3 Kings

by Zack O'Malley Greenburg

  In addition to running his own label, Diddy wanted to be the vice president of urban music at EMI—where the label’s top act was Vanilla Ice. When the execs asked him what he’d do with the “Ice Ice Baby” rapper, Diddy didn’t hesitate.

  “I couldn’t fuck with that dude,” he said, turning to Stone. “Rob knows I can’t fuck with him. Know what they’d do to me in the streets?”

  I’ve never met anyone like this, Stone recalls thinking.

  Even in his early twenties, Diddy understood that Vanilla Ice had a certain value but would never be cool in the eyes of Bad Boy’s intended audience. Remarkably, as the meeting continued, Diddy became even more outrageously self-confident—and started to dictate his own terms.

  “When you guys get in a room with all them suits and you’re going to decide what you’re going to pay Puff, just when you get to a number that you think is going to make Puff happy, get crazy on top of that,” he declared. “And then when you’re there, I want whipped cream and a cherry on top.”

  That is the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, Stone thought. By this point, his bosses were laughing. But Diddy was dead serious.

  “I don’t even want to think about the money; that shouldn’t even be an issue,” he said, leaning forward. “Don’t be coming at me with no n**ger money. Goodbye.”

  While Diddy and Jay-Z generally rented the mansions and automobiles on display in their visuals in the mid-1990s, Dr. Dre and his West Coast brethren released videos featuring their own lavish residences and automobiles. They had done more than catch up to the prosperity of the East Coast. “It seemed like they were winning,” says Branson.25

  Dre produced every song on N.W.A.’s second album, Niggaz 4 Life (officially titled Efil4zaggin—its intended title spelled backward to appease censors), which, despite Ice Cube’s absence from it, sold nearly one million copies in the week after its May 1991 debut. That same month, Billboard changed the methodology for its charts: instead of calling a select few record stores and asking for anecdotal reports of record sales, as it had in the past, the publication turned to research outfit SoundScan, which tabulated the numbers with a system tied directly to the scanning of bar codes at checkout counters across the country. The Parents Music Resource Center—Tipper Gore’s much-maligned obscenity watchdog—slapped Efil4zaggin with a Parental Advisory notice, but the move seemed to only make the album more popular: it debuted at number two on Billboard’s revamped charts and soared to number one in its second week, a clear indication that hip-hop was selling more than even record store owners realized.26

  At this time, Dre wasn’t quite the savvy businessman many now consider him to be. Jerry Heller remembered visiting the producer to help him with some financial housekeeping and finding an uncashed royalty check for $12,000, along with several others for similar amounts.27 Still, after Ice Cube’s departure, Dre became convinced he could create a better situation for himself than he had with Ruthless and N.W.A. “He had grown confident in his decision-making,” his mother wrote. “Most important, he knew his worth.”28 And Dre concluded that working for someone else was a great way to be underpaid.

  At around the same time, Dre had grown close to Marion “Suge” Knight—who, as a scab during the 1987 NFL strike, was a lineman for the Los Angeles Rams before catching on as a Hollywood bodyguard and then as manager of Dre’s pal Tracy “D.O.C.” Curry. Knight’s nickname was a variant of “Sugar Bear”—ironic in light of his rap sheet: by the time he’d entered Dre’s circle, he had already been arrested for shooting a man while stealing a car in Las Vegas, assaulting someone at Los Angeles International Airport, and using a pistol to break a man’s jaw during an argument outside his house. Somehow, he had managed to get away with probation each time.29

  With N.W.A.’s second album in the rearview mirror, Dre called Eazy to set up a meeting and discuss the group’s future. But according to Heller and many others close to the situation, the undersize rapper arrived at Solar Studios as promised to discover no sign of Dre. In his place, he found Knight, two bodyguards with baseball bats, and a set of papers clearing D.O.C., Dr. Dre, and his then girlfriend, Michel’le, a singer, to leave Ruthless Records. “You got to sign these,” Knight allegedly said—before threatening to harm Eazy, his mother, and Heller. “You better off signing.”30

  Knight’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment for this book,31 while Dre declined through a publicist.32 In regard to the Solar Studios incident, though, the Dre-approved biopic Straight Outta Compton seems to lend credence to Heller’s recollection; the superproducer’s own words suggest that he approved of Knight’s by-any-means-necessary attitude. “When he came in a room, he had a presence,” Dre said in 1999. “I looked at it like this: he got the releases.”33

