Lyor Cohen‘s recent appearance on Drink Champs brought out some wild stories. But the wildest of all might be the longtime music exec’s memory of the time his signing of Warren G caused him and a gun-toting Chris Lighty to dodge a furious Suge Knight.
The story is set in the mid-1990s. Cohen was at the time the president of Def Jam. The label had recently signed Warren G, after the Cali rapper had come to the label’s attention via A&R executive and manager Paul Stewart.
“We were really excited about being down with Def Jam,” Stewart told Rolling Stone back in 2014. “Def Jam had missed out on all the West Coast stuff. Death Row was killing it. So they were smart, and saw an opportunity.”
There was an issue with taking advantage of that opportunity, though. Warren is Dr. Dre‘s stepbrother, and grew up with Nate Dogg and Snoop Dogg (the three were a group, called 213, as early as 1990).
It seems like Suge Knight, then head of Death Row Records, didn’t like Def Jam signing someone with so many close connections to his own camp. So when Lyor was on the West Coast, Suge attempted to approach him.
“I was at the Palace, on Vine Street,” Cohen remembered. “And Chris Lighty comes up to me and pulls out a gun, and says, ‘Come this way.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He says, ‘Look over there.’ And it was Suge and his crew coming after me.”
“This was after I signed Warren G,” Cohen clarified. “And [Suge] was very upset.”
“Chris has me go through the kitchen…Finally got to the Four Seasons [hotel], took me through the kitchen, to my room,” he concluded.
You can hear the full story, with some bonus content about Cohen visiting Suge in prison, above. The full Drink Champs episode was released on Friday (October 13) and runs nearly two hours.
“Regulate.”
From what I’ve read, Death Row/Suge didnt seem to take Warren seriously as an artist, and often excluded him from functions/shows.. They surely had first chance to sign him, as Dre is his stepbrother and how Dre became aware of Snoop to begin with… plus Nate also signed on as a solo artist. They missed out and it worked out for Warren, going multi-plat with his debut. When was Suge planning to sign him?!
That’s what i’m confused about….the story always been they didnt want to sign him…this my first time hearing they had a issue. Maybe it was a “we don’t want you but we don’t want no one to have you” type deal.
It’s not that Suge didn’t care, Dr Dre & Snoop didn’t! That’s why, one of Warren G’s song, he raps about he cannot trust them anymore!
Today I had to toss this dude’s salad to get an extra bag of cheetos, if ya’ll wondering how not signing Warren G has worked out for me.
we know that you’re really Ovo. We don’t care what you do as a prison wife.
Warren G dodged a bullet.
Suge must not have known about Chris Lighty and the Violators.
Suge must not have known about Chris Lighty and the Violators.
Suge is terrible.
This story was well-recapped in the Dan Charnas book and has been corroborated a few times. Basically, Suge realized he screwed up by not signing Warren G. ‘Indo Smoke’ was an out-of-the-box hit, and ‘Regulate’ was on Death Row’s ‘Above The Rim’ soundtrack, helping the soundtrack sell millions. Jealously, Suge wanted Warren back on Death Row and heard that Lyor was going to be at a De La Soul show in LA. So Suge went there rolling with a crew, ready to punk Lyor, but Lyor was there with Baby Chris. Chris tells Lyor to leave and then, with a man of his own who was tooled up, goes face-to-face with Suge. Suge screams that he wants to see Lyor: Chris is like, “Not gonna happen” and makes it clear to Suge that he’ll throw hands if need be. Eric B. was there: he was rolling with Suge at that time. Chris looks straight at Eric and says something like, “Eric: you need to tell him about us because YOU’VE got to come home.” From there, Suge and his crew (Eric B. included) walked away. Then, to get revenge, Suge refused to let Nate Dogg appear with Warren G. in the “Regulate” video. Chris steps to Suge in Suge’s office…STEPS TO SUGE IN SUGE’S OFFICE…and tells him to let Nate appear. Suge asks Chris, “Why you sticking up for the white man?!” Chris responds, “This has nothin’ to do with the white man…you’re f**kin’ with MY money now!!!” And on that note, Suge says he respects how Chris stood up for himself and gives Nate clearance to appear in the video. Baby Chris is a legend…RIP.