But by the end of June 1996, Death Row’s financial situation was already a shambles. Suge said he wasn’t getting an accounting of the books from Cantrock and was still being kept in the dark. So Suge called a meeting, attended by several people, including Suge’s attorney David Kenner, at a San Fernando Valley home. An IOU was written and signed by Cantrock. Those present in the room during the confrontation disputed Cantrock’s claim that he signed the IOU under duress.

  On February 7, 1997, Coopers issued a statement that it had “asked for and received [Cantrock’s] resignation” for violating the firm’s policies.

  Death Row did not try to collect the $4.5 million it said it was owed, although Kenner said at the time that he was contemplating a lawsuit against Coopers & Lybrand and Cantrock.

  13

  VIOLENCE IN RAP AND GANGS

  Since November 30, 1994, the day Tupac Shakur was shot the first time in the lobby of Quad Studios in Manhattan, six people directly involved in the rap-music business have been murdered. Besides Tupac, there were the murders of Randy Walker, Yafeu Fula, Jake Robles, Biggie Smalls, and Alton “Kungry” McDonald. In addition, at least another dozen people known to be affiliated with the Bloods and Crips gangs have been wounded or killed in drive-by shootings. In most of the cases, homicide and gang detectives involved in the investigations (other than Compton police, who called the rash of violence a “bloodbath”) say the assaults and murders are not connected.

  People in the music industry thought otherwise. For years many people in the rap-music industry were worried, wondering who was next.

  Snoop Dogg, at the time a rapper for Death Row, postponed a music tour a week after Biggie Smalls was killed. Snoop delayed the Lollapalooza tour for a month, he said, out of respect for Biggie, but others said it was out of fear for his life. Indeed, he had rented an armored bullet-proof vehicle (said to be equipped with holes for weapons) instead of riding the tour bus with the crew.

  “Tupac has been killed, and six months later [Biggie was] killed, and he doesn’t want to be next,” Jeff Bowen, booking and marketing director at Winston-Salem’s (North Carolina) Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, told The Associated Press. Bowen said Snoop was expected to begin his tour—the Doggfather East-West Fresh Fest 1997 World Tour—sometime in April 1997. His revamped tour was to include a film tribute to Biggie and Tupac. Instead of opening in Winston-Salem, it opened May 1 in San Diego, closer to Snoop’s L.A. base, and included the film tribute to his slain fellow rappers.

  “Snoop is the only one left,” J. Howell, owner of C&J Concert Promotions, told a reporter. “He will take it to the forefront and let people—let kids—know that it’s not all about [violence]. He’s coming out with a band and talking about peace and unity, whether you’re white, black, green, or yellow.”

  Snoop Dogg wasn’t the only one who was scared off. Warren G’s record-company execs postponed a promotional tour for his new album, Take a Look Over Your Shoulder, because they feared for his safety.

  Havoc, a rapper with the band Mobb Deep, told reporter David Bauder that the violence can’t be ignored.

  “We’re talking targets because we’re rappers, we’re entertainers. We’ve got to be careful,” he said.

  Ice T agreed, telling Bauder, “This is the first time I ever felt unsafe.”

  Luke, a rapper formerly with the band 2 Live Crew, concurred that many rappers were nervous. “It’s unsafe for Snoop to come to a concert in New York, for Nas to go to a concert in L.A., because there ain’t nobody finding these people who are killing everybody.”

  On June 28, 1997, Snoop Dogg attended the Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson heavyweight rematch bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Many witnesses said that shots rang out inside the casino (LVMPD denied it). An ensuing stampede injured several dozen people, but Snoop escaped unharmed. He was seen being guarded by Nation of Islam security officers (who are easily identified by their bowties).

  • • •

  On September 24, 1995, 10 months after Tupac was shot the first time in New York, Jake Robles, a close friend of Suge’s and an employee of Death Row, was shot at an Atlanta nightclub. Robles died a week later. Suge blamed Sean Combs and Bad Boy Entertainment’s associates for Jake’s death.

