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Suge Knight's Portrayal In N.W.A Biopic May Have Led To Fatal Hit-And-Run
Onetime L.A. rap impresario and perennial troublemaker Marion "Suge" Knight was angry about his portrayal as a violent low-life in the forthcoming N.W.A biopic "Straight Outta Compton," and it led to a fatal hit-and-run incident last month in which Knight ran over a friend with his car, according to a new report.
TMZ says people connected to Knight told them Knight wasn't asked for his input about his portrayal in the movie, and didn't approve the use of his likeness. It was on Jan. 29, after Knight met with N.W.A founder and producer Dr. Dre about the film, that Knight ran over and killed friend Terry Carter and struck another man, Cle Sloan, after an argument with the men over the movie, TMZ says.
In the film's trailer, an actor resembling Knight is momentarily seen beating someone up in a recording studio.
Dre and Knight go back a long time, and tell a sort of hip-hop tale of two cities. Dre started the Death Row Records label with Knight in 1991, releasing landmark albums by Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur and many more L.A. rap icons. But, while Dre parlayed that mainstream success into a string of an ongoing music megahits including proteges Eminem and Kendrick Lamar and a business empire including the Beats headphones brand, Knight has been in perennial trouble with the law. Having once allegedly sent henchmen to dangle Vanilla Ice over a balcony in a dispute over money at the height of the rapper's success, Knight is perhaps best known at this point for getting into unsavory situations: prior to this incident, he was arrested in October for stealing a photographer's camera, the latest in a string of legal troubles dating back to the 1980s.
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