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Suge Knight Interview Sept. 20, 1996 -- Las Vegas police say they still have no leads on suspects or motive in the murder of rapper and actor Tupac Shakur, who died last Friday, the 13th, after being gunned down in a drive-by following the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon boxing match September 7th. Meanwhile, on Thursday night in Los Angeles, we spoke with Marion "Suge" Knight, head of Tupac's label, Death Row Records, and the man who was driving the car, sitting right next to Tupac when he was shot. Knight, who himself was grazed in the head by a bullet, was prevented by lawyers from addressing the shooting itself... But here, for the first time on television, he speaks publicly about its aftermath. MTV: How are you feeling, and how are you doing physically? MARION "SUGE" KNIGHT, CEO, Death Row Records: I feel like this: I feel that the last word is always God, but Pac saved my life. He's my... Pac saved my life. I got shot in the head -- got grazed some other places -- but I still got the bullet in my head. It's still here.... Before, I was tryin' to get him to the hospital -- didn't make me realize that I was shot. Because usually, when you get shot in the head, the first thing the person do is panic. You know, BAM! I'm shot in the head! I'm about to die! And once you do that, you can't drive nowhere. My whole thing was Pac -- he was shot. I'm like, "You're shot! Let me get you to the hospital." I'm driving, telling him I'm gonna get him to the hospital, kicked back, Pac looked at me and said, "You know what? You need a doctor more than me. You the one shot in your head." And we laughed the whole time finding our way to the hospital. That's the conversation we had. It wasn't... Pac was a man the whole time. It wasn't that he was like, "OOOhhh, I'm shot!" He crackin' jokes. He's like, "Yeah, they shot me." But he said, "But you shot in your head. Look at your head. You see how much it's bleedin'? Look how much it's bleedin'." That was Pac. And I'm like, "Man, shut up, we'll get you to the doctor." MTV: So he was conscious on the way to the hospital? KNIGHT: He was conscious on the way to the hospital, he was conscious in the... labs, he was conscious after they did surgery. MTV: What was the last thing that he said to you? KNIGHT: That he loved me. You know, he was going... he was gettin' there. I'm like, "Pac, you're gonna be the last one left." But we talked this out. We talked it. He said, "No, I'm straight. I love you, homey. I'm gonna be straight." "I love you too." That's where he was. MTV: There was a report earlier this week in "The New York Post" that Tupac was looking to leave Death Row Records. Is that true? KNIGHT: You should answer that. You don't take a person like Tupac, who, if you listen to every song on "All Eyez On Me," every song on "Machiavelli," every time he do an interview, what's the first thing he say? Death Row. Tupac loved Death Row. Tupac loved me. I loved him. I mean, Tupac took Death Row to the next level. I mean, we worked hard, we laid the foundation down, Snoop took the baton and he ran with it. And he did a great job with it. But Tupac got the baton, not only did he win the race, he finished so fast he able to sit back and drink some thug passion in, and come up with another play. If you'd asked Tupac that question that was he planning on leaving Death Row, he definitely would have cussed you out. MTV: A lot of people in the hip hop community have said that this incident will change hip hop. This is a really landmark event -- tragic event, at that. And that the music will probably never be the same. Do you see the direction of Death Row changing? Is there going to be a different type of music put out? KNIGHT: Not at all. We gonna do thing we've been doing, and set our records like I said before. My main goal is fulfill Tupac's dreams. And Tupac would definitely never want the music to change.... So we'll keep it the way he would like it. I feel like that it's my job to make sure all Pac's dreams is fulfilled, and he stay alive, and keep Death Row alive. I'm not gonna go and say, "Well, just 'cause it's a little crazy in this world, so, I'm gonna sit down somewhere." I'm not gonna sit down nowhere. I'm gonna walk the pattern, talk the same talk, fulfill all his dreams, and lay real low. Also Thursday night, Tupac's label-mate Snoop Doggy Dogg told us that this is a very emotional time right now for him, as well. Snoop's new album, "Tha Doggfather," is due out November 5th, the same day as Tupac's EP "Machiavelli." Meanwhile, as expected, in the wake of Tupac's death, sales of his latest album "All Eyez On Me" soared -- 40,000 copies moved in the past week; and on Monday's "Billboard" pop albums chart the album leaps from number 69 to number 18. Tupac's previous album, "Me Against The World," also got a sales bump, and re-enters the chart at number 99. As for Tupac's posthumous "Machiavelli" EP, its cover will bear a painting, commissioned by Tupac before his death, that will seem prophetic: it shows Shakur on a cross, with bullet holes in his body, and light pouring through the holes along with his blood. Also stuck to the cross are notes naming the many cities in which Tupac had run-ins with the law. |