  Then, on November 30, 1995, a year to the day after the first attempt on Tupac’s life, rapper Stretch Walker, a key witness to the New York shooting, was murdered. Walker, a close friend of Tupac’s, was shot by three assailants during a high-speed chase in Queens. Walker had rapped with Tupac on his Thug Life album and Tupac wrote lyrics about him, saying, “Big Stretch represent the real nigga.” As with the majority of the other “unrelated” murders involving gangsta rappers, Walker’s murder remains unsolved.

  After the April 1996 “Soul Train” Music Awards, someone pulled a gun during a heated exchange in the parking lot between associates with Bad Boy Entertainment and Death Row Records.

  On July 3, 1996, Biggie Smalls, Lil’ Cease (of Junior M.A.F.I.A.), Lil’ Kim, and DJ Enuff narrowly escaped a possible hit attempt, the Village Voice reported. Biggie had gone to Atlanta to represent Combs and Bad Boy at a concert. But during his set, Tupac’s crew began taunting Biggie and shouting, “Tupac! Tupac! Tupac!”

  Afterward, Biggie and his crew were followed to their hotel by people in a van they believed were trying to kill them. With the groups’ Glock 9-millimeters locked and cocked, one of Biggie’s bodyguards told the Voice, the driver of Biggie’s car made a series of radical maneuvers leading to the interstate. The people following them apparently realized “they’d been made,” the guard said, then pulled in front of Biggie’s car. Biggie’s crew thought they might have to shoot their way out.

  “Face it,” the bodyguard told the Voice, “there wasn’t no questions gonna be asked. You knew it was on and what you had to do right then.”

  The van and a truck continued shadowing them as they drove on the interstate and around the suburbs of Atlanta.

  Biggie, the bodyguard said, wanted to find out who they were. “Pull over and see what they want,” he told the driver. He did. With that, the truck and van sped off. Biggie and his entourage returned to their hotel without learning the identities of the occupants of the van.

  “The next day we found out that Tupac did come into town that night and he stayed in the hotel across the street from where Biggie was staying, and he left that morning,” the bodyguard told the Voice.

  Then Tupac and Biggie were killed in drive-by shootings and Yafeu Fula was executed gangland-style. Fula’s killer was arrested and convicted, but the gunmen who murdered Tupac, Biggie, Robles, Walker, and McDonald have gotten away with murder.

  One thing police have not disputed is that all the shootings have been executed in gang-style drive-bys.

  As for police claims that the murders were all unrelated, it’s a difficult sell. It was common knowledge that Randy Walker was a witness in the November 30, 1994, shooting of Tupac in Manhattan. Tupac and others said they believed Walker was murdered because of that, and that his death was not a random act of violence.

  Many in the music industry feel the same way about Yafeu Fula’s death. He was a witness to Tupac’s fatal shooting, so he, too, had to be executed to eliminate the possibility that he’d drop a dime and talk.

  Then, when Biggie Smalls was murdered in a scenario similar to Tupac’s slaying, talk that it was retaliation for Shakur’s death was widespread.

  Still, police from coast to coast have been hesitant to say any of the killings are related. Even now, after all these years, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether the murder connections, if any, are real or perceived. Could they be, as police have suggested, just gang-bangers doing their thing, in random shootings, coincidentally hitting witnesses to other murders?

  If the murders of Jake Robles, Randy Walker, Tupac Shakur, Yafeu Fula, and Biggie Smalls are gang-related, the fatal results of a war between the Bloods and Crips, people in the gangsta-rap business say they won’t be the last.

  In the past, gang members carried Saturday Night Specials. Today’s black gangs are armed with sophisticated paramilitary weapons such as semiautomatic rifles, Uzis, Glocks, Mac-10-type submachine guns, and 9-millimeter and 45-caliber pistols.

  • • •

  There are several stories about the origins of the Crips, but the most commonly accepted version is that the gang was started in the neighborhoods of West Los Angeles. The smaller neighborhood gangs consolidated and joined forces, forming the larger, and more powerful, Crips gang. An influential gang member named Raymond Washington started the Crips, which gradually built a reputation for being the strongest force among the black gangs of West L. A. Soon, other gangs started renaming themselves, incorporating the word Crips into their new names, gangs such as the Main Street Crips, Kitchen Crips, 5 Duece Crips, and Rollin 20 Crips appeared on the streets.

