Episode 2: Let’s Get Things Straight! is here. Following the first episode of Suge Knight’s new Collect Call podcast, which arrived in late October, the polarizing hip-hop mogul has delivered the second installment. As opposed to episode one, though, where Knight delved into his beef with Akon, Master P, and Warren G, episode two sees the imprisoned 58-year-old focus on his relationships with former Death Row signees Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.
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Death Row and Snoop Dogg
For the first half of the 37-minute podcast, Knight touched on his feelings about Death Row Records not being under his control anymore. Saying “They tried to fuck me out [of] my company,” Knight expressed anger towards Snoop and Michael Harris, a man who originally helped build Death Row with Knight.
Per Knight, his ownership of Death Row was threatened when he unintentionally filed for bankruptcy in 2006, which he said occurred because of an erroneous default judgment in court. He first discussed this earlier this year on a jail call with TMZ.
“Snoop has a partner, which is Michael Harris, right,” he said. “If you look at it, they committed bankruptcy fraud. I didn’t lose my company by doing anything wrong. They went in, and the lawyer didn’t show up, and they got a default judgment. I settled the judgment, they turned around and said I didn’t settle the judgment.”
Snoop and Harris eventually acquired Death Row in 2022, but Knight does not believe they have a legitimate claim to ownership. Additionally, he asserted that Snoop would not even be in this position if it wasn’t for the altruism he showed him when Snoop was originally a Death Row member.
“For Snoop to say he and Michael Harris are doing something as a team, that tells you I’m disappointed in that motherfucker because if it wasn’t for me you’d still be in prison doing life,” Knight said on Collect Call. “You turn around and say you’ve partnered up with this dude… Neither one of y’all got Death Row or bought Death Row or purchased Death Row.”
Expanding on the “in prison doing life” claim, Knight says that he is the reason Snoop got acquitted in his 1996 murder case. At first, according to Knight, Snoop’s team of lawyers did not believe they’d be able to prove his innocence. But, after Knight paid off a man who was going to give a key testimony against Snoop, he was able to earn a not guilty verdict.
“For me to put my own freedom at stake to make sure this guy don’t go to prison. To go back and partner up with Michael Harris, who committed fraud against me, and say they’re gonna try to take Death Row. You should’ve tried to get it back to its rightful owner,” Knight added. “You didn’t represent Death Row when you was on Death Row.”
Dr. Dre and Tupac
For the second half of Let’s Get Things Straight!, Knight told a similar story of how he helped Dr. Dre avoid prison time. Dre, who signed with Death Row in the early 1990s after leaving Ruthless Records, asked Knight for help illegally purchasing a gun. After putting him in touch with a gun dealer, Knight was eventually arrested for his involvement.
According to Knight, either he was to do jail time or Dre was. So, he decided to take the fall for Dre, eventually spending a small amount of time in jail before earning probation. He also noted how he pulled strings to assure Dre didn’t get sent to prison for various other crimes while they were acquainted.
[RELATED: Remember When: Suge Knight’s Hit-and-Run on ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Set]
To close out the episode, Knight recalled the time he posted the $1.4 million bail for Tupac, which allowed him to be released from a New York prison in late 1995. Knight said that this could not have been done without the help of Pac’s girlfriend at the time, a woman named Keisha.
“If it wasn’t for Keisha, y’all wouldn’t have heard All Eyez on Me or any of the other hits [Tupac] did,” Knight said.
Listen to Episode 2 of Collect Call HERE.
Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
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