 1995.

It was such a transitional period for me.

When I was in jail, bein' isolated like that

and not havin' anything to do except think for five months,

it forced me to reflect and think about the people that were around me,

were they helpin' me? Were they friends or foes?

It also gave me the opportunity to realize

how much Nicole was in love with me

and how much I was in love with her.

Her visits were so important, because she didn't have to do that.

We'd just started datin'.

She could've said, Fuck you. You're in jail.

She was just there for me.

And then Eazy dies.

And, you know, me and him had been talkin' about gettin' together,

doin' music again, but...

I got to the hospital, and I saw Cube.

Me and him embrace.

We hadn't seen each other in a long time, you know, throughout all the bullshit.

We hadn't seen each other until that moment.

And I went up to see E.

He was just la yin' there with this machine breathin' for him, this tube in his mouth-

And it was really fuckin' me up, man.

It tripped me out a little bit.

So, I reached over and said a couple of words to him,

spoke a few words in his ear, and...

That was that. I left. That was the last time I saw him.

You know, all these things happened around the same time.

And I would say it was probably in a month's period.

It was a lot to deal with.

And then we had the 1995 Source Awards.

That shit was crazy.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

♪ It's the motherfuckin' D-R-E Dr. Dre, ♪ ♪ motherfucker ♪

♪ You know I'm mobbin' ♪ ♪ With the D-O-double-G ♪

♪ Say what? ♪

♪ Straight off the ♪ ♪ fuckin' streets of C-P-T ♪

♪ King of the beats. ♪ ♪ You ride to 'em in your Fleet ♪

♪ Fleetwood ♪

♪ Or Coupe De Ville rollin' on dubs ♪

♪ Now how you feelin' ♪ ♪ whoopty whoop Nigga what? ♪

Okay, I'm good.

All right, cool.

[SNOOP DOGG] Twenty years ago, in this buildin' right here, is where it all took place.

[DR. DRE] Ihaven't been in this motherfucker since that day.

- [SNOOP DOGG] Are you serious? - Yeah.

You know, that's the same spot that Suge got up there and said that shit.

We were surrounded.

That guy. Oh, yeah, everything.

[NAS] When The Source Awards was comin' up, the whole city was excited.

This was our Grammys, Oscars.

If you don't make your name today, you don't exist.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Yeah!

[NAS] At the time, Death Row was the biggest money-maker in rap, hands down.

♪ Keep the hands raised! ♪

Death Row, we had our section right here.

Fifteen Bloods, 15 Crips, associates and family members.

Fifty people total.

And then right here you had Queens,

Brooklyn on the side, Bronx behind us, New Jersey, Staten Island.

Every part of New York that you could imagine.

[DR. DRE] For me, it was the first time the East Coast is really embracin'

what we're doin' on the West Coast.

[NAS] You know, New Yorkers wasn't goin' platinum anymore,

because the generation before us fizzlin' out.

But Bad Boy and Puffy were comin' up.

They were about to be the next Death Row or bigger,

because Puff's a smart guy.

His ear is incredible.

[PUFFY] No... No phones allowed. I need you to pay attention to me.

[NAS] And he fine-tuned the business side more than anybody.

They need to see how meticulous I take this flyness. You know what I'm sayin'?

I'm from the East Coast.

New York, New York.

New York in this motherfucker, Harlem, New York, we up in this bitch.

Straight up Brooklyn in the house. Representin '.

The entire night, the room was electrified with tension.

Everybody knew there was gonna be some shit

between the boroughs comin' here to make a name.

The furthest thing from my mind was any beef with Death Row.

[DR. DRE] And then Suge Knight walks on stage

and says the most outrageous shit ever.

Just completely disrespects Puff.

[SUGE] The one other thing I'd like to say,

any artist out there wanna be an artist

and wanna stay a star

and don't wanna have to worry about the executive producer

tlyin' to be all in the videos,

all on the records, dancin', come to Death Row.

[AUDIENCE CHEERING]

I was like, Oh shit, he done fucked up.

For the spirit, we supporting him and clappin' 'cause he's with us.

Yay.

But then the nigga start to think,

Well, what the fuck did this nigga just say?

I thought it was gangsta that he would be in New York and say that.

So, for a few seconds, I was lovin' it,

because I was like, If we came here to rumble

let's turn this thing into a rumble.

That's the worst shit to do is to disrespect a nigga in his home turf.

He's talking about me in the videos.

