Den forne N.W.A-managern i ny intervju: "Unquestionably put the hit on him"

Efter biosuccén för N.W.A.-filmen “Straight Outta Compton” har den forne Ruthless Records-bossen Jerry Heller hamnat i fokus för många diskussioner efter filmen. På vita duken porträtteras Heller av Paul Giamatti som fått fin kritik får sin rollprestation. Efter filmatiseringens premiär i augusti har dock Heller avböjt att kommentera hur han framställs i filmen. I en ny intervju med sajten Smash’d har dock 75-årige Heller gjort ett undantag och ger sin syn på filmen;

“The movie has nothing to do with what we did.” 

Heller kommenterar i intervjun även N.W.A:s splittring där en konflikt kring kontrakt och pengar låg bakom:

“You can’t steal in this business. Either you have a good deal, or you don’t. If you don’t, when you have a hit, you re-negotiate.

Everybody signs their contract to N.W.A. They split the net five ways. You can’t penalize Eazy because he owns the company. You can’t penalize Dre because he writes all the music. Now they’re acting like it was nothing. No matter what Cube says, they had a great deal. The average deal those days was somewhere between seven and 12 percent for everybody. They were getting $75,000 each, because I made the deal.

Cube said “I’m not taking this check,” then “Let me have the check, I’m going to send it to my lawyer.” You can’t have the check until you sign the contract. What am I, a fucking moron? I said “Take the contract, show it to Lee Young, sign the contract, have him make your changes.” He admits to that all the time. He says: “Jerry wouldn’t give me my check, he wouldn’t let me have the contract.” That’s not true. I handed him the contract. And he took it to his lawyer. But he already made his decision to do his solo album. That’s what broke up N.W.A.”

Mest intressant är måhända Hellers syn på Tupac Shakurs död och vem som låg bakom skjutningen i Las Vegas 1996. På den konkreta frågan “Do you think Suge put the hit out on Tupac?” svarar Heller:

“He absolutely did. Unquestionably put the hit on him. Pulled Tupac in front of him, that’s how he got the glass in his head. You don’t think the cops could have solved this if they wanted to? I think Suge got what he deserved. Looks to me like he’s in jail for at least the foreseeable future.

Eazy didn’t deserve to die, man. He was one of the good guys. Really.”