◆ SpookStack

wok FR ew I CRB aD wn cheated by his record company and that he should leave. Knight is alleged to have threatened Dre’s producer with baseball bats and pipes in order to break his contract. The release of Dre’s album “The Chronic” shortly after Death Row was founded helped establish the company as a major force. By the summer of 1995, it was one of the top record companies in the rap-music world. “Suge and Dre re- ally were a magical combination,” a black entertainment executive who was then at one of the big music companies told me. They were trusted on the streets. “White “1 black executives, no matter what their ‘nking, were not going to be trusted. Ve're square to them.” And Knight was formidable manager. “He never really semed to sleep. He had an instinct with eople about what he thought their mar- etability could be. He could motivate dre to finish what he started. And he idn’t take no for an answer. Dre had es- mtially all the ideas, and Suge the man gement muscle to get it done.” Death Row owed its start to Inter- ope. Jimmy lovine and Ted Field had acided to fund Death Row and distrib- ce its products in 1992, when other ampanies had shied away. One execu- ve at a major studio who had tumed own the prospective Death Row ven- wre told me that he and his colleagues ‘It that “Life is too short” to assume the sk that they believed an association’ ith Knight might pose. “Jimmy is com- sttable with gangsters, he can deal with tem, it doesn’t bother him,” the execu- ve said. “He’s a street guy himself.” wine—the son of a Brooklyn long- --loreman, who, many say, aspired to be the next David Geffen—wanted to make his mark fast, and he was impatient with the progress of his new business at first. So he gambled, and reaped the payoff: gangsta rap tumed out to be a gold mine. But the disadvantage of being in- volved with Death Row was continuing reproaches from social critics and in- censed shareholders. Time Warner had succumbed to pressure of that nature when it disengaged itself frorn Ice-T in 1993. By early 1995, however, the pro- fitability of gangsta rap seemed to be tip- ping the scales of greed and fear, When Time Warner was discussing raising its stake in Interscope from twenty-five per cent to fifty per cent, they sought assur- ances that the relationship with Death Row would continue. Then, in the late spring of 1995, Time Wamer again came under attack for its involvement in gang- sta rap, this time by the joined forces of William Bennett and C, DeLores Tucker, the chairwoman of the National Political Congress of Black Women. Tucker, pointing to Tupac, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Dr. Dre (the lacter two at Death Row), all of whom had problems with the law, declared that “Interscope is a company Time Warner needs to get out of business with immediately.” Tupac was too promising an artist for Interscope to consider jettisoning, but there was a compromise solution that thight make it appear that Interscope was insulated from him, and the solution ap- parently made sense to everyone in- volved—except Tupac. Suge Knight had wanted Tupac at Death Row for some time, although he had not been a Tupac supporter at first, “He was not into the Tupac-artist thing,” a producer who knows Suge says. “But then came his thug notoriety—being called a rapist, getting in brawls. . With his problems, he became more at- tractive to Suge.” Knight had been mak- ing overtures to Tupac with Interscope's blessing. A music executive who worked with Interscope recalls lovine saying to Knight, “Take this kid, take him please. He’s out of control. You can control him. Take him.” Watani Tyehimba remembers a meeting in 1993 attended by Tupac, Knight, [ovine, and himself, at which lovine, saying it made sense for Tupac to work with Ds. Dre, argued strongly that he should sign with Death Row. Tye- himba was surprised, but lovine ex- plained that Interscope and Death Row had a “unique relationship’—suggesting that Death Row’s gain of Tupac would not mean Interscope’s significant loss. The exact nature of that “unique re- lationship” may be of more than aca- demic interest to federal authorities in- S7 vestigating possible criminal activities at Death Row. Suge Knight has always been at pains to portray himself as an in- dependent operator. For example, he boasted that Death Row, unlike other small companies, owns its masters (the original recordings of the albums). Since the long-term value of rap recordings is only speculative at this point, the own- ership of the masters is a matter of ego more than economics, a music executive explained to me, and in the case of Death Row “it was important for the im- age to say they were black-owned.” But in fact Death Row’s masters are heavily mortgaged, and have been used as secu- rity against loans and advances from Interscope. Indeed, Death Row has been financially dependent on Interscope from the beginning. While Knight clearly had a great deal of autonomy, he and Iovine worked to~ gether closely. “It was Jimmy and Suge, Jimmy and Suge,” someone who knew them both well cold me. Since no one wanted to tell Knight anything that “set his fuse,” he said, it was Iovine who dealt with Knight. The relationship was very hands-on. Promotions and marketing for Death Row were handled by an Inter- scope employee. Ifa production company was making a video for Death Row, its contract might well be with Interscope. The closeness berween the two com- panies was underscored by their physical proximity. Until last year they were lo- cased just across the hall from each other in an office building in Westwood. N a business flowchart, it may have meant just shifting Tupac from one box to another, but for Tupac to go. from Interscope to Death Row, only a hallway apart, was to enter a different, and far more sinister, world. Ie was widely believed that one of the major in- vestors in Death Row was a drug dealer named Michael (Harry-O) Harris, who was serving time for attempted murder as well as drug convictions. He was said to have provided the seed money for Death Row. Knight and Harris’s law- yer, David Kenner, who had also be- come the lawyer for Death Row, were supposed to be guarding Harris's inter- ests. There were even rumors that the company was being used to launder drag: money on 4 continuing basis. Moreover, - it was said that there were contracts out on Knight, and that Harris was unhappy" eee.