  Having Knight around to do some of his dirty work left Dre the space to focus on creating music, but he had a violent streak of his own. In 1990, he beat up journalist Dee Barnes after taking issue with a TV segment she’d done; Dre blamed her for including a verbal shot from Ice Cube directed at N.W.A. (Dre and Barnes settled out of court.) At around the same time, Michel’le accused Dre of domestic abuse, though the matter never went to court. (Since then, Dre has issued several blanket public apologies for his violence toward women. Barnes accepted; Michel’le didn’t.)34

  None of these incidents prevented Dre and Knight from inking Interscope Records as Death Row’s distribution partner and financial backer in 1992. Jimmy Iovine, who had worked as a sound engineer for John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen, cofounded Interscope in 1990 and took an interest in Dre at the behest of John McClain, one of the label’s other founders. Sensing a kindred audiophile, Iovine authorized Interscope to pay Dre a $750,000 advance for his first solo record and add options for up to four additional albums, which could make the deal worth $7.5 million more. Knight’s scare tactics weren’t enough to completely free Dre of his contractual obligations to Ruthless, which received a fee of $750,000 for his services and took a cut of royalties, too.35

  Dre’s hometown simmered just as his career came to a boil. The Rodney King riots of 1992 left vast swaths of Los Angeles in flames, and Dre’s work with N.W.A. provided the soundtrack, with protesters chanting “Fuck the police!” outside the LAPD’s downtown headquarters. Dre himself hunkered down in his mansion in Calabasas, on the outskirts of the city, and wrote “The Day the Niggaz Took Over.” The aggressive exhortation toward black unity appeared on his solo debut, but Dre axed an N.W.A.-style song called “Mr. Officer,” later saying, “Making money is more important to me than talking about killing police.”36

  The Chronic hit store shelves in December 1992, several months after the riots. Dre didn’t feel the need to hog the spotlight, even on his own record. D.O.C. cowrote six songs on The Chronic, while youngster Calvin “Snoop Doggy Dogg” Broadus made the album’s biggest assist. Dre had discovered him on a mixtape at a bachelor party, eventually bringing him in as a guest and/or cowriter on all but three tracks on The Chronic. Snoop’s unmistakable flow—lackadaisical yet intense, the hip-hop equivalent of a karate master practicing drunken fist martial arts—combined with Dre’s own laid-back lyricism to create a new hip-hop classic. Iovine later likened the partnership to that of the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. (D.O.C. might’ve been Charlie Watts, but a 1989 car accident mangled his larynx, relegating him mostly to the role of ghostwriter.)37

  Production-wise, Dre employed a Minimoog synthesizer on The Chronic to create the album’s sonic trademark: a spooky whine that he mixed with George Clinton and James Brown samples and farty bass lines. This spawned the hip-hop subgenre known as G-funk. That letter stood for “gangsta,” a word frequently employed but rarely defined in Dre’s songs. He wasn’t a member of the Bloods or the Crips and yet managed to create swaggering anthems that appealed to hard-core gangbangers and suburban white teenagers alike.

  One such track, “Nuthin’ but a G Thang,” was perhaps the biggest hit on The Chronic. The song rem
inded Iovine of the Stones’ “Satisfaction,” but Interscope’s radio team couldn’t get DJs to play it, with one member saying, “They think it’s a bunch of black guys cursing who want to kill everybody.” So Iovine created a one-minute commercial cut and bought drive-time spots to air the track on fifty radio stations, leading to a deluge of listener requests. According to Iovine, “That’s how that got on the radio.”38 Soon the Los Angeles Times was comparing Dre’s artistry with that of Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Phil Spector and Brian Wilson.39 “Dre was the first producer in hip-hop to put melody in records,” Diddy later told VH1’s Behind the Music. “He made ’em songs.”