I'm like, FUCK him-

[DR. DRE] In my opinion, it made all the New York niggas start comin' together.

[SNOOP DOGG] They loved us, but when that moment happened

they hated the shit out of us, just that quick. Like that.

It felt dangerous.

It felt like, This shit is dangerous right here.

[SNOOP DOGG] It wasjust a room full of pit bulls and gorillas.

This was niggas that was wild. It was animals.

You know what I'm sayin'?

Hyenas.

We had a bunch of niggas with us that was fresh outta the pen,

niggas with a lotta shit to prove.

You know, niggas that just love gettin' active.

[DR. DRE] And it's thousands of these niggas with guns and...

[NAS] Death Row had things on 'em, Bad Boy had things on 'em.

I'm pretty sure Wu-Tang was prepared.

That night I saw the headlines next day,

Stupid Source Awards gathers up stupid rappers, and they shot each other.

Rap is done.

A bloodbath.

Winner is...

Uh-oh, we're gonna have some trouble here, the D-R-E.

Dr. Dre.

[NAS] Then when Snoop got on stage bandanna'd up, braids,

it looked like he came for war.

Wait, wait, wait, 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?

So, I'm like, ls he getting ready to say, 'Fuck New York'?

Well, let it be known, then, we don't give a fuck.

We know y'all East Coast.

We know where the fuck we at.

The East Coast in the motherfucking house.

[SNOOP DOGG] You match aggression with aggression.

But you match aggression with aggression with love, with asking.

[NAS] Snoop had the power right there to make it go either way.

And nigga said, You know what, for the sake of what that nigga just said,

we're gonna let y'all walk up outta here.

But, nigga, y'all better hurry up and get the fuck outta here.

[JIMMY] So, when all this stuff is going on in Warner,

this sort of war begins between Bad Boy and Death Row.

And that's when we all realized, Whoa, we're not in Kansas anymore.

[NAS] The Source Awards changed everything.

Now, you realized where your power was.

There was no limits to where a CEO or a mogul can wind up.

So, now, it becomes more serious at the top.

♪ When the la-Ia hits ya ♪ ♪ lyrics just splits ya ♪

♪ Head so hard, ♪ ♪ that your hat can't fit you ♪

♪ Either I'm with ya or against ya ♪

[SNOOP DOGG] The dialogue at Death Row now becomes

Suge is more vocal for what's being said than what's being done.

And Dr. Dre don't work under nobody's schedule or demands.

Same shit, different toilet.

[STEVE] I was in the trenches with Suge.

A lot of my stuff was around what was Dre gonna focus on?

Was Dre gonna work? What's he workin' on?

[JIMMY] 'Cause Dre wasn't any faster then, than he is now.

But when Suge told me he and Tupac wanted to get together,

what I thought of is, Dre and Pac.

Tupac's in prison.

[MALE REPORTER] Tupac, since your period of incarceration

in Clinton Correctional Facility,

have you taken the time to reflect on your gangster thug image?

[CHUCKLES]

Um, I don't see it as me havin' this gangster thug image.

Um... Thug life would be more accurate.

But it's not an image, it's just a way of life. It's a mentality.

I don't feel like what I did was so evil.

I just feel like what... The way I was livin' and my mentality

was a part of my progression to be a man.

[NAS] Pac was a different beast.

A lot of rappers like to claim they're Pac 'cause they thugs.

That's not Pac.

No doubt.

You know, this is a guy who saw a black person

bein' harassed by police officers and shot 'em.

You're not Pac until you're fightin' with killers.

[WHALLEY] But that was a moment in time where Tupac had fear in him.

Here's a young man accused of things he didn't do and put in jail.

And he didn't know who to trust anymore.

And somehow or another, he found that in Suge.

[JIMMY] Time Warner wouldn't allow us to bail out Tupac.

So, what happened was,

we advanced Death Row the money and Death Row bailed out Tupac.

[COHEN] I imagine that Pac himself believed Suge bailed him out.

But the truth is, we and Time Warner put up the money. I mean, look...

I was definitely part of bailing out Tupac.

♪ California love ♪

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[INDISTINCT SHOUTING]

[STEVE] Now, you got Tupac,

part of that Death Row fuckin' volcano.

And they played California Love for the first time.

[TU PAC] A song with Tupac, Dre, and Roger Troutman?

Holy fuck. Start manufacturing, start shippin'.

[TU PAC] Come on, y'all, that's worth your money.

[STEVE] Guys, you just made my job easy.

California, get up!

[STEVE] You know an eruption 's gonna happen.

♪ Out on bail fresh outta jail ♪ ♪ California dreaming ♪

♪ Soon as I stepped on the scene ♪ ♪ I'm hearing hoochies screaming ♪

♪ Fiending for money and alcohol ♪

♪ The life of a Westside player ♪ ♪ Where cowards die and the strong ball ♪

♪ Only in Cali where we riot ♪ ♪ Not rally to live and die ♪

♪ In LA, we wearing Chucks not Ballies ♪

♪ That's right ♪

♪ Dressed in Locs and khaki suits ♪ ♪ And ride is what we do ♪

♪ Flossing, but have caution ♪ ♪ We collide with other crews ♪

♪ Famous because we program ♪

When Tupac came into the studio, he just stayed in the booth,

wrote the song, laid the song, put up another track.

That was amazing.

He would just write about five or six songs before he comes out.

♪ But give me that bomb beat from Dre ♪

♪ Let me serenade the streets of LA ♪

♪ From Oakland to Sac-town ♪ ♪ The Bay Area and back down ♪

♪ Cali is where they put their mack down ♪

♪ Give me love! ♪

[SNOOP DOGG] Pac was like, Fuck that. I'm on it. Right now.

California Love, whoopty whoop, do the video.

Nigga, you've probably never even seen Mad Max.

Come on, put the suit on, nigga, let's go.

And Dre was great at takin' Tupac's built-up frustration

and makin' that shit sound fuckin' awesome.

[JIMMY] I said, Dre, you nailed it.

You heard Dre take just another step in production.

Next year, Death Row gonna start printin' our own money.

'Cause we making so much we need...

[JIMMY] But as success builds, as visibility builds,

as fame builds, people react differently.

[DR. DRE] Tupac, I did not see it coming.

[JIMMY] When Pac and Suge got together, it created a very volatile situation-

They were gonna do what they were gonna do.

And we couldn't control that.

I just wanna send a shout-out to Bad Boy Records.

[JIMMY] It became about somethin' that none of us really understood.

It became a street war.

[TU PAC] We're comin' to 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.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[SNOOP DOGG] Now, Tupac was my friend.

So, I had no problem with pla yin' my role, you know.

Nigga, you need to wear suits, nigga.

Hugo Boss, nigga. Jewelry. Do this, do that.

Nigga, la what your hair down.

But once he started badmouthin' Dre, I'm feelin' like that's comin' from Suge.

But still comin' outta Pads mouth.

I kinda pushed away from him.

D.O.C.: I don't think Suge ever understood

that the power behind everything great that was happenin' was Dre.

[DR. DRE] I wanted to leave. I wanted to leave Death Row

and everything that was accumulated.

PETER: I was going, Dre, this label's worth a lotta money.

You should get paid for it. You own half the label. He goes, No.

[DR. DRE] I didn't want anything followin' me.

PATERNO: I'm done. I'm done.

[JIMMY] So, Icalled Dre.

I said, Don't break up The Beatles. You keep the band together. You know?

And he said, No, I can't do it. There's nothin' I can do about it.

[DR. DRE] Everything just changed.

It became a lot more violent. You know?

Engineers gettin' beat down, just random people gettin' beat down

and shot at in the studio, in the mic booth.

All kinda shit that I was just against.

REPORTER: You saw some of this?

I'm not sayin' that on camera.

[SNOOP DOGG] There was always incidents that are secret

and that we will never speak on.

D.O.C.: Power, control, celebrity.

It'll fuck anybody. Anybody.

And it happened to Death Row.

There's a story nobody knows about,

'cause they brought this person into my office, of all places.

And the beating that they commenced to put on that dude...

There was blood everywhere, and the dude is pullin' on my pants leg.

You know, I just wanted to get out.

[SNOOP DOGG] No, nigga, you can't leave.

And if you do leave, nigga, you gonna leave in a box.

REPORTER: That was Death ROW?

That's Death Row.

[JIMMY] I said, You know, gangstas spend their whole life trying to become legitimate.

You guys are earning tens of millions of dollars legitimately.

Why get involved with any of this nonsense?

I mean, look...

At one moment, I said to my ex-wife, I said,

Am I defending free speech or am I funding Hamas?

I was so confused.

It was so intense and...

I was on a new page I'd never seen in my life before, every day.

You know, on the news, every time we're watching TV, somethin' would come on.

This thing happened, you know, this guy got killed or shot,

or, you know, and there was always a reason for it.

And I don't know if I just... I don't know what I did.

I was on a mission. I was on a very, very intense mission.

[FEMALE REPORTER] What do you feel when you hear a record like Tupac's new one?

[MAN] I love Tupac's new record.

[FEMALE REPORTER] Right. But don't you feel

like that creates tension between East and West?

He's talking about killing people. I had sex with your wife.

And not in those words.

♪ Oh, I'll give you all the love ♪

I want in return, sweet darling

GRUBMAN: I am sitting in the south of France,

having a wonderful time, baking my body.

And then somebody comes over to me and says, You have a phone call.

And it's from Jimmy Lovine.

Allen, listen, we're gonna have a meeting over at Warner's

with everything that's happening.

That was his signal to tell me to get my ass back.

Thank God for the Concorde.

I take off at 10:30. I'm in New York at 9:30.

[JIMMY] So, Ted, Allen and Skip Brittenham go over, have the meeting at 9:30.

And, you know, I'm banned. Right?

We'll have the meeting. But he can't come.

They thought that they could manage Ted Fields and the lawyer.

[JIMMY] Ted's staying at the Four Seasons. I'm at the St. Regis with David Cohen.

They call us up at 10:30 and Ted says, We got great news.

Warner's proposed to buy our share of the company for $150 million.

And I'm ecstatic.

I hang up the phone. And I run there.

We go upstairs and I say, What did you say?

Allen said, Shut up. We all... They gave us $150 million.

We get rid of Death Row. Nobody likes that music anyway.

Jimmy says, No way, we're not doing that.

Allen says, You idiot. You're gonna get all this money.

$150 million.

- We can't do it. We're out. - Are you nuts?

- [JIMMY] Fuck that. - Are you crazy?

[JIMMY] I've never been so sure.

- Are you fucking crazy? - No. No. No.

We didn't do it.

[COHEN] Jimmy, against the advice of his attorneys, had the courage to say,

No, I'm gonna ride with Death Row. This is what we do.

GRUBMAN: So, then Time Warner decides

that they have gotta sell their share to us.

So, everything's good. We're happy.

[JIMMY] Meanwhile, every time I'd call Geffen,

he would say, You can't be this lucky to get your company back.

I did say that. I said, Jimmy, this is the greatest thing that ever happened to you.

GRUBMAN: 'Cause Doug now, by the way,

is no longer at Warner's. He's at MCA.

[JIMMY] And him, Geffen and Edgar Bronfman took our company in.

We bought it again. We bought lnterscope.

GRUBMAN: This was a defining moment.

And people lost, which was the Warner side.

And people won, which was the Interscope and MCA side.

[DOUG] The success was remarkable.

At one point, Interscope was responsible for the top four albums in Billboard.

[GWEN] He predicted it. Literally, six years on the dot from when Jimmy came up to me,

Don't Speak was number one around the world.

And I was a huge star.

Everyone did great but me.

♪ Don't speak ♪ ♪ I know just what you're sayin' ♪

[FUCHS] But when you think back, what was the reason to be upset?

♪ Don't tell me 'cause it hurts ♪

- Doug, how you doin'? Yeah. - Hello?

It's crazy, right? It's gonna get worse. I don't know what the hell's going on.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER ON PHONE]

STEVIE: I remember being at Jimmy's house, in the house he's in now,

for something after some Grammys or something.

And he was supposed to go to this thing, but he didn't go.

And there was a stabbing.

And I remember his oldest son saying, Dad, you better start to be careful now.

Because somebody's gonna blow your head off.

And at that point I'm like, This is really too serious now.

It was deadly serious

with Death Row and death threats.

I felt like it was getting too dangerous for Jimmy, his family and me.

Because one night he called me and he said, I want you go to a premiere with me.

So, I go over and we started to get in the car

and he said, Okay, you guys better put these on now.

I said, Put what on? We had to wear a bulletproof vest at a premiere.

And I've made a lot of movies and I was head of a studio.

I'd been to many, many premieres.

But I've never worn a bulletproof vest going down a red carpet.

That's Jimmy.

[BONO] And I said, You're making music. This is... Wow. How'd it get to this?

[STEVE] I remember riding in the car with Suge once.

And Jimmy had invested hundreds of hours into the human being, to really help him.

I said, Jimmy has given so much of himself to you.

Why is it going to the place it's going?

And Suge said, It's what I know.

[TU PAC] Hey yo, I got some new shit for y'all tonight.

[NAS] It was, like, Forget how y'all knew rap before. This is a new day.

Oh, yes.

Let's go all the way.

[TU PAC] See, it's this nigga named Nas.

And he kicking with these niggas named Mobb Deep.

And they kickin' with some niggas named Bad Boy.

[NAS] Fear is a good thing 'cause it can keep you in check.

But I say fuck 'em all.

You cross lines that, you just knew it, somebody's gonna get hurt.

So, I'm about to take this nigga beat and whoop his ass

with his own motherfucking beat.

1996, everything came together that same year.

♪ Menacin' methods ♪ ♪ label me a lethal weapon ♪

♪ Making niggas die ♪

♪ Die witnessin' breathless imperfections ♪

♪ Can you picture my specific plan ♪ ♪ To be the man in this wicked land ♪

♪ Underhanded hits are planned ♪ ♪ Scams are plotted over grams of rock ♪

♪ Undercover agents die by the random shots ♪ ♪ We all die in the end ♪

[STEVE] Tupac was two different people Iivin' in the same body.

This was one of the greatest poets of a generation.

Totally gracious, totally engaged. But you saw the fuel of what was driving him.

He was almost manic.

♪ How can I show 'em how I feel inside? ♪

♪ We outlaws motherfuckers ♪ ♪ Can't kill my pride ♪

[WHALLEY] What made him great is that he was highly emotional.

But he's just lashing out.

♪ Niggas shot me five times? ♪ ♪ I came out of jail and sold five million ♪

♪ The niggas can't fuck with us ♪

[WHALLEY] I could only interpret it as that

he was trying to figure out who the enemy was.

[PUFFY] We never got into dislikin' any of the artists,

but we had a problem with Suge really disrupting our quality of life.

♪ Westside was the war cry. ♪ ♪ Bustin' all freely screaming fuck ♪

♪ All y'all niggas in Swahili. ♪ ♪ Pistol packin' fresh out of jail ♪

It was just very sad.

See, I can't answer.

This is that slippery slope for me, you know what I'm sayin'?

♪ Send me to hell. ♪ ♪ 'Cause I ain't beggin' for my life ♪

♪ Ain't nothing worse. ♪ ♪ Than this cursed-ass hopeless life ♪

♪ I'm troublesome ♪

[ANNOUNCER] And now ladies and gentlemen in attendance, it's showtime.

[JIMMY] I remember them going to the fights in Vegas.

And I always thought that was dangerous, you know?

And they went to the fight that night.

[YELLING]

♪ La la la la, la, la. La, la-Ia la, la ♪

[JIMMY] There was this fight.

♪ All you niggas die ♪

♪ La la la la, la, la. La, la-Ia la, la ♪

[JIMMY] It's on video.

♪ Bye-bye, bye-bye. All you niggas die ♪

[JIMMY] Everyone has seen it.

♪ La la la la, la, la. La, la-Ia la, la ♪

[JIMMY] And next thing you know...

♪ All you niggas die ♪

[GUNSHOTS AND GLASS SHATTERING]

[TIRES SCREECHING]

♪ Bye-bye, bye-bye. All you niggas die ♪

[SNOOP DOGG] I was in LA Me and Pac wasn't seeing eye to eye.

So, I got a page. Nigga was like, Put on the news.

[DAN RATHER] The rap singer, Tupac Shakur

was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.

No one has been arrested in the killing. Shakur was 25 years old.

So, I drove to Vegas to go, um... To go see.

And his mama was in the hallway.

And she was like, Go in there, say somethin' to him, baby.

I'm like, All right. I went up in there and just, you know...

Fucked up.

It was just the worst thing that could happen.

You know, these are things that

everybody wishes they could have prevented somehow.

You know?

And, if only, if only, you know, and...

There was no reason for Tupac to die. You know?

And, um, especially like that.

A life is lost.

Company's goin' down the hill. Everybody's in disarray.

And Dre on the sideline, watchin'.

And everybody's sayin', I see why you left, Dre-

[NEWS READER] Los Angeles superior court judge

ordered Knight into court for violating his probation

and then raised troubling questions

about why Knight hadn't been locked up before now.

[JIMMY] Suge went to prison for a long time.

And that was the end.

[DR. DRE] I feel like the gangsta rap era's over.

You know, put out negative energy, it's gonna come back to you, period.

Live by the gun, die by the gun.

It's time for somethin' else, you know.

I just been trying to put together a new family,

and basically just start all over.

[MUSIC PLAYING]