Suge Knight has no love lost for Dr. Dre. Appearing on TMZ for an exclusive interview behind bars, Suge Knight touched on the upcoming biopic series that will focus on his life. During the interview, Knight claimed that Tupac and Dr. Dre never liked each other as he detailed the making of “California Love.”
“They weren’t in the studio together,” said Knight. “They hated each other. It’s that simple. J-Flexx is probably one of the best writers. It’s a lot of great people that were on Death Row that weren’t always heard about all the time. J-Flexx probably one of the best writers in the world. I can call J-Flexx and tell him write this song. He wrote Keep Their Heads Ringing. Damn near everything Andre spit.”
Knight also spoke about the original California Love which featured two verses from Dr. Dre. The song was completed after the infamous 1995 Source Awards and written by J-Flexx, Knight told TMZ. According to Knight Dre wanted the song for his upcoming album. With Tupac fresh out on bail and ready to debut on Death Row records, Knight made the call to have Tupac on California Love and featured on All Eyez On Me.
“What I ended up doing was take the second verse out,” said Knight. “I told ‘Pac, take this home and write to it. ‘Pac was like, ‘I’ma do something to it right now. So I got Roger Troutman to come in and do all the California love and all that type of stuff. So it’s a process in making a classic.”
Indeed it was a classic. The single instantly became the anthem of the west coast and Tupac’s comeback record. The single landed at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 going 2x platinum.
Knight also spoke about Dr. Dre taking credit for producing Snoop Dogg‘s Doggystyle album, when in fact it was Daz Dillinger behind Snoop’s debut album.
“He did everything on Doggystyle by himself. The whole album was done. He did everything. He produced it. So when it was time to come out, the distributors wanted Andre to be on there and Andre wanted to be on there,” explained Suge. According to Knight, Dre suggested to Daz that he would get credit for producing the album, with Daz reaping the benefits financially. A suggestion that Knight thought was a bad idea. Daz eventually complied and the rest is history.