  The Chronic sold three million copies its first year, but rather than sit back, Dre doubled down and went to work on Snoop’s solo debut, Doggystyle, set for release on Death Row in late 1993. Dre invited Fab to come to Los Angeles and direct a music video for the young rapper’s first single, “Who Am I?” (The answer, in a classic chorus set to the tune of “Atomic Dog” by George Clinton: “Snoop Daw-gy Dah-ou-awg.”) Back then, Snoop was far from the goofy character known for starring in his own reality TV show and palling around with Martha Stewart, as Fab learned when he arrived at the video shoot in Snoop’s hometown. “Long Beach was really a wild kind of gangsta haven,” he recalls.40

  Various gang members started to jockey for position in certain shots in the video’s opening setup on the roof of VIP Records; soon fights were breaking out, and the police arrived on the scene. By the time Fab and his crew got to the next location, law enforcement helicopters were swarming overhead. The situation had gotten so far out of control that the artists were forced to put the video on hold. Dre, perhaps feeling guilty for wasting Fab’s time—or possibly sensing an opportunity to surround himself with new creative inspiration—invited him to stay at his home until things cooled down.

  Days stretched into weeks, and before Fab knew it, he’d been living with Dre for two months. He fell into the same routine as the superproducer and his entourage: wake up late, go to the studio, work on Snoop’s album. “I was mainly interested in how he responded to directions,” Dre said of Snoop. “That’s always an important test with me. Talent gets you in the door, but there are other things I consider, like, ‘Do I want to work with this guy?’”41

  Once he’d had his fill of recording, Dre would often hit the gym—his house was packed with weight machines, stationary bikes, and StairMasters—and then summon a bunch of people to his backyard for a cookout. (The grill master was an ex-gangbanger from Texas who loved to explain how Lone Star State cooks don’t use sauce but, instead, smoke their barbecue.) They’d blast The Chronic on Dre’s sound system. According to Fab, there were always “a lot of hot chicks jumping in the pool nude.”42

  The two hip-hop legends also connected on a deeper level. Dre seemed genuinely interested not just in Fab’s Yo! MTV Raps war stories but in his experience with New York’s downtown art scene, and how he got connected with Warhol, Basquiat, and Blondie. For his part, Fab tuned in to Dre’s creative process, learning that the producer initially hadn’t liked several tracks on The Chronic; many of the album’s songs only made the final cut after friends like D.O.C. urged him to keep them.

  Eventually they got back to work on the Snoop video. Rather than focus on the rapper’s gang-affiliated résumé, Fab decided to concentrate on his sense of humor and the images conjured by his name. He wanted to take the corny cartoon-dogs-playing-cards trope and apply it to Snoop’s life. So Fab brought in trainers and their canine charges, setting up shots in which it looked as though the dogs were playing dice games. (“It was a nightmare working with these damn dogs,” Fab told me.)

  To add a technological flourish, Fab used his connections with digital postproduction houses to create an animation in which Snoop would transform into an actual dog on-screen. With the bulk of the video in the can, he just needed to film Snoop one last time for the big setup: a girl petting the head of a Doberman, which would then morph into Snoop. But the rapper didn’t show up—once, twice, three times.

  “Dre, man, what’s up with Snoop?” Fab finally asked. “You keep telling me he’s going to show up.”

  Dre remained silent.

  “What was it, man, a one eighty-seven?” asked Fab, jokingly employing the Los Angeles slang for murder.

  Dre nodded his head, and Fab pulled him into a quiet corner.

  “A couple of nights ago, Snoop and them was riding around,” Dre explained. “He got into it and this guy got shot and killed.”

  Fab was stunned.

  “Look, man, Snoop ain’t going to be coming,” Dre continued. “What they’re going to do is, he’s laying low. The VMAs is coming up… After that, he’s turning himself in.”

  And that’s exactly what happened. Fab cobbled together a video very close to his original vision, and Snoop eventually beat his charges. Doggystyle dropped in November 1993, and in addition to establishing the Long Beach rapper as a solo superstar, it marked the latest evolution of Dre as a producer. In just a few years he’d gone from hammering out the rugged, sparse beats behind Straight Outta Compton to crafting the mellow, menacing funk of The Chronic to spinning syrupy sing-alongs like “Gin and Juice” and “Who Am I” into legitimate crossover hits on Doggystyle. All that, coupled with the frisson of danger provided by Snoop’s legal troubles, helped push the record to opening week sales of eight hundred thousand.43

