Hip-hop's kingmaker turns killer
Inside the shocking fall of music mogul Suge Knight
IN the 1990s, Marion “Suge” Knight, CEO of Death Row Records, looked like the second coming of John Gotti: Cuban cigar in hand, tailor-made red suit, 7-carat diamond earring and a pinkie ring spelling out the word “MOB.”
When Knight, 53, appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court Thursday, he was still imposingly oversized at 6foot-2, but his larger-than-life intimidation factor had all but disappeared — replaced by a middle-aged man weakened by diabetes and facing a 28-year prison sentence for manslaughter.
In 2015, during production for the film “Straight Outta Compton” — about legendary hip-hop act NWA and Knight’s role in its breakup — Knight got into a disagreement with producers over payment for the use of his likeness. On Jan. 29, he showed up at the Los Angeles movie set despite having been banned. Cle “Bone” Sloan, a technical adviser on the film, went out to talk to him.
“They got into some kind of verbal altercation and it escalated,” LA County Sheriff Lt. John Corina later said. (Knight would later be indicted for having threatened the film’s director.)
Knight asked Terry Carter — who was a one-time friend of both Knight and former NWA member Dr. Dre and reportedly wanted to help the two make amends — to meet him and Sloan at Tam’s restaurant in the Compton neighborhood. There, Knight ran his Ford pickup into the duo, kill- ing Carter and seriously injuring Sloan.
It has been a precipitous fall for the man who helped shape the careers of Tupac Shakur, Tha Dogg Pound and Snoop Dogg and who was arguably once the most powerful figure in hiphop. Although Knight collapsed in December 2014 after a judge set his bail at $25 million (later reduced to $10 million), sources say he was initially confident he would beat the rap — so much so that he ran through more than a dozen lawyers, sure he could find the right one, before begrudgingly settling on a court-appointed attorney.
Given his stubborn faith, Knight’s family couldn’t believe it when he made a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to manslaughter on Sept. 20, hours before his trial was to begin.
“I was shocked,” said his son Suge Jacob Knight Jr., 22. “I thought he was going to take his case to trial because we had some strong evidence supporting my dad. But he’s tired . . . He just didn’t want to gamble with his life.”
Before copping a plea, Knight had faced a lifetime behind bars. According to Alex A. Alonso, a professor at California State University Long Beach, who consults with trial attorneys in LA, Knight had to play ball with prosecutors because he may have encouraged witnesses to give false testimony.
Originally, Knight had claimed self-defense. His attorneys argued that the victims or someone else at the scene had a gun. No weapon was ever found.
“Suge was trying to get witnesses to come to his trial to say certain things,” Alonso alleged. “I’ve been told by people on his team that prosecutors have taped conversations of Suge alluding to payments.”
(Calls to Knight’s representatives were not returned.)
Two of Knight’s former lawyers, Matthew Fletcher and Thaddeus Culpepper, face conspiracy charges for attempted witness bribery.
In the courtroom Thursday, Crystal Carter, the daughter of the slain man, had choice words for Knight: “a disgusting, selfish disgrace to the human species.”
IT’S hard to overstate Knight’s role in 1990s hip-hop. At its peak, Death Row grossed an estimated $100 million per year. Politicians and police demonized the gangsta-rap imprint — and Knight, a member of the Piru Blood street gang — for what they saw as a glorification of guns, violence, drugs and misogyny. But fans ate it up as the West Coast crew became counterculture antiheroes. Released between 1992 and 1996, albums by Dr. Dre and Shakur sold more than 5 million copies each, while Snoop Dogg’s debut, “Doggystyle,” topped 6 million.
Knight, who grew up in Compton, co-founded Death Row in 1991 with, among others, Dre. The two met through The D.O.C., a performer Knight was managing. Previously, Knight had gridiron dreams, having