Daz Dillinger ‘Strong-Armed’ Suge Knight for $2.5M on Shrooms

Death Row Records founder and former CEO Suge Knight was notorious for some of his more outlandish business practices. The tale of Suge dangling his bodyguards Vanilla Ice over a balcony is legendary, but as it turns out, the label’s rappers were just as prone to outbursts of unusual behavior when it came to making money.

Daz Dillinger, the Long Beach rapper who was signed to the label from 1992 to 2000, opened up about the extreme lengths he went to to get Knight to pay off his debt Homemade radio podcast. After producing the song “Just Doggin'” by Tha Dogg Pound from the sunset park Soundtrack in 1996, Daz said he hadn’t been paid and had to “pressure” his label’s CEO to get the money.

“We went there to get the money and they played with the money,” he recalled. “Suge came into the office and from the look of his eyes he wanted to do something to me.” Luckily, he says, he had two things on his side: 1. He was armed with “one of those big, long diesel screwdrivers,” and 2. He and bandmate Kurupt were high on shrooms and thus felt unafraid of the usual menacing Suge.

“So he put his arm around me and I put my arms around him, like that [and said] ‘I’m going to stab you,'” Daz said. “He’s like, ‘Wait, Daz. Let’s go to the office.” And I walked out with $2.5 [million]Daz said the check also helped him get out of a traffic stop when he got a ticket for driving without a license and a marijuana possession offense (that was in 1997, before weed was legalized in California). The check apparently convinced the officer that Daz was too important to make the minor offense arrest worth bothering with.

You can watch the full interview above.