Live from Death Row (Part 4 of 4): Snoop on Trial, Knight Threatens

Original: “Live From Death Row” (Part 4) · Vibe · Kevin Powell · February 1996

On the video set, in front of a television camera, Tupac fans out a stack of hundred-dollar bills Knight has just handed him: “that’s why I signed to Death Row.” Powell wonders whether Tupac isn’t playing right into the stereotype that rap opponents spread. The final part of the story leads directly from this scene into the courtroom-and to an open threat.

In Court: Snoop Pleads Self-Defense

A week later, Powell was sitting in the Los Angeles courthouse, where the jury was being selected for the murder trial of Calvin Broadus, alias Snoop Doggy Dogg. Snoop and his bodyguard McKinley Lee claimed self-defense in the August 1993 death of Philip Woldemariam.

Lawyer David Kenner, responsible for everything at Death Row, warned against judging a person by their song lyrics. Snoop said God tests successful people, and advised young fans to put God first.

Questions About Atlanta: Suge Knight Forgets Nothing

Back with Knight: asked whether he really believed Combs had something to do with the death of his friend in Atlanta, he dodged the question. At the end of the conversation, he confronted Powell: the questions about the dead man had been disrespectful, and he doesn’t forget things like that.

Powell reconstructed the night in Atlanta: a Jermaine Dupri party, an afterparty, an argument outside the club, a dead man. Knight and Combs both denied that there was a feud. Powell left the office feeling that two of the most successful young Black entrepreneurs were on a collision course.

Drive-By Shootings: The Fears Are Confirmed

The fears were confirmed in a terrible way. Snoop was acquitted of the murder charge on February 20, 1996. Tupac died in September 1996, The Notorious B.I.G. in March 1997, both by shots fired from a moving car. In February 1997, Combs and Snoop publicly called for a truce. Knight and Combs themselves never met, as Powell had wished.

The friend from Atlanta was Jake Robles, who was fatally shot after the party in the fall of 1995. Knight blamed Combs’s circle; Combs denied any involvement, and the case was never solved. Knight’s closing line that Death Row would endure “forever” held for a decade: in 2006, the label filed for bankruptcy.

Read more

• Part 1: Visiting Suge Knight
• Part 2: Puffy, Stretch and Knight’s rules
• Part 3: Dr. Dre, N.W.A and California Love
• A good week for Death Row: Snoop’s acquittal