Fredro Starr has recalled the time 2Pac tried to subtly warn him that signing with Suge Knight was a bad idea.
In a new interview with The Art of