Crooked I: Life On Death Row

[ωεεźγ ғ]

Crooked I: Life on Death Row
Friday - October 14, 2005
Talithia Kelly

Have you ever wondered what kind of a person Suge Knight really is? A former counterpart tells about his experience in dealing with The Row. He’s worked with some of the best; Left Eye, Tupac, Kurupt, and Ashanti just to name a few. He’s produced well over 60 tracks and was signed to Virgin Records and the infamous Death Row. No longer with Death Row, Crooked Eye is ready to tell his story.

What two songs did you produce for Pac?

One was “Happy Home” and the other one was “Why You Hate Me”. They were good songs. I was surprised on the outcome. To do work with Tupac is honorable; Pac is legendary of course. That was a blessing. I met his mother and I went to her house in ATL and chopped it with her. It’s unfortunate that he’s not around because sometimes I wonder what the music industry would be like.

Tell me about the Death Row situation?

Basically on The Row I was signed in ‘99 and I was over there for like 4 years and some change. I recorded a gang of music like 50, 60 tracks and I wrote for a gang of artists and he wouldn’t put my album out. I’m thinking because his distribution channel was Koch. Koch was his distributor and you know Death Row is known for having multi-million selling albums and projects. I really feel like he thought Koch was too small of a distributor and that he wasn’t going to produce the numbers he wanted to do in the market and he didn’t want to look like a failure. I think that would of sealed the deal on his executive status I mean even though a lot of people have been trying to black ball him and they don’t wanna see him successful as it is. To put out a project through Koch that you been pumpin up in the media and it doesn’t do good numbers you’re pretty much finished. I think that’s one of the main reasons he held back. I was over there for 4 ½ years and he never put an album out.

The whole thing about it is, enough is enough homie, I was loyal and I stayed down. People don’t understand being on Death Row is not like being on Def Jam or any other record label. In Cali Death Row is viewed as a gang. There are a lot of enemies of Death Row. They get stripes if they get a chain off me or if you get in a conversation with somebody it can escalate to a higher level of violence just based on your affiliation with Death Row. To go through all that type of shit on a street level and to go through all the black balling in the industry because of my affiliation. I’m like “Okay I’m pinning down in the face of all this, but can we release the project?” Ya feel me? Can we get the album out? You gotta at least release the music. That’s all I wanted.

I didn’t mind the confrontations. To me it’s dumb. You gonna approach me on some bullshit because I’m down with this label then I’m gonna bring it back to you cause you ignorant and I’m gonna bring it back full force. It’s a health risk. I gotta fight all these idiots on the streets might even escalate to gun blare or something and I can’t do concerts with summer jams because they don’t want Death Row artists in the building and I can’t get my records played on the radio and I can’t advance in the game like I want to. Can you put my project out? It was time to go cause it wasn’t hurting him, he’s a multi-millionaire, it’s hurting the artists.

When you decided to leave, I know it had to be hell to be released from your contract. How did you handle that?

I signed a four year deal over there so I went to my lawyer and told him look it’s been four years tell them we don’t want to exercise another term. We wanna go, we don’t wanna renew the contract, we don’t wanna do anything, send them a letter. We sent them a letter and put them on standby. I told Sugeover the telephone I’m trying to do different things I’m ready to bounce I’m not feeling the situation he said “okay.” At the time he was incarcerated. Then the day after I told him I wasn’t going to be on the label anymore and my lawyer sent the papers to his assistant, of course he was incarcerated, three days later I had situations on the table and another situation and another situation. So I went back to his assistant the guy who was running things while he was locked up. I told the dude, “Yo, I’ll give you a dollar per album sell you did help advance my career, here’s a return for your investment, but I’m out.”

To me in my mind it was just a gesture because the contract was up. The dude said you know what, I talked to Sugeand he wants one million dollars. So I said “Wait a minute man… he ain’t ever put no album out on me.” See, he got a million dollars off of Snoop, but Snoop was a multi-platinum artist. I said man ain’t nobody gonna pay a million dollars for somebody not invested in the market. I said “Why don’t you just take this dollar on the back end and if the project goes platinum you’ll make a million dollars with the beats or whateva?” At this time I was communicating through his assistant and I wanted to go see him personally, but his assistant and all the people that worked for him kept giving me the run around like “Okay we gonna get you on the phone with him, he’s going to call the office at two o’clock and we’re going to 3-way you, we’re going to get you on the visitor’s list.” I could tell they were giving me the run around cause I was over there for 4 years and I seen them when they gave people the run around. I never got the chance to hit him about the whole situation so my whole thing was he wants a million dollars he’s not getting a million because a million dollars for an artist that never put out an album is ridiculous so I was like “peace.”

