Scariest Moment of My Life—The Night Suge Knight Kidnapped Me

I thought I was going to die

Want to hear about the scariest interview of my life? My Suge Knight interview. It gives me chills just to think about this situation. I was in the grip of a monster who could’ve done anything he wanted to me. Scariest moment of my life for real.

This was the mid-90s when Death Row Records was hot like fish grease. I was interviewing Suge in his office at Death Row. He was a giant with humungous arms and a linebacker’s chest. He towered over me. He looked like he could take a human body and snap it like firewood. This was when he was running through the music biz like a gangster. They said he had threatened people, he had dangled people over ledges. People were really scared of him. I told one music exec, the late Chris Lighty, that I wanted to interview Suge. Chris said don’t do it. It’s too dangerous. Leave him alone. Suge is now in the midst of a 28 year prison sentence for manslaughter. His penchant for violence was high.

But I couldn’t leave it alone. He was too compelling. And I was the sort of journalist who asked questions I wasn’t really supposed to ask because a little devil would pop up on my shoulder and be like, ‘What’s the matter? Are you afraid?’ This voice is one thing when I’m in a studio pushing myself to make some rapper be honest but it’s a whole other thing when I’m at Death Row, in the office of a gangster, after midnight and no one really knows I’m there. There were no cell phones then. Why was I there with this monster risking my life? I was doing my first big story for the New Yorker. It had to be good. It was about a music executive who had been like Suge before Suge, a man named Dick Griffey who had mentored Suge and helped him at the start of Death Row.

Griffey said that Suge had given him a piece of the ownership of Death Row, a claim that Suge disputed. Griffey was suing Suge over it. Many millions of dollars were at stake. So I’m in Suge’s office, interviewing him, asking him about Griffey and what he learned from him, a nice 40 minute convo. I knew my time was coming to an end and I really wanted to ask about the lawsuit. I was nervous. I knew it was a question he might object to but the devil jumped up on my shoulder and said ‘What’s the matter? Are you scared? You can’t back down from him.’

So I said to Suge, “What’s up with the lawsuit?” He said, “What lawsuit?” like he had no idea what I was talking about. I could’ve left it there and none of this would’ve happened. But I don’t know how to do that. And I was a little offended that he was pretending to not know. I said, “You know what I’m talking about.”

He paused and started glowering at me. His energy turned menacing and scary. It was like the room we were in had suddenly turned from pleasant weather to a looming thunderstorm. He said, “Turn off the tape recorder.” He said it in a really menacing voice. I did. Now I was scared.

I grabbed the recorder and stood up to leave. He said, “Where you going? Sit back down.” And he was so huge and his office was so big and we were alone so I didn’t really see what else I could do. I couldn’t run. Maybe if I appeased him things would be ok. So I sat down.

He got up and stood in the doorway of his office. He yelled to someone to come over. Suddenly, standing beside him in the doorway was a young, muscled Blood who looked tough as hell. He was glaring at me and he had an epic screwface that was scaring me to my soul. He was just waiting for Suge’s ok to move in and pummel me.

I haven’t been in a fight since the fifth grade. Well, that’s not fair, I took boxing classes for a few years when I was in my 20s and did some sparing, but I knew I would have absolutely no answer for any attack this man could unleash. Suge said to the blood, “This guy wanna come in here talkin about a lawsuit.” The blood made a fist and ground it into his palm in a rage. I knew he could eat me alive. Suge kept talking smack. The blood kept staring at me. I sat there paralyzed with fear thinking ‘Ok, if I leave with just one broken bone then I’ll be grateful.’ Which is an insane thing to think but that’s where we were. Then Suge dismissed the guy and shut the door. We were alone again.

He walked toward me and I thought he was going to punch me and it would feel like a car crash where you feel the other car hit your body. He stood over me and said, “Get up.” I didn’t want to but I didn’t see any other option. When I stood he put his tree trunk of an arm around my shoulders and dug his huge fingers into my neck. He started walking and he was practically dragging me with him across the room toward the corner where there was a weird little door. What was behind that door? I didn’t want to know. I was like “Wait, wait, wait… “Totally freaked out. Totally trapped. No idea what was about to happen. He said, in a menacing voice, “You done burnt your bridge with Death Row. Don’t you ever come in here asking about no lawsuits. One day you gonna need us and blah blah…” I couldn’t hear any more of what he was saying because my heart was pounding so hard like it was trying to escape from my chest so it wouldn’t have to feel the beatdown that was surely coming any second.

But then, he let go of me. Released, I started to walk toward the door. He said “Where are you going? Sit yo ass down.” I didn’t see any other option. But as I sat I thought, ‘Ok, he’s back behind his desk and we’re sitting so I think I’m not going to get hit tonight.’ And I still have the interview we recorded. So maybe this is working out. This was back when everyone recorded interviews on cassettes. Suge said rewind the tape. I thought, ‘Jesus help me. Now I have nothing.’

So we’re sitting there in silence as the tape whirs back to the beginning. Then it stops. He says, “Press record,” so now I’m recording over the interview we just did. Ugh. But then he starts talking. He's answering the first question I asked him about an hour ago. And he says the exact same thing he said before. Then without my prompting, he goes into the second and third answers he gave me. He repeats the same 40 minute interview that we did before, answering all my questions in order, a fairly stunning display of recall and memory. I wasn’t saying anything during this period because he was talking and my ability to produce complete sentences was gone because of the massive amounts of fear and stress that I had recently gone through. He redid the entire interview by himself until we got to the part where I’d asked about the lawsuit. Then he said, “Ok you got your interview. Now get out of here.”

I ran out of there.

Postscript: In the end, The New Yorker did not run the story.