By Geoff Boucher, Times Staff Writer
The party at the Playboy Mansion was over hours earlier, and as the clock ticked toward 4 a.m., Marion "Suge" Knight was back in his darkened office and puffing on a Cuban cigar. Over his shoulder, the framed platinum albums glinted like chrome rims in a low fog. It was then, as so often happens with the rap music mogul, that the topic turned to murder.
"I'm a product of the inner city, and if you're from off the block, more than likely, you're going to go in a violent way or spend your life in prison," he said in a near whisper. "But no matter what, mine will be a peaceful death. You see, I have made history. And I know one thing: Ain't no man can stop me from going to heaven."
The late hours and ominous talk are trademarks of the 37-year-old Knight, the founder of Death Row Records. In the 1990s, Knight's company pushed hard-core rap into the music mainstream and generated $100 million a year in album sales at its peak. But along the way, its chief became infamous for a strong-arm style and his proximity to people who ended up dead.
Just two weeks ago, 175 heavily armed sheriff's deputies swarmed Knight's office, his homes in three cities and a dozen other sites as part of a slaying investigation. Three men identified as Knight associates were arrested but were later released and not charged. A fourth Knight associate was charged in a Nov. 26 attempted murder warrant and remains at large. Investigators have said Knight is not a suspect in the ongoing probe.
"The taxpayers," Knight said, "are the ones that should be outraged here. All this, for what?" He declined further comment on the police probe, which centers on factions of the Bloods and their alleged roles in a June 7 killing and an Oct. 22 attempted murder. Knight has long been associated with the Bloods and through the years has hired the gang's members as employees.
The hulking Knight has never minded the whispers that follow him. Just the opposite. The former football player exults in the idea of himself as a John Gotti from Compton, a celebrity tough guy in a killer wardrobe.
Now, though, the murmurs at music industry events have a different Suge subplot: Does Knight even matter anymore?
Knight has heard the doubters and agreed to two interviews in the past week to answer the question of his music industry relevance.
In both he presented himself as a serene businessman who is passionate about music and relentlessly optimistic. He is inconsistent when speaking about matters of the street; he presents himself as a survivor who has outgrown the gang scene and its violence, but every time he goes into the studio he walks beneath a handwritten sign: "Keep it Gangsta."
At its peak, Death Row Records was a hit factory led by superstars Tupac Shakur (who recorded as 2Pac), Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, and Knight was the dealmaker and details man. But the slaying of Shakur, the defections of Dre and Snoop and Knight's own imprisonment have left that empire diminished.
Renamed simply Tha Row, Knight's company now finds its biggest hits in the music of its past, such as "Better Dayz," a posthumous package of unreleased 2Pac music that today will debut high on the nation's album chart.
But Knight says there is only one full album's worth of unreleased Shakur music remaining. The long-term health of Tha Row will be determined by its new stars. "Death Row is all pictures and memories," Knight acknowledges, "and now it is about Tha Row ... " And so far Tha Row has yet to prove the doubters wrong. The debut album from its most promising new talent, Long Beach rapper Crooked I, was due in stores in September but has yet to be released.
"This is a guy who was a folk hero and a guy everyone talked about or feared," said Huyn Kim, an editor at Vibe, the hip-hop magazine that has tracked Knight's exploits for years. "But now, well, he has to show he can start over and there's a lot stacked against him."
More than a dozen music executives, artists and top publicists interviewed for this story agreed with that appraisal, but none would say it on the record.
"The problem is if you publicly say that Suge still matters, you look like an idiot to everyone," said one publicist with a client list that includes major rap artists and executives. "And if you say he doesn't, well, then you have to deal with Suge."
The name Suge is pronounced like the first syllable of "sugar," and it's short for "Sugar Bear," a childhood nickname that still fits the demeanor of Knight in one-on-one conversation. His casual voice is quiet and without sharp edges. His 6-foot-3, 320-pound frame clearly belongs to a former athlete, but there is also a softness to his wide grin.
Knight is a difficult man to reach. His company is small and insular, and the doors are always locked at his offices in the mirrored-glass building on the corner of Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards. After years of scrutiny by investigators from the LAPD, FBI, IRS and others, there is a logical reticence among Knight's circle of associates. It extends to the media, too, after countless articles on the mogul's exploits (the most frequently repeated anecdote is rapper Vanilla Ice's claim that Knight dangled him from a balcony in a business dispute, which Knight denies) and the recent film "Biggie & Tupac," which points to Knight as a menacing figure and possible murder conspirator. Still, this past week he welcomed a reporter into his offices and his studios and was relaxed enough to munch on tacos and watch ESPN in the same building where SWAT officers prowled the corridors just two weeks earlier. He agreed to answer all questions, but it became clear that queries about crime or his family life would get only vague or philosophical answers. He described himself again and again as a devoted son, a doting father of four and the rare rap-world celebrity that needs no bodyguards.
"I am a happy man, a free man, a blessed man," he said. "My life is not a complicated life because of that happiness."
Not popular in Vegas
Knight's internal cheer does not sway everyone. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, for example, said he was stunned by the visceral reaction last year to Knight when he visited the desert city.
"He came into town and wanted to know if there was interest here in him doing a Death Row Records equivalent out of Las Vegas," Goodman said. "I said I was happy to talk about it. He was spotted in my office and word got out and the public went nuts saying, 'We don't want him in this town.' That drove him away."
It was in Las Vegas that Knight weathered the most infamous night of his life. It was Sept. 7, 1996, when video cameras in a hotel lobby captured images of Knight, Shakur and others brutally beating down a gang rival. That was just hours before Knight was wounded and Shakur was mortally wounded in a shooting attack.
The casino assault eventually put Knight in prison for five years -- it was a violation of his parole and came after previous convictions on assault and federal weapon charges. The Shakur killing became a flashpoint in rap violence, which would crescendo again in March 1997 with the slaying in Los Angeles of Shakur's archrival Christopher Wallace, the rap star known as the Notorious B.I.G. Police say both killings remain unsolved.
Knight's name is so frequently mentioned in the theories surrounding the two deaths that he has become a walking symbol of the rap industry's bloodshed.
Through the years Knight has been contemptuous or cryptic when asked about either shooting. On Saturday night, at a Burbank recording studio, he said he has no insights to offer.
"When God puts a period on something," he said, "who am I or anyone else to put a question mark? The past is the past."