Death Row Records founder and former CEO Suge Knight was notorious for some of his more outlandish business practices. The story of Suge having his bodyguards dangle Vanilla Ice over a balcony is legendary, but as it turns out, the rappers on the label were just as prone to outbursts of unusual behavior when it came to getting money.
Daz Dillinger, The Long Beach rapper who was signed to the label from 1992 to 2000, recounted the extreme lengths to which he went to get Knight to pay up on a debt on the Home Grown Radio podcast. After producing the song “Just Doggin'” by Tha Dogg Pound from the Sunset Park soundtrack in 1996, Daz said he hadn’t been paid and had to “strong-arm” his label’s CEO to get the money.
“We went up there to get that money and they was playing with the money,” recalled. “Suge walked into the office and the way his eyes were looking, he was gon’ do something to me.” Fortunately, he says, he had two things on his side: 1, he was armed with “one of those big, long Diesel screwdrivers,” and 2, he and bandmate Kurupt were high on shrooms, and thus, feeling fearless of the usually menacing Suge.
“So he put his arm around me and I put my arms around him, like this [and said] ‘I’m gonna stick you,'” Daz said. “He’s like, ‘Hold on, Daz. Let’s go in the office.’ And I walked out of there with $2.5 [million].” Daz said that the check also helped him get out of a traffic stop when he got out of a ticket for driving without a license and a misdemeanor for possession of marijuana (this was 1997, before weed was legalized in California). The check apparently convinced the officer that Daz was too important to make the bust for minor offenses worth the trouble.
You can watch the full interview above.
