Suge Knight made the 1995 Source Awards forever famous when he went after Puff Daddy from the Madison Square Garden stage.
“Any artist out there that wanna be an artist, stay a star, and won’t have to worry about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos, all on the records, dancing—come to Death Row,” Suge notoriously said.
His aggressive pitch caused a huge rift between Death Row and Bad Boy, West Coast and East.
DJ Quik performed with Death Row that night. During an interview with Questlove Supreme, Quick explained that once Suge did his thing, he knew things were going to be different.
“You wanna know what really happened? Okay. That night, when the feud started, when Suge [Knight] got up there and said what he said, that was a wild pitch for us. We didn’t know what was gonna happen; we just wanted to represent L.A.”
Quik also added another detail to the evening. Apparently, Suge Knight had Misa Hylton-Brim, the mother of Puffy’s son Justin, in his suite at the Parker Meridien Hotel in New York City.
"We were there, and Suge had Misa come over—Diddy’s baby mama. A lot of people don’t know this; this is only on your show, Quest.'” Quik said. “I’m goin’, ‘Suge, what are you doin’? Like, what the f*ck? Like, that’s Diddy’s baby mama.’ She was just like, hangin’ out, whatever.”
According to Quik, other artist associated with Diddy, like Mary J. Blige, were also there.
“Mary J. Blige popped up. I didn’t get it; it just got weird to me.”