‘Star Stories With Touré’: The night Suge Knight kidnapped me, aka the scariest night of my life

OPINION: My interview with the head of Death Row Records definitely left me shook.

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

It was, without a doubt, the scariest moment of my life. It was around midnight in L.A., and I was interviewing Suge Knight in his office at Death Row Records, and he was really, really mad at me. Oh, I didn’t tell you the worst part — there was a young gangbanger standing beside Knight, and he looked like he was as tough as anyone I’d ever seen. He was chiseled and had a menacing screwface. He was just waiting for Knight to give the word so he could stomp me the way normal people stomp a cockroach in the kitchen. I was so scared.

My heart was pounding, and I was trying to get myself to accept the fact that I was about to get viciously beaten down. How did I end up there? The whole story is at the heart of the episode of “Star Stories With Touré” called “Suge Knight Kidnapped Me!”

Back in the ’90s, when Death Row was the hottest label in the game, Knight was the scariest man in the music business. People said he had beaten guys up and dangled a guy out of a window and broken into the office of a major executive and taken his, uh, pants. For real. He was a wild man barreling through the industry doing whatever he wanted, and people were scared as hell. I told a famous exec that I wanted to interview Knight. He told me don’t do it. Steer clear of that guy. But I was undeterred.

I ended up in Knight’s office because I was doing a story on another exec, someone who had mentored Knight. But he had also sued Knight over the ownership of Death Row, and when I asked Knight about the lawsuit, he flipped out. He didn’t yell. He didn’t touch me. But his energy was so menacing it felt like the weather in the room had changed from sunshine to thunderstorms. My sense of danger was tangible. I tried to leave. I walked toward the door but he barked “Sit yo ass down!” I did because I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sure a prosecutor and a judge would consider it kidnapping or illegal detainment, but the justice system was not there to help me that night in Knight’s office. 

I said he didn’t touch me but that’s wrong. He did. At one point, he put his arm around me. Knight is massive like an NFL linebacker. He was a full foot taller than I was with massive arms. He could’ve snapped me like a twig. When he put his arm around my shoulders, he dug his fingers into my shoulder and practically dragged me across the room. We were heading toward the corner where there was a tank of piranhas. What was he about to do? Why were we going into the corner? Was he about to knock me out? I was paralyzed with fear. My heart was pounding so hard, it felt like it was trying to escape out of my chest so it could avoid the pain that was coming any second now. 

Knight is now in prison doing 28 years, but not for anything he did to me that night. But I remain scarred. You have to hear the whole story. For that check out the “Suge Knight Kidnapped Me” episode of “Star Stories With Touré.”  

Touré is a host and Creative Director at theGrio. He is the host of the docuseries podcast “Being Black: The ’80s” and the animated show Star Stories with Toure which you can find at TheGrio.com/starstories. He is also the host of the podcast “Toure Show” and the podcast docuseries “Who Was Prince?” He is the author of eight books including the Prince biography Nothing Compares 2 U and the ebook The Ivy League Counterfeiter.

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