Suge Knight's Selective Thuggery

Here is a letter I sent in response to this piece in today's Orange County Register:

From: Jay Smooth To: 'bwener@ocregister.com' Subject: Snoop and Suge Knight

I enjoyed your piece today about the Biggie and Tupac documentary. But how could you say that Snoop is "terrified" of Suge Knight? He has been by far the most courageous member of the hip-hop community in publicly standing up to Suge and calling him out for the disgrace that he is. Take these lyrics from "Pimp Slapp'd", the track devoted to Suge on his latest album:

>Your only gain is to try to get me to fall down to your level
>Man you worser than them devils
>A lotta niggas should've said it, f**k em
>But I'ma say it for em, stop it, pop it, rewind and play it for em
>This nigga's a bitch like his wife
>Suge Knight's a bitch, and that's on my life
>And I'ma let the whole world see
>Cos you f**ked up the industry, and that's on me

These hardly strike me as the words of a terrified man. I liked your piece otherwise, but I think Snoop deserves more credit than you gave him.

Especially since he's far more likely to face retribution than Nick Broomfield. Suge has usually shown an awareness that he's more likely to get away with his thuggery if he keeps it within the Hip-Hop community. As documented in Ronin Ro's book "Have Gun Will Travel", when conflict started in Death Row's offices, the intended victim would often try to escape by fleeing to "the white section" of Interscope's office, where Suge's crew was reluctant to get their thug on.

One of the few times they did cross that line was their assault on Steven Cantrock, of the accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand. Cantrock and his associates then showed Death Row the difference between chess and checkers, when they went to federal agents with details of Suge's financial dealings, and helped bring about his downfall.

-Jay Smooth, WBAI