  The development of the Bloods has been similar to that of the Crips. Black men in their late teens and early twenties living in rival neighborhoods in Compton formed the Bloods. In the early ’70s Sylvester Scott and Vincent Owens formed the Compton Pirus, named for West Piru Street in the city of Compton. The Compton Pirus rose to power quickly and became extremely powerful. As the recognition given to the Compton Pirus spread throughout L.A. County, other Piru gangs, which later changed their name to Bloods, were formed. Today, the Bloods are the most formidable rivals of the Crips.

  Numerically, the Bloods are outnumbered by the Crips, according to Compton and Los Angeles police. But what the Bloods lack in numbers, they make up for in violence.

  Sometime in the early ’70s, police began to notice that the black gangs were dividing into Crips and Bloods. But although many of the gangs fall under the loose umbrella defined by the two best-known names, the smaller sets are still identified by the local streets, landmarks, parks, or neighborhoods, which are incorporated into their names—the Donna Street gang in North Las Vegas, for example, and the 18th Street gang in Las Vegas. Today, Crips often have altercations among their own subsets or factions. Bloods, on the other hand, don’t seem so inclined.

  In the Compton area, police have seen different Crips gangs unite to enhance their criminal enterprises. The Crips gangs began calling themselves C.C. Riders (Compton Crip Riders). They’ve spread to other Western states, including Nevada.

  (In the late 1980s, Southern California gang members began traveling into Las Vegas, one of the hottest spots in the nation and, to the gangs, a ready mark. The gangs had a similar M.O.: takeover robberies of banks and casinos. Gang members considered casinos, especially, an easy score, according to gang-unit detectives. They were able to grab a large sum of money in just a couple of minutes. When casinos were hit, some of the money was later found by Los Angeles-area police in gang sweeps. The disturbing thing for officers, however, was that the takeover robberies seemed to serve as an initiation ritual for new Los Angeles-based gang members. The police swooped in on the early perpetrators and slowed the practice down a bit. But they couldn’t stop it completely.)

  Crips gang members identify with the color blue, and usually have a blue rag in their possession or wear some blue article of clothing (such as blue shoelaces, blue hat, blue hair rollers, or blue canvas belt). In Las Vegas, they wear light blue. Members generally write their graffiti in blue, tagging their gang name on walls in the ‘hoods to mark their territorial boundaries and to publicly taunt their enemies or rivals. They use terms like “Crip,” or “BK or PK” (which means Blood Killer or Piru Killer). Crips refer to one another as “Cuzz” and use the letter “C” to replace the letter “B” in their conversations and writings, such as “Meet me at the cusstop” and “That guy has crass calls.”

  Pirus and Bloods identify with the color red and refer to one another as “Blood.” A Piru usually carries a red rag and wears red clothing. Bloods write their graffiti in red and use the terms “Piru” and “CK” (for Crips Killer).

  Black gang members once eschewed tattoos, but that’s changed; now, members are tattooing themselves in the same manner as the traditional Hispanic gangs.

  In the black street gang, there is little structure in terms of hierarchy and rank. No one member is in charge of everyone. Some members have more influence than others, but the term “leader” is seldom used. Age, physical stature, arrest record, and behavioral background are the main factors that determine an individual’s influence on a gang. Gang members gain respect, influence, and power within a particular group by demonstrating their nerve and daring.

  Each gang’s level of violence is determined by the dominant members’ ability to incite the others. The dominant members are generally the most violent, street-wise, and knowledgeable in legal matters, which is especially useful in the event their members are arrested. They might participate in a violent act, or simply encourage others to commit it. They’re usually well liked and respected by their fellow members, as well as by outsiders.

  • • •

  Are black gangs becoming the new mob? Claims of “disorganization” not withstanding, some cops think so. Police say that black gangs and the mob now overlap, with players from organized crime hiring gang members as their hit men.

