As was previously reported here at HipHopDX, Bruce Williams, writer/film producer and former assistant to “the Quincy Jones of Hip Hop,”Dr. Dre, has recently been hit with a lawsuit from the legendary producer alleging that Williams never repaid loans from the good doctor totaling $101,377.85 [click to read].
Late yesterday DX spoke to the author of Rollin’ With Dre: The Unauthorized Account to get his response to the suit, as well as his post-book plans since its release this past spring–when he also conducted an exclusive, jaw-dropping three-part feature interview series with DX [click to read]. Mr. Williams also provided some interesting insight into the creation of a new more commercial-friendly version of Detox (which might feature an appearance from pop-hop princess Fergie), and maybe even more head scratching, he explained why his last conversation with Dre was regarding body fat.
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“That’s a good question,”Williams replied when asked why his former boss is now suing him. “[Laughs] That’s a damn-good question, man. Shit, if I had that answer I’d give it to you straight up. I don’t know. It’s just funny that I get a lawsuit, but it ain’t about the book.”
While not a slander suit against Williams for his detailing of the personal life of Dr. Dre, the timing of the legal action suggests that it might indeed be “about the book.”
“Y’all just now catching wind of this, right?,”Williams queried. “I caught wind of this [planned lawsuit] a week after my book came out. So this is something I guess been in the works for a long time. And I guess it’s finally coming to light where [the general public] knows about it now.”
“I don’t really know the whole details and everything behind it,” he continued. “I’m getting ‘em from my lawyer. There’s only certain things that I can say. But I guess [Dre] says I owed him a $100,000 or something, for a loan or whatever. I never got a $100,000 loan from Dre. From what I’m gathering, this is [allegedly for loans made] over the course of all the 17 years that I worked with him. I can’t say no more than that, man. But we can play it out and see how it come out in the end.”
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Whether or not the suit is being sought in retaliation for publishing his sometimes-stinging account of his time working alongside Dr. Dre is unknown. What is known is that Williams has no plans to respond in kind to the man he noted to DX back in May “wasn’t just my boss, he was my best friend.”
“I don’t really have no reason to counter sue, man,” he admitted. “To me, the [lawsuit] is frivolous in the first place. And whoever’s read the book, they can honestly say that it’s a great book. I didn’t throw nobody under the bus. I gave my opinions, and I gave you stories and situations.”
During his conversation with DX, Williams displayed a seemingly genuine respect for his former friend, and revealed that his leaving the employment of Dr. Dre was not a contentious split. However, an attempt to air out any remaining grievances between the two during their last conversation was inexplicably sabotaged by the producer.
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“Right before the book had came out I talked to him at his sister’s wedding, at Shamika’s wedding,” explained Williams. “And the funny thing is I was like, ‘Man, we need to talk, what’s up?’ He’s like, ‘Aww yeah, man, we need to talk.’ But we talked about bodybuilding, his body fat.”
Williams is clearly still confused as to why his friend chose to subsequently sue him. He also revealed to DX that he is equally dumbfounded by Dre’s decision to take his final solo album, Detox, in a direction most longtime fans will find treasonous.
“A lot of times now the [direction of the] album is a little bit different,” said Williams. “Dre’s albums have always been west coast albums, only people that’s on the albums is the people that’s on his label or [other artists] from the west coast, ‘cause it had to have a certain vibe to it. That’s what made those ridin’ albums. And now it’s so many other different people that come in to do a song, Fergie and all that [kind of] stuff. He’s looking at it like, ‘Okay, we fin to get a big switch [in direction] here.’”
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“This album for him, Detox, is gonna be harder than any album he’s ever done,” he continued. “We’re over 40. You done fucked all the bitches. You done shot up all the niggas. It’s like, now what do you talk about? We’ve gotten older, man. So what appeals to me doesn’t appeal to my son…You’re not selling albums to us no more. We’re the older generation. You’re trying to sell albums to 13/14-year-olds. So you gotta identify with [them]. And I think that’s what’s gonna be the toughest part for him, because when we use to talk about Detox in the beginning he didn’t even wanna do it. He was like, ‘What am I gonna talk about?’ And I mean, you can have rappers write for you, that’s cool, fine and dandy, but it’s got to be something that’s gonna make you flow but also keep that street element. [But] I’m confident that in the end if he do release [Detox] it’s gonna be dope. I’ll give him that, it’s gonna be dope.”
Williams can make that prediction and extend that praise to Dre due to his insistence that he harbors no ill will towards his friend.
“I want people to understand, I’m not mad at Dre,” he reiterated. “It’s not a beef with Dre. I’ll go buy a Dre album as soon as it come out. It’s just sometimes people have to move on…You have to do you. If you have goals and aspirations, and they’re not working in the spot you in, and you’ve been there for 17 years, you got to move on…And his son died. That’s just a bad feeling for anybody. My deepest sympathies go out to him. No father ever wanna bury their child. He should just focus on family life and doing what he do.”
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With the aforementioned lack of plans to counter sue Dre, or follow former Aftermath artist Stat Quo’s footsteps [click to read] and release the many unreleased Dr. Dre productions Williams too is in possession of, the aspiring television and film producer is instead focusing his efforts on his work with former NBA star Nick Van Exel on the upcoming movie, Carter High, a true story about a 1980’s high school football team in Dallas that boasted former Giants and Redskins linebacker Jessie Armstead on its roster, and whose middle-class players mysteriously turned to committing armed robberies. Williams is also working on the television extension of his book on his life in the Hip Hop industry, The Man Next To The Man.
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“The reason the book was done in the first place was because I wanted to do a T.V. show about the Hip Hop business,” said Williams. “And right now we putting that whole show together. It’ll be a drama, like a Sopranos meets The Wire/Entourage about Hip Hop…Before the book, I was still at Aftermath at the time, when I came up with the idea for the show and the title, ‘Man Next To The Man.’ And Dre was like, ‘Man, that’s a tight-ass name.’ So it’s not like after I left Dre I was like, ‘Now I’m gonna go write a book and do this.’ I was gonna do this T.V. show regardless.”
With film and television projects on deck, Williams is clearly focused on his post-Dre plans, which don’t include being too much of an opportunist. Even having sold roughly 30,000 copies of Rollin’ With Dre to date, he has no immediate plans to capitalize on the success of his first foray into book writing by immediately rushing out a salacious follow-up.
“I’ll put it to you like this here, man, all I’m really concerned about is doing me and going out there and being successful, and being able to have the opportunity to do what I do,” said Williams. “And right now I’m such a happy camper just to have people on my side that’s about doing my ideas and really believing in me. And that’s where I try to keep my focus at. All that extra stuff, they can have that, man.”
