Death Row Chronicles

Death Row's in the motherfuckin' house!

Death Row can be bigger than Motown

or Sony or Warner Brothers.

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

The master plan was to take over the world.

Some of the greatest artists came together at one time.

And it was like a comet streaking across the sky.

Sex, drugs, violence...

For better, for worse, gang bang went pop.

It's like everything we touched turned to gold.

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

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

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

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

it became more dangerous.

It was just a blood nation.

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

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

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

This is dangerous.

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

I know who killed Tupac Shakur.

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

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

But they crucified themselves.

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

To be able to understand the label,

you have to understand who he is.

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

But Suge was the force to be reckoned with.

He put Death Row Records on the map.

How does it feel to be so feared?

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

Suge Knight is a mythical figure.

The controversial CEO of Death Row Records...

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

His size was intimidating.

Knight had been on probation for a 1992 assault

on two aspiring rappers.

He was a beast. He was a bully.

Suge Knight, how you doing?

Don't kill me, all right, yeah.

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

We're talking about open fist across their face.

Police in Los Angeles charging Knight with assault and battery.

Suge was affiliated with Bloods.

Suge was involved in guns. Suge was involved in drugs.

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

Suge Knight goes back to jail.

This is, like, some Godfather type stuff.

The music producer is accused of running down two men

and killing them in a Los Angeles parking lot.

This call is being recorded.

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

different than the Suge I met years ago.

People believe Suge was a gangster.

But Suge Knight did not grow up as a gangster.

Suge Knight grew up in the middle continent of lower middle

class neighborhood with working class parents.

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

We were about three years apart.

He kind of followed me the whole time.

Wouldn't let me dance with anybody else.

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

His parents, they were very family oriented.

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

a mother and father in the same house.

If you're a young, Black guy

growing up in Compton at that time,

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

as stoplights and street signs.

Suge never been in a gang but Compton was Blood.

And growing up back then, you were associated

with whatever color was in your neighborhood.

Played Pop Warner Football at Greater Compton with Suge.

Well, we're ready to get it underway.

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

for a college football game, could we?

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

Sets up, now he's gonna run it up the middle.

45 and dives near the 48-yard line.

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

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

and falls forward to the 41,

with a tackle made by Marion Knight,

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

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

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

We just dedicate it to ourselves and to our fans.

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

We knew we could beat 'em all the time.

He was one of those defensive linemen that was--

he was pretty aggressive.

His whole mentality years later in the record business

all came from playing football.

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

There was a time where I was having an issue

with a guy at the school.

I casually mentioned it to Suge.

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

So, I was, I was thinking about it.

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

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

and I just saw the butt of a gun.

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

And then Vegas.

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

He thought that I was with some man.

One day my car stopped on me,

and Suge put sugar down my gas tank.

He denies it, but he did it.

I come to get my car back...

All the windows busted out of it.

One time, he pulled my ponytail down to his lap

and reached behind the seat

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

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

He didn't want nobody else to like me.

And he thought that since he liked my hair,

that if it was gone,

nobody else would like me either.

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

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

Why not be with this man?

He didn't come up being a gangbanger.

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

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

trying to get out of the street.

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

Gang life leaked into his pro sports aspirations

and it wound up killing it.

He was a senior.

Football season was coming to an end.

He had an offer with the 49ers,

and he ran into a problem.

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

There's a dispute that happens.

They have a confrontation that gets so heated

that Suge pulls out a gun and shoots him.

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

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

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

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

Got a slap on the wrist for it.

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

like, five-year probation for that.

He lost that contract with the 49ers because

they didn't wanna deal with the violence.

They dropped him.

After the incident in Vegas,

the 49ers took back their offer.

So Suge and I moved back to California.

And at that time, Compton was crazy.

The police arrested these people

ages 15 through 30 for selling rock cocaine.

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

You had a group of white cops

who patrolled in Black neighborhoods.

And it was a lot of distrust because of crack.

Get down! Get down!

You have police brutality on Monday.

Police brutality on Tuesday.

Police brutality on Thursday.

Police brutality on Saturday.

It was an ongoing condition.

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

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

And it was, like...

That ain't rain.

Hip-hop really is almost like a response

to the failures of the police in L.A.

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

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

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

But now you have somebody that could speak for you.

And that was N.W.A.

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

It ain't rabbit season or duck season.

It's young Black male nigga season.

That's what it is right now.

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

out of the trunk and make some money.

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

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

Suge had a lot of friends from Compton and elsewhere

who were getting involved in the rap business.

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

Bobby!

He meets Bobby Brown at an after-party.

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

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