DJ Quik recalled a near-death experience involving a bootleg copy of 2Pac’s 1996 album, All Eyez On Me, while speaking with Talib Kweli for his People’s Party podcast. Quik produced the song “Heartz of Men,” featured on the iconic album.
The DJ explained that he had left a copy of the CD in his car and that a security guard took it and began sharing it around. Eventually, Death Row CEO Suge Knight heard about the album being passed around Los Angeles and wasn’t pleased.
“I almost got killed over a 2Pac bootleg! I had a machine gun put in my face!” Quik told Kweli. “But I was still defending him, I was like, ‘Fuck it, do what you gotta do.’ I can’t run! This muthafucka got 30 shots in it, so I’ma just man up and take this shit.”
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He continued: “It was in my car and my security at the time used my car. He took the CD out and let his homeboys hear it. ‘Man, let me get a copy of that!’ ‘Cool’ So I’m in the studio, proofreading and listening to these mixes, making sure that they sound good. And I would give Suge a CD or ‘Pac a CD.”
One day, Quik received a call asking him to come to the Death Row office, which already left him nervous.
“We get up there and we confront it, and then a fight started in the fucking Death Row [office]. It was scrapping and shit,” he said. “After the fight was done, my dumb-ass, I’m like, ‘Man, we just got accused of something we didn’t do!’ I’m like, ‘What did you do? Who did you give the CD to?’ [He’s like], ‘This guy.’”
From there, Quik and his team confronted the man at his home, which prompted another fight to break out, this time involving a gun.
“So we go over to this guy’s house,” Quik explained. “He’s talking to us. He didn’t do it, yada yada, somebody else did it. So me, in my infinite wisdom, I take off on him … I’m fighting the dude and he dropped his Hennessy, and I think he was more mad [about that] than me actually swinging on him.”
He added: “He told his homeboy, ‘Man, blast this muthafucka!’ And my man just pulled out a TEC [gun noises]. I’m just… cold. Like, ‘I’m dead over this dumb-ass 2Pac tape.’”
Before any shots were fired, Quik’s security snatched the gun away, saving the DJ’s life.
“The guy that supposedly did it, I ended up making amends with him,” Quik said. “I went and hung out with him a couple of years ago and apologized because I shouldn’t have did that. You know, Death Row was the single most dangerous record company in the world, but if you had on the chain, nothing ever happened to you.”
Check out DJ Quik’s appearance on the People’s Party With Talib Kweli below.
[Via]