KENDRICK WELLS Those sessions were a party going in and a party going out. I was blown away by how far they’d taken it. MOE Z MD (PRODUCER) Not even two months later, there was “California Love.” I remember I pulled over to the side of the road. I saw him go from, like, being on edge to being the baddest motherfucker on the planet because he did it. What if this doesn’t sell?” Then, like, one hour into it coming out, you find out it’s fucking double platinum. What I realized later was he had signed his way out of prison based on what this album was going to do. KENDRICK WELLS (PERSONAL ASSISTANT) The closer we came to the release date, the more stressed out he was. He made it known that we’d signed the right person. You would think it would’ve been straight to the strip club. It was like they weren’t allowed to continue until Tupac got back in front.ĪLEX ROBERTS When Suge got him out, Pac went straight into the studio and wrote All Eyez on Me. When Pac breaks from the line, everybody stops, waiting for him to get back in the line. Tupac sees me, jumps out and gives me a big hug. In walks Suge Knight with a trail of people behind him. Once he hooked up with Suge and his whole camp, it was like signing a deal with the devil.” “Tupac and Death Row felt like a great marriage at first. But Death Row at its peak was such a powerful example of Black entrepreneurship. And Dre leaving it should have been the first telltale sign. Of course, that was very short-lived: Dre left by, like, the spring of ’96. We talk about super teams and big threes in the NBA-Suge had those three guys all on this label at one time. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and this label has now added Tupac. JUSTIN TINSLEY (JOURNALIST) By the fall of 1995, it was like, wait a minute, this label has Dr. I believe he did that because it was the perfect way to instill in a new artist your intention to ride for them. Remember, when Pac was incarcerated-and I believe this was a Suge Knight chess move- got onstage and dissed Puffy. He believed that all of the powerful music influences-from Andre Harrell to Puffy-were a cabal. Part of the reason that he chose Death Row was because he felt like the East Coast was against him. He didn’t sign just for financial reasons because, at that point any label would have picked him up. The young Shakur was influenced by the first wave of rap stars like Flavor Flav, seen with him in 1989 PUDGEE THA PHAT BASTARD (RAPPER) He stayed loyal as fuck. They were there for him in the beginning when he had nothing, so even though he knew they were stealing from him, he wasn’t going to do anything because he felt a sense of loyalty. There were people in his life that were taking advantage of him, and he knew that. So when the money started to come, he assumed that it would continue to come, and he spent accordingly. WENDY DAY (RAP COALITION FOUNDER) He came from a very poor background and never had money. Suge said, “I need to ask you, because this could hurt us: Do you really think Pac is innocent?” I said, “From my lips to God’s ears, yes.” “Why?” “My experience with him. It’s when he’d gone into Rikers on that bullshit charge. I know what to do with it.” So he then went and got Tupac out of jail and turned him into a Death Row artist.ĪLEX ROBERTS (FORMER HEAD OF BUSINESS AFFAIRS, DEATH ROW RECORDS) It was Snoop who brought up the idea of Pac on Death Row. He basically went to Jimmy and said, “Give me Tupac-sign his contract over to me. Suge was really good at recognizing talent, and he recognized the talent in Tupac. Interscope didn’t know what to do with him. VIRGIL ROBERTS (FORMER PRESIDENT, SOLAR RECORDS) Tupac had been signed to Interscope. It was a $3 million bond and Suge Knight paid for it, and he said, “If I pay for this, I want you on my label.” At that point, Tupac was on the up. LESLIE GERARD (FORMER A&R, INTERSCOPE RECORDS) When Tupac was in prison, he couldn’t get bailed out. The fraught relationship between the rising superstar and his ruthless would-be mentor is captured in this excerpt from Changes: An Oral History of Tupac Shakur. A year later, Shakur was dead, assassinated in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. rap entrepreneur Suge Knight offered to pay his $3 million bail on the condition he sign with Knight’s Death Row Records. In 1995, Tupac Shakur was in Rikers Island on sexual assault charges when L.A.
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