Suge Knight Wanted to Beat up Rick Ross for Disrespecting Tupac
Business mogul Suge Knight at one point took offense to superstar rapper Rick Ross. Ross made a hit record referencing Tupac in 2011, which Knight didn’t take a liking to. This resulted in Knight once physically threatening Ross.
Rick Ross made a song that was inspired by Tupac
Like other artists, Rick Ross has drawn some inspiration from Tupac Shakur. In an interview with Power 106 Los Angeles, the rapper shared how important both Tupac and Biggie Smalls were in his career.
“Tupac and Big, I feel, were the most important rappers of all time,” Ross said. “Just the emotions they draw from the streets has never been matched and it never will be.”
For Tupac in particular, it was the meaning behind his music that the artist looked up to.
“The message, and the power and the voice, and he showed you the potential. As a young black dude coming from the roughest streets in America, the potential that’s in you that you just have to pull out. I think that just inspired everybody on some kind of level,” Ross said.
As for the making of the 2011 hit “Tupac back,” Ross was just trying to give tribute to the legendary artist.
“[It was] really paying homage to Tupac. Sitting in the studio, a lot of times I think of different approaches and I think of different artists and that’s what the vibe was of that record,” Ross told MTV (via Hip Hop DX). “Tupac was such a huge influence on the musical level as well as outside of music. A lot of times, I be thinking if Pac was alive, he’d be in politics now.”
The record also surprised Ross in that it revealed there were some fans who didn’t know who Tupac was.
“That surprised me most with the record. We put the record out, I was surprised how many people were asking, who is Tupac? On Twitter, on the blog, who is Tupac?” he said.
Suge Knight threatened to beat up Rick Ross over Tupac record
Suge Knight was one person that didn’t appreciate the rapper’s tribute. The former Death Row executive started off sharing his feelings by stating he didn’t hold a grudge against Ross.
“I can’t sit up here and say I’m bitter to Rick Ross,” Knight told the 93.5 Kday Radio Show(via Vibe). “Cause like anybody else, we don’t know Rick Ross. That’s a guy who uses somebody else’s name. This guy comes from being a correctional officer. I don’t got nothing negative [against him] personally, I just feel like he do good music, and you can’t take that from him.”
Still, however, Knight found Ross’ record disrespectful to the late rapper.
“That boy got bars, he’s gonna write… at the same time, I feel like there’s a line you cross, and Rick Ross crossed that line. If you’re gonna be with guy [Diddy] who killed Tupac, you can’t go turn around and do a record [called] ‘Tupac Back,'” Knight added. “I’ll beat the dog s**t out of Rick Ross for manipulating these people out here.”
How Rick Ross responded to Suge Knight’s threats
XXL reported that the multi-millionaire rap artist responded to Knight’s threat in a since-deleted Instagram picture. Allegedly, the picture showed Knight and Ross friendly toward each other.
“Ran into Suge last week and he showed a lot of luv!” Ross wrote in the picture’s caption.