  “I compare [black gang members] to the early days of the mob,” said North Las Vegas Police Lieutenant Chris Larotonda. “They’re doing the exact same things. Then it was bootleg whiskey. Now it’s drugs. But you have to make yourself look legitimate, even though your money may be coming from other [illegal] sources. Some of the gangs are expanding in just the narcotics sales and [otherwise] trying to legitimize themselves. We’ve seen them try to branch out into more legitimate-type businesses.”

  Even U.S. Senator Harry Reid, D-Nev., has likened Nevada’s street-gang members to mobsters. Reid told a Judiciary Committee considering an anti-gang measure that “we’ve got sophisticated crime syndicates turning our cities and towns into war zones.”

  The basic differences between traditional organized crime versus street gangs “[usually comes down to] access to political influence,” said Lieutenant Bill Conger from LVMPD’s gang unit. “The street gangs aren’t organized enough for that—yet.”

  Black street gangs are alive and well in Las Vegas. Although L.A. gangs still influence them, they now stand alone.

  “We have our own Crips and Bloods,” said Conger. “There was some Los Angeles influence early on, but Las Vegas is its own town, and we have our own [gang] problems.”

  Indeed, 2001 ended up “the bloodiest year ever,” said North Las Vegas Sergeant David Jacks. Two street gangs were in open combat, with an onslaught of shootings taking place on the border between Las Vegas and North Las Vegas. One street separated the rival street gangs, both of which originated in Los Angeles, Jacks said. “We refer to [the area] as ‘Crips city’,” he said.

  14

  MOTIVES

  There are several motives.

  According to police sources and talk on the street, the killing of Tupac Shakur (and to an extent, Biggie Smalls) was a byproduct of one of three pre-existing situations: one, the fierce competition between East Coast and West Coast music factions to sell records and dominate the gangsta-rap world; two, Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight’s connections to the Bloods street gang and its rivalry with the Crips; and three, a conspiracy of top record-company executives to kill their own superstar rappers as a way of boosting sales.

  Each of the three theories has also spawned related sub-theories. One relating to the third scenario is that Suge Knight was behind the deed, an accusation that Knight has vehemently denied and one that has never been substantiated with evidence. Conversely, it has been suggested that Suge, not Tupac, was the intended victim.

  Still, others who have followed the saga contend that it was nothing as sinister as a deep-rooted conspiracy, but more likely a case of personal retaliation (stemming from the fight at the MGM Grand), or a semi-random act of violence, semi-random to the extent that the rival-gang consideration would be involved if that were the case.

  One music-industry insider said, “The only scenario that fits is somebody thought they were doing Pac a favor [by killing Biggie]. I don’t know who killed Tupac. I’m tired of the speculation.”

  Tupac himself has been named in speculation that there was no killing, that the whole thing was an elaborate dodge, staged to fake his own death.

  Let’s take a look.

  • • •

  “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” Aretha Franklin sang 20 years ago. And that’s exactly what Suge Knight, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, and Puffy Combs all said they wanted. Could the vicious and bloody rivalry between record companies be as simple as that?

  Some sources say that the rivalry has, indeed, been as simple as that—respect as rappers and songwriters, as businessmen, and as gangstas.

  “The rumors [about a feud] are helpful, but not true,” Suge told Vibe before Tupac was killed. “They get me additional respect, and this business is about getting the respect you deserve, so you can get what you want. I don’t worry about all the talk.”

  Tupac also spoke to Vibe about being respected for his music, while at the same time appearing to be willing to fight Suge’s East Coast battles with him.

  “My homeboy Suge gave me the best advice that I could ever get from anybody,” Tupac said. “When people ask Suge if he’s beefing with Bad Boy and Puffy, he says, ‘It’s like me going to the playground to pick on little kids. That’s like me being mad at my little brother ‘cause he’s getting cash now. I’m not mad at that; I’m just mad at my little brother when he don’t respect me. And when you don’t respect me, I’m a spank that ass. I don’t give a fuck how rich you got on the block, I’m your big brother. That’s my only point. I feel as though he wrong, he got out of hand. He got seduced by the power, not because he’s an evil person, but because money is evil if it’s not handled right.”