Well, of course he is. Still attached to the forever gestating “Tupac” biopic, Antoine Fuqua, who shows no sign of stopping signing onto things, will team with Showtime and direct a feature length documentary about notorious hip hop mogul Suge Knight.
It actually seems like a smart play by Fuqua, as Tupac’s story is undeniably tied in a big way to the life of Suge Knight — we’re sure he’s digging up all kinds of material on the Death Row Records co-founder and CEO, and a documentary is a good place to put it. It’s pretty much impossible to talk about early ’90s gangster without mentioning Suge, as he was a major and controversial player in the genre. As the story goes, Suge made his first big bucks by landing the rights to Vanilla Ice‘s “Ice Ice Baby” as the rapper sampled one of artists on Death Row. Depending on who you believe, he either held Vanilla Ice off a 20th floor balcony, or threatened to, but either way Robert Matthew Van Winkle conceded to Suge’s demands. This would just be the start of what quickly became a string of thuggish incidents with various artists and industry folks.
Suge beefed with everyone from Eazy-E, 2 Live Crew‘s Martin Campbell, Sean Combs and even Dr. Dre who became a star on the label with the release of “The Chronic.” Suge’s reputation for violence and threats continued to grow, and it’s no surprise that in the wake of the murders of both Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac, many believed Suge was involved in some capacity in both. He’s never quite shaken his thug lifestyle, having been arrested numerous times over the years. However, Suge is also a tremendously importantly figure in West Coast rap, and Snoop Dogg, Dre and Tupac all owe some thanks to Death Row for giving them a place to launch their careers. And while there have been many docs on Biggie and Tupac, there hasn’t really been on Suge, so we’re definitely curious to see how this develops.
Fuqua has the cooperation of Suge, who in addition to putting together the soundtrack via artists from his new label Black Kapital records, will also participate in the film, giving his account of what happened. The project will be the first in a series of Showtime docs centered around notable figures. There is no word yet on when it will air or who else will participate, but we’ll be keeping our eye on this one. The project is another high profile doc from the network that is also behind Oliver Stone‘s likely controversial “Secret History of America.” [via ComingSoon]