Recently, The Smoking Section [click to read] conducted an interview with Crooked I [click to view]. During a session at HeadCourterz Studios, owned by DJ Premier, the Long Beach veteran emcee spoke about some outstanding issues from his 14 year-career.

In the wake of the recent Death Row Records asset auction, Crooked I expressed sympathy for his former employer, Marion “Suge” Knight, the label’s former CEO and co-founder. “When they took control of Death Row Records from Suge—in my opinion, I haven’t even talked to Suge about it—it seems like they didn’t even let the man go in his office and clean up and move all his stuff. It’s like he can’t even walk in there. That’s how it seems because when they had the auction, there was stuff in that auction that I know he wanted, that he would’ve never let go,” said Crooked I, who once released a DVD chronicling the controversial dealings of the label he spent nearly five years signed to.

The auction also prompted leaks of Crooked I songs, some intended to be released on his shelved Say Hi To The Bad Guy debut, from that label tenure. Commenting on the leaks, Crooked stood up for recent Death Row Records/Wide Awake investors and executives Lara Levi and John Payne [click to read], as well as criticized the nature of leaking music in 2009 altogether. “You know we spent a lot of time making that music. Plus, the music means something to us. To just leak it out…like I had to ask the sites to remove it. It comes with the territory. We can no longer go to the corner and threaten the bootlegger no more. That’s over. The bootlegger is online, in his room, and we have no idea where he lives. What can we do? [We] can’t do shit.”

Material that did leak included features from Ray J, Ja Rule and Juvenile.