We started on a new project. I started my own label Dynasty Entertainment. It goes through Treacherous/Universal. Treacherous is a company that had their own artists as well as a big distribution deal with Universal. It’s easy enough for me to have my own label and they’re distributing my label through Universal. So I’m moving along, I’m recording, I ain’t tripping. I’m like whateva… it is what it is. Everything was cool until I got into a magazine kinda announcing what I was doing.

Soon as they read that magazine, Sugewas out of jail at the time; he called over to the Treacherous office and wanted to meet wanted to sit down. Okay, so let’s sit down and talk because obviously he felt like I was still under contract with him. That sit down never happened. He sent over a cease and desists to stop the project. Then Universal came over and was like you have to deal with this. We can’t go any further until you deal with your man over here. That stopped my project for about 9-10 months because now it’s a legal thing.

Now I have to get an attorney, now I have to go to court, now I gotta lawsuit on my hands because he’s trying to block me from doing business with third party companies. We went to court, but he’s a millionaire so for me to spend 50 and 60 grand at a time on an attorney is a whole bunch for me. I’m tryin to start a new company and we started to fall under the pressure with legal financing and stuff. I went to court 8 or 9 months. The judge granted me a court order saying Suge can’t be sending letters to third party companies he wants to do business with, can’t be threatening anybody in the market place who wants to do business with him, let him do his business. Then my attorney said he may not be able to stop you from doing business, but he may put a lawsuit on you as a person or individual. I’m like “No that ain’t gonna happen” and then sure enough they telling me that’s what he’s doing, but the project is still coming out he can’t stop that.

After going through all that did you fear at all that Suge would try anything physically?

I knew that one day might come of me leaving before I even sign the contract with him. When you’re raised in the ghetto it is what it is. You might get into it with the guy next door to you that might escalate into a deadly situation. I wasn’t afraid. If I was afraid I would have hung around and my career would be in the dumpster. I’m not an idiot. I know that if he gets upset he might react and if he reacts I have to be ready to react. I don’t know how the streets would look at him if we got into on that type of level. I couldn’t see him taking it to that level. I don’t have any hard feelings against Death Row. I learned a lot. I feel like I have a degree in industry 101. They’re the boot camp of all labels and you know if you go to another label you’re not going to get any shit because you went through the school of hard knocks. I’m not trippin, but I hear little things on the streets like they might flex on me, but then I hear the opposite they ain’t trippin they got love for me.

You mentioned you learned a lot of do’s and don’ts of the industry. Can you share what you’ve learned?

One thing I learned is relationships are everything. The most valuable thing in the industry is relationships. Me, being myself and who I am, I’m not going to be anybody’s robot. If you wind me up and tell me to go beef with this person and I don’t know why then I’m not going to do it. I ran into Puffy at a party at the BET awards and I told him “Look Puff, Big is resting in peace, Pac is resting in peace. This whole Row/Bad Boy shit… we gotta set this shit to the future fast forward. So when you see me with this Death Row chain I’m wearing you don’t have to worry about a whole bunch of dudes coming behind me and trying to sabotage any type of show you have or any confrontations because I’m the future of this label and what’s in the past is in the past.” He respected me for that.

I was damn near like Suge Knight’s Death Row publicist. I was out there trying to change the face of the label. I did a song on Dysfunctional Family soundtrack called Feel The Row. At the time I wanted to say some things I felt needed to be on TV. At that particular time 75-80 police officers had just stormed the office and took all the computers and pointed guns at everybody. They stormed the studio and I was like I needed to talk about some of the positive things that went on over here. In the song I shed light on the fact that we go to the hospital every Christmas and hand out 25-30,000 dollars worth of toys, we have a mother’s day dinner in Beverly Hills, we rebuild churches and stuff that get damaged, we paid for funeral costs of family that couldn’t afford it; I shed light on a lot of that. I did a lot of their PR work. I was even one of the guys that suggested we take the death off Death Row and just call it The Row. I can only do so much because ultimately it’s not my company. So I learned that relationships are everything and I learned that sometimes you have to be your own boss.

Well, now you have people like The Game repping the west coast. How do you feel about the fact that that was supposed to be you?

