money Styles P Says Suge Knight Tried To Sign The LOX And DMX To Death Row Records
Styles P recalls the time The LOX and DMX had the opportunity to sign with Suge Knight and Death Row Records, but ultimately passed up on the offer. During an interview with The Art Of Dialogue, the tenured lyricist spoke of the infamous music mogul attempting to get the Yonkers-bred trio on his roster prior to them inking with Diddy and Bad Boy.
“[Suge] tried to sign us before we got to Bad Boy,” Styles said of the possibility of he and his groupmates taking their talents to the West Coast. However, the 48-year-old says they declined on signing with Knight due to the label situation not being the best fit for them at the time.
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“Our music was circulating, people were checking for us, and Suge Knight was on that list. It just didn’t make sense for us at the time.” The Ghost also reveals that Suge was also keying in on acquiring the talents of DMX, but also struck out following the recruitment of the eventual Def Jam signee.
“I’m pretty sure of that,” Styles P says of Knight’s pursuit of the late rap star, who passed away in 2021. “I don’t remember that specifically, but I’m pretty sure of that because before X signed to Def Jam, he was on the market, and pretty much everyone wanted to sign him, like the whole industry really.”
Elsewhere in the video, the A Gangster and a Gentleman creator also speaks on R&B legend and fellow Yonkers rep Mary J. Blige’s integral role in creating the bidding war that ultimately got The LOX signed to Bad Boy. “Our sister Mary J. Blige was on tour, playing our music on the tour bus, and the story was, Puff came on the tour bus, heard it, and was going crazy,” Styles P said. “Then at the time, Ruff Ryders was our managers and they didn’t have a label, so Puff reached out to them, we met up with Puff one day, rhymed in front of him, and that was it.”
The LOX would release Money, Power & Respect, their lone album on Bad Boy, in 1998, before moving to their management team Ruff Ryders’ label and releasing their sophomore album We Are the Streets in 2000.
Watch Styles P’s The Art Of Dialogue interview clip below.