  To Fab, the whole episode seemed to be another example of Dre using controversy to attract attention to his and his artists’ work. “Most of it was all theatrical,” Fab says. “Most of the people in rap didn’t do ninety percent of what they rap about, because they’re just great storytellers and great actors… Dre was the architect who understood how to take this and theatricalize it.”44

  In the wake of his 1993 dismissal from Uptown, Diddy eventually earned offers from record companies including EMI, Elektra, and Sony. Ultimately, Clive Davis—who had discovered artists such as Janis Joplin, Whitney Houston, and Alicia Keys—lured Diddy to his Arista label with a pact that included a seven-figure advance for himself and even more for Bad Boy, including marketing funds, recording budgets, and total creative control over everything under the label’s umbrella.45

  That came in particularly handy when bringing on Notorious B.I.G.—whom Diddy had originally signed to Uptown after reading about him in The Source’s Unsigned Hype column. Biggie combined an unmistakably brawny flow with darkly comical rhymes about street life (“I got nines in the bedroom, Glocks in the kitchen / A shotty46 by the shower if you wanna shoot me while I’m shittin’”) and a knack for unexpected simile (“Your reign on the top was short like leprechauns”). He had a record ready to go when Diddy moved over to Arista but was still technically signed to Uptown.

  “We’ve got to buy Biggie back,” Diddy told Meiselas shortly after landing his new gig.47

  “All right,” the lawyer replied. “I’ll negotiate.”

  “No,” said Diddy. “I need it tomorrow because this thing has to come out yesterday. I don’t want you to negotiate. I don’t want you to haggle. I need this act… He’s the greatest rapper since Ice Cube.”

  So Meiselas had a conversation with his counterparts at Uptown’s parent company, MCA Records, and found that they were actually eager to rid themselves of the unproven rapper. In the end, Diddy got Biggie back for about half a million dollars, a deal that would prove to be one of the better bargains in hip-hop history.

  Next, Diddy arranged a meeting so that he could play new music for the entire Arista staff. Before, his attire had typically mirrored that of his artists: athletic jerseys, Timberlands, and baseball caps. But this time, he arrived buttoned up in a suit, ready with a plan to make Bad Boy a self-perpetuating hit machine. “Year one, it’s going to be Biggie and Craig Mack,” he said. “I’m going to come with my hip-hop to the streets… Then I’m going to introduce Faith and Total. My hip-hop artists are going to help introduce them.”48

  Diddy got to work promoti
ng the first wave, at one point putting out a cassette with Biggie’s single on one side and Mack’s on the other, with packaging reminiscent of a Big Mac, and having copies passed out at hip-hop events.49 Propelled by that sort of marketing—and the earworm “Flava in Ya Ear”—Mack’s debut went gold. Biggie’s first album, Ready to Die, went on to sell more than four million copies thanks to singles like “Juicy” and “Big Poppa.” His gritty Brooklyn wit synergized with Diddy’s flashy Harlem bluster to create an aspirational brand for listeners and artists alike. As rapper Jadakiss put it, “Getting on Bad Boy was like being the top pick in the draft, going to play with the Bulls when [Michael Jordan] was there.”50

  Diddy became the manager of a musical assembly line that aspired to be the Motown Records of hip-hop. Just as Berry Gordy had a team of songwriters and producers, Diddy helmed the Hitmen, crafting beats as a collective; the old days of the DJ at the center of the hip-hop ecosystem were over. As Tom Silverman recalls, “It was like an industrial revolution: ‘Let’s separate the beat-making and the music-making from the rappers, and let’s market the rappers instead of the DJs.’”51 Afrika Bambaataa saw the phenomenon as something darker—a “whispering devil that puts things in their ear and tells them, ‘Go on and make this money without your DJ, your backbone that helped start you out.’”52

  Meanwhile, Diddy was also reaching new levels as a convener of people. Chenise Wilson saw this firsthand when she walked into one of Diddy’s gatherings—and noticed Frank Sinatra walking out. Coincidence? “I don’t know, but he was in the building,” she says. “There wasn’t nothing else happening there but the party. That’s what Puff does. He brings people together to have a good time.”53

  Diddy had Sinatra-esque ambitions of his own. Shortly after Biggie recorded his debut single, “Party and Bullshit,” Diddy was heading to an event with Wilson, chauffeured by his new driver.