Eminem‘s former bodyguard, Byron “Big Naz” Williams revealed in a recent interview on the Murder Master Music Show that his client’s life was put in immense danger back in 2001, when former head of Death Row Records Suge Knight apparently hired “henchmen” to try and kill the famous rapper. The supposed hit was to take place at the Source Awards, where, Williams notes, “historically…someone always got shot.” It should be noted that Knight cannot dispute these claims, as he is currently in jail awaiting a trial for murder and attempted murder following a hit-and-run last year, adding to his long rap sheet of criminal activity.
The former bodyguard-turned-author Williams elaborates:
“That was our first encounter with Suge Knight and his henchman. Em was going to his seat. The way they had the seating was all messed up and the bodyguards couldn’t sit with the artists. I think that was by design ’cause I think they really wanted the artists to be able to network with each other, but it also gives people who got beef with other artists to get at them.”
Williams noticed the Detroit native, who was 29 at the time, was “beefing with all these guys in red shirts [indicating that they were affiliated with the Bloods, like Knight]…I had to bust through the middle man and snatch him up. Like, ‘Hey, man. What the hell’s going on up here?’ This is exactly what they said, ‘Death Row, motherf*cker. Death Row.’”
Williams, who wrote Shady Bizzness: Life as Marshall Mathers’ Bodyguard in an Industry of Paper Gangsters, took control of the situation, thanks in part to Em’s longtime collaborator Dr. Dre, and Dre’s bodyguards, who rushed from backstage to mitigate the situation. “We were in beast mode the whole time,” says Williams.
(h/t Hip Hop Dx)
