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Suge Knight, one of hip-hop’s most polarizing figures, will set the record straight from behind bars with the release of his Your Pain Is My Joy memoir, which is slated to arrive on Aug. 4.
Through his intimidating negotiating style, brutal business practices and ties to the Bloods gang, Knight became one of the most feared executives in hip-hop. The Compton native guided Death Row to dominance in rap’s golden age of the mid-90s, with a roster that included titans like 2Pac, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.
Your Pain Is My Joy is set to take readers on a “thrilling ride” and will shed light on his “brawls” with rival Diddy and detail 2Pac’s murder in Las Vegas for the first time from his perspective as a passenger in the 1996 drive-by shooting.
Published by Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books imprint, a synopsis for the “unapologetic” memoir reads: “Suge Knight was handed nothing in life. Anything he ever had, he fought for, knowing that he had to take what he deserved. Now in this unflinching memoir from behind bars, Suge takes readers on a thrilling ride through the Golden Age of Rap and the streets of Compton.”
The synopsis continues: “Everyone in the rap game has a story about Suge Knight. Now, for the first time, Suge is telling his side. From his legendary encounter with Vanilla Ice to blow-out brawls with P. Diddy and the night when he and Tupac got shot in Vegas, Suge doesn’t shy away from the controversy that has followed him his entire life. He pulls no punches, asks for no forgiveness, and explains exactly how he battled his way to the top.”
Knight was a central figure in the vicious East Coast-West Coast beef of the ’90s, but has dealt with a plethora of legal trouble in the decades since. He’s currently serving a 28-year sentence in a California prison for voluntary manslaughter after running over and killing Terry Carter with his car in January 2015.