The thing about it is, if you have record deals as long as me, then… hell… Snoop was supposed to be me. Not like that, but if you come out, become successful, represent your coast you have to realize its enough room for everybody. What I’m bringing to the table as far as me and my company we’re bringing organization to the table. When people do business me and my circle it’s less headache less drama we’re grown men about our business. We’re not out here on that bullshit and I already know that’s going to be something different coming from the west. We have a bad reputation for being over thugging. You can’t come to the west without getting your chain snatched or robbed or something. When I see these other cats enjoying success that’s good because it ultimately helps me if Game breaks down some doors then I can just walk right through. I think we need four or five major cats for the west to be back.

How do you find artists for your label?

We got so many big plans. I got the Onone Squad which is the Crips and Bloods mixture group trying to squash that beef. When it takes off the way it needs to take off I’m looking to put people on. People that have talent and been going through politics and bullshit no matter where they’re from. That’s how music evolves.

Okay, how in the hell did you get the Bloods and the Crips in a group together?

Well, one is actually my first cousin and he bought the group to the table. I was like “woo!” because I’m all for that. I’m all about them uniting and having a peace treaty. We can co-exist and we can make money together. It’s too many people glorifying that shit and I’m not feeling them for that. Some people are not going to like it because they want the shit to go on forever.

What’s the name of your project?

Boss Music. On the west we got a lot dudes doing their thing. In the 80’s we had a lot hustlers making millions in the dope game and in the 90’s they took the dope Game from the blacks and we used the rap game to empower our people. We need to get together and unite instead of killing each other because the money trickles down. When you got a lot of money going through this camp and that camp then you can give somebody a job that may be doing illegal shit. That’s what I’m talking about. Bossing up. I really admire the business men on the east like Jay-Z. He has a basketball team and he’s the owner of a major label. We need that on the west. If I can do it and I came from a single mother leaving in the hood anybody can. That’s why I named it that

[Adam Donnelly]

Props

[Darksider]

thanks

[JMan]

Props

[MasB]

props

[Tha G In Deee]

Thanks...dope read...

[Wicked977]

propz

[CRAFTY]

In each interview, Crooked I always comes across as the most down-to-earth person there is...he really sounds like a cool guy.
Anyway, I wish it would go a bit easier for Crooked I on the business side though, so we could get to hear some of his material.

[Episcop Cruel Cvrle]

In each interview, Crooked I always comes across as the most down-to-earth person there is...he really sounds like a cool guy.
Anyway, I wish it would go a bit easier for Crooked I on the business side though, so we could get to hear some of his material.

yup..thats the truth man

[GangstaBoogy]

In each interview, Crooked I always comes across as the most down-to-earth person there is...he really sounds like a cool guy.

yeah even when he was on tha row he never sounded like an asshole. that part about people lookin at death row like a gang is hella true.

[late night]

propz...

[SlickPants]

good shit, props

[DUB CC]

propz

[doubletrouble™]

Crooked I: Life on Death Row
Friday - October 14, 2005
Talithia Kelly

Have you ever wondered what kind of a person Suge Knight really is? A former counterpart tells about his experience in dealing with The Row. He’s worked with some of the best; Left Eye, Tupac, Kurupt, and Ashanti just to name a few. He’s produced well over 60 tracks and was signed to Virgin Records and the infamous Death Row. No longer with Death Row, Crooked Eye is ready to tell his story.

What two songs did you produce for Pac?

One was “Happy Home” and the other one was “Why You Hate Me”. They were good songs. I was surprised on the outcome. To do work with Tupac is honorable; Pac is legendary of course. That was a blessing. I met his mother and I went to her house in ATL and chopped it with her. It’s unfortunate that he’s not around because sometimes I wonder what the music industry would be like.

Tell me about the Death Row situation?

Basically on The Row I was signed in ‘99 and I was over there for like 4 years and some change. I recorded a gang of music like 50, 60 tracks and I wrote for a gang of artists and he wouldn’t put my album out. I’m thinking because his distribution channel was Koch. Koch was his distributor and you know Death Row is known for having multi-million selling albums and projects. I really feel like he thought Koch was too small of a distributor and that he wasn’t going to produce the numbers he wanted to do in the market and he didn’t want to look like a failure. I think that would of sealed the deal on his executive status I mean even though a lot of people have been trying to black ball him and they don’t wanna see him successful as it is. To put out a project through Koch that you been pumpin up in the media and it doesn’t do good numbers you’re pretty much finished. I think that’s one of the main reasons he held back. I was over there for 4 ½ years and he never put an album out.

The whole thing about it is, enough is enough homie, I was loyal and I stayed down. People don’t understand being on Death Row is not like being on Def Jam or any other record label. In Cali Death Row is viewed as a gang. There are a lot of enemies of Death Row. They get stripes if they get a chain off me or if you get in a conversation with somebody it can escalate to a higher level of violence just based on your affiliation with Death Row. To go through all that type of shit on a street level and to go through all the black balling in the industry because of my affiliation. I’m like “Okay I’m pinning down in the face of all this, but can we release the project?” Ya feel me? Can we get the album out? You gotta at least release the music. That’s all I wanted.

I didn’t mind the confrontations. To me it’s dumb. You gonna approach me on some bullshit because I’m down with this label then I’m gonna bring it back to you cause you ignorant and I’m gonna bring it back full force. It’s a health risk. I gotta fight all these idiots on the streets might even escalate to gun blare or something and I can’t do concerts with summer jams because they don’t want Death Row artists in the building and I can’t get my records played on the radio and I can’t advance in the game like I want to. Can you put my project out? It was time to go cause it wasn’t hurting him, he’s a multi-millionaire, it’s hurting the artists.

When you decided to leave, I know it had to be hell to be released from your contract. How did you handle that?

I signed a four year deal over there so I went to my lawyer and told him look it’s been four years tell them we don’t want to exercise another term. We wanna go, we don’t wanna renew the contract, we don’t wanna do anything, send them a letter. We sent them a letter and put them on standby. I told Sugeover the telephone I’m trying to do different things I’m ready to bounce I’m not feeling the situation he said “okay.” At the time he was incarcerated. Then the day after I told him I wasn’t going to be on the label anymore and my lawyer sent the papers to his assistant, of course he was incarcerated, three days later I had situations on the table and another situation and another situation. So I went back to his assistant the guy who was running things while he was locked up. I told the dude, “Yo, I’ll give you a dollar per album sell you did help advance my career, here’s a return for your investment, but I’m out.”

To me in my mind it was just a gesture because the contract was up. The dude said you know what, I talked to Sugeand he wants one million dollars. So I said “Wait a minute man… he ain’t ever put no album out on me.” See, he got a million dollars off of Snoop, but Snoop was a multi-platinum artist. I said man ain’t nobody gonna pay a million dollars for somebody not invested in the market. I said “Why don’t you just take this dollar on the back end and if the project goes platinum you’ll make a million dollars with the beats or whateva?” At this time I was communicating through his assistant and I wanted to go see him personally, but his assistant and all the people that worked for him kept giving me the run around like “Okay we gonna get you on the phone with him, he’s going to call the office at two o’clock and we’re going to 3-way you, we’re going to get you on the visitor’s list.” I could tell they were giving me the run around cause I was over there for 4 years and I seen them when they gave people the run around. I never got the chance to hit him about the whole situation so my whole thing was he wants a million dollars he’s not getting a million because a million dollars for an artist that never put out an album is ridiculous so I was like “peace.”

We started on a new project. I started my own label Dynasty Entertainment. It goes through Treacherous/Universal. Treacherous is a company that had their own artists as well as a big distribution deal with Universal. It’s easy enough for me to have my own label and they’re distributing my label through Universal. So I’m moving along, I’m recording, I ain’t tripping. I’m like whateva… it is what it is. Everything was cool until I got into a magazine kinda announcing what I was doing.

Soon as they read that magazine, Sugewas out of jail at the time; he called over to the Treacherous office and wanted to meet wanted to sit down. Okay, so let’s sit down and talk because obviously he felt like I was still under contract with him. That sit down never happened. He sent over a cease and desists to stop the project. Then Universal came over and was like you have to deal with this. We can’t go any further until you deal with your man over here. That stopped my project for about 9-10 months because now it’s a legal thing.

Now I have to get an attorney, now I have to go to court, now I gotta lawsuit on my hands because he’s trying to block me from doing business with third party companies. We went to court, but he’s a millionaire so for me to spend 50 and 60 grand at a time on an attorney is a whole bunch for me. I’m tryin to start a new company and we started to fall under the pressure with legal financing and stuff. I went to court 8 or 9 months. The judge granted me a court order saying Suge can’t be sending letters to third party companies he wants to do business with, can’t be threatening anybody in the market place who wants to do business with him, let him do his business. Then my attorney said he may not be able to stop you from doing business, but he may put a lawsuit on you as a person or individual. I’m like “No that ain’t gonna happen” and then sure enough they telling me that’s what he’s doing, but the project is still coming out he can’t stop that.

After going through all that did you fear at all that Suge would try anything physically?

I knew that one day might come of me leaving before I even sign the contract with him. When you’re raised in the ghetto it is what it is. You might get into it with the guy next door to you that might escalate into a deadly situation. I wasn’t afraid. If I was afraid I would have hung around and my career would be in the dumpster. I’m not an idiot. I know that if he gets upset he might react and if he reacts I have to be ready to react. I don’t know how the streets would look at him if we got into on that type of level. I couldn’t see him taking it to that level. I don’t have any hard feelings against Death Row. I learned a lot. I feel like I have a degree in industry 101. They’re the boot camp of all labels and you know if you go to another label you’re not going to get any shit because you went through the school of hard knocks. I’m not trippin, but I hear little things on the streets like they might flex on me, but then I hear the opposite they ain’t trippin they got love for me.

You mentioned you learned a lot of do’s and don’ts of the industry. Can you share what you’ve learned?

One thing I learned is relationships are everything. The most valuable thing in the industry is relationships. Me, being myself and who I am, I’m not going to be anybody’s robot. If you wind me up and tell me to go beef with this person and I don’t know why then I’m not going to do it. I ran into Puffy at a party at the BET awards and I told him “Look Puff, Big is resting in peace, Pac is resting in peace. This whole Row/Bad Boy shit… we gotta set this shit to the future fast forward. So when you see me with this Death Row chain I’m wearing you don’t have to worry about a whole bunch of dudes coming behind me and trying to sabotage any type of show you have or any confrontations because I’m the future of this label and what’s in the past is in the past.” He respected me for that.

I was damn near like Suge Knight’s Death Row publicist. I was out there trying to change the face of the label. I did a song on Dysfunctional Family soundtrack called Feel The Row. At the time I wanted to say some things I felt needed to be on TV. At that particular time 75-80 police officers had just stormed the office and took all the computers and pointed guns at everybody. They stormed the studio and I was like I needed to talk about some of the positive things that went on over here. In the song I shed light on the fact that we go to the hospital every Christmas and hand out 25-30,000 dollars worth of toys, we have a mother’s day dinner in Beverly Hills, we rebuild churches and stuff that get damaged, we paid for funeral costs of family that couldn’t afford it; I shed light on a lot of that. I did a lot of their PR work. I was even one of the guys that suggested we take the death off Death Row and just call it The Row. I can only do so much because ultimately it’s not my company. So I learned that relationships are everything and I learned that sometimes you have to be your own boss.

Well, now you have people like The Game repping the west coast. How do you feel about the fact that that was supposed to be you?

The thing about it is, if you have record deals as long as me, then… hell… Snoop was supposed to be me. Not like that, but if you come out, become successful, represent your coast you have to realize its enough room for everybody. What I’m bringing to the table as far as me and my company we’re bringing organization to the table. When people do business me and my circle it’s less headache less drama we’re grown men about our business. We’re not out here on that bullshit and I already know that’s going to be something different coming from the west. We have a bad reputation for being over thugging. You can’t come to the west without getting your chain snatched or robbed or something. When I see these other cats enjoying success that’s good because it ultimately helps me if Game breaks down some doors then I can just walk right through. I think we need four or five major cats for the west to be back.

How do you find artists for your label?

We got so many big plans. I got the Onone Squad which is the Crips and Bloods mixture group trying to squash that beef. When it takes off the way it needs to take off I’m looking to put people on. People that have talent and been going through politics and bullshit no matter where they’re from. That’s how music evolves.

Okay, how in the hell did you get the Bloods and the Crips in a group together?

Well, one is actually my first cousin and he bought the group to the table. I was like “woo!” because I’m all for that. I’m all about them uniting and having a peace treaty. We can co-exist and we can make money together. It’s too many people glorifying that shit and I’m not feeling them for that. Some people are not going to like it because they want the shit to go on forever.

What’s the name of your project?

Boss Music. On the west we got a lot dudes doing their thing. In the 80’s we had a lot hustlers making millions in the dope game and in the 90’s they took the dope Game from the blacks and we used the rap game to empower our people. We need to get together and unite instead of killing each other because the money trickles down. When you got a lot of money going through this camp and that camp then you can give somebody a job that may be doing illegal shit. That’s what I’m talking about. Bossing up. I really admire the business men on the east like Jay-Z. He has a basketball team and he’s the owner of a major label. We need that on the west. If I can do it and I came from a single mother leaving in the hood anybody can. That’s why I named it that

 

[africas seed]

mad props
good read