Cold 187um was a member of Above the Law, a Rap group who was signed to Ruthless Records in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He remembers when Ice Cube left N.W.A.
“N.W.A, they didn’t miss a beat by him leaving,” Cold 187um says to VladTV, “but they did felt like it was like, ‘Aw, you just said fuck us and left.'”
The rapper, who is also known as Big Hutch, says that Cube had a different vision than N.W.A at the time of his departure. He says there were a variety of rumors as to why Cube left, but he says that Cube’s feud with manager Jerry Heller was one of the biggest reasons. He says that Eric “Eazy-E” Wright put his loyalty above his business.
“Everybody had question marks,” he says. “Not that Jerry was a bad guy, but I’m saying if Eric was a more seasoned CEO, he would’ve let the GM go.”
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Cold 187um compares N.W.A to a sports team and says that Heller was the general manager who came secondary to the players.
“Don’t forfeit the team for one player and a GM at that,” he says. “It’s like you’re at the team, you’re at the point where your franchise is a winning franchise and if everyone’s having a problem with the GM and the GM’s the problem, you need to let him go.”
Cold 187um says he has no hard feelings for Heller and that he learned a lot about business from him. He agrees with Michel’le’s sentiments that Heller provided for N.W.A and the rest of the Ruthless Records roster in ways that they couldn’t provide for themselves at the time.
“Honestly, my take on it as a businessman as I look back to say I don’t think we could’ve got into those big record companies like Epic, Atlantic, Warner Bros. without Jerry Heller because they weren’t accepting brothers like that up in there in 1988 and ’89,” Cold 187um says.
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He says that Heller gave him his first legal money and that they had a mutual respect because he was willing to stand up to Heller. He says ultimately the problems that N.W.A and others had with Heller were not anyone’s fault.
“I don’t think he was a bad guy,” Cold 187um says. “His outlook on doing what he was doing, I think money, I think we got money so fast and at a young age, it corrupted a lot of things.”
For additional Ice Cube coverage, watch the following DX Daily:
