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Pynrmery { { i } i | # COFFEE + * KIC (coRME Tae oN which Kenner has consistently denied, the conflict would be even more patent. Ir also might explain how he—~a white criminal-defense lawyer who in the eighties handled some of L.A.'s most high-profile drug, racketeering, and murder cases but had virtually no expe- rience in entertainment law—could have emerged at the top of one of the hottest black-music record labels. Kenner’s entrée, it now seems plain, came through Michael Harris. Paul Palladino, a private investigator who has worked closely with Kenner for years, told me that back in 1991 or so “David was representing Michael. Harris on his appeal, and Harris introduced him to Suge.” In his unfiled complaint against Death Row and Interscope, Harris al- leged that he had had a prison meeting in September, 1991, with Kenner and Knight, to discuss the terms of his in- vestment in what would become Death Row. Harris and Knight were to be equal partners, he alleged, and Kenner was to set up the corporation and help Knight manage it. (Knight and Kenner deny this.) In its first couple of years, other lawyers who were retained by Death Row told me, Kenner was doing its criminal-defense work, and he did not appear to have a broader role. But by RLY TEA AND SYMPATHY ) oe Oe N THE PANT ne? 1995 he was, some thought, the prover- bial power behind the throne. To many of Tupac's friends, the relationship be- tween Knight and Kenner fit a familiar pattern: a black gangster who has access to the streets works in consort with a white player who is connected to levers of power in the world at large. Knight might wear a ring with the initials “M.0.B.”—“Member of Bloods’—but in their eyes Kenner was the real thing. AVID KENNER began to represent Tupac as his entertainment law- yer and as his lawyer for civil and crimi- nal cases in California, but Tupac asked Charles Ogletree to continue to represent him as well. Ogletree told me that he re- peatedly wrote letters to Death Row, ask- ing to see the contract Tupac had signed with Death Row in prison and to nego- tiate a formal contract under more con- scionable circumstances; but all his efforts, he said, were “met with silence, diver- sions, and outright misrepresentations.” Ogletree was also handicapped in his efforts to carry out Tupac's instructions to settle some of his numerous civil law- suits. “Tupac came out of jail with no money. He would say, T want to take care of this case.’ ] would negotiate a settlement; he would say, ‘Good, Death THE NEW YORKER, JULY 7, 1997 Row has my money, tell them to send the check.”” When the check didn’t come, Ogletree continued, “I would call Kenner. He would say, Te’s in the mail.’ Then, when it never arrived, he would say he was sending it FedEx. Then, when it didn’t arrive, he would say he’d wire it.” Ogletree added, “We should have been able to close the deal, but it was never possible. We had to go through the record company. It was as though he had no life except that given to him by Death Row.” By the late spring, Ogletree says, Tu- pac was carefully plotting his escape. “He had Euphanasia, he had the Out- lawz, he had his movie deals~—he was building something that was all to be part of one entity.... He had a strat- egy—the idea was to maintain a friendly relationship with Suge but to separate his business.” The precedent of Dr. Dre's departure from Death Row did not seem especially encouraging. A music- business executive who was friendly with Dre says that Dre left because he was uncomfortable with Knight's “business practices.” Dre abandoned his interest in the company in return for a relatively modest financial settlement, and Inter- scope facilitated the divorce by giving him a lucrative new contract. “Look at Dre,” Ogletree says. “Such a brilliant, creative musician. He started Death Row, and in order to get out he had to give up almost everything... . Now, what would it take for Tupac, the hot- test star around, whose success was only growing?” From a legal standpoint, Ogletree said, it was not so difficult, the contract signed in prison could be chal- Jenged. “But you have to live after that... . Tt was a question of how to walk away with your limbs attached and bodily functions operating. “I remember seeing him just before his twenty-fifth birthday,” Ogletree con- tinued. “He felt it was a glorious day. He never imagined he'd live to be twenty- five—but there was a sadness in his eyes, because he still had these chains binding him. This was not where he wanted to be. I said, ‘You can be anything you want to be.’ He said, ‘Can I be a lawyer?’ I said, "You'd be a damn good lawyer!’ I sent him a Harvard Law School sweatshirt.” Through most of the summer, Tupac was on the set of “Gang Related,” 2 film in which he was costarring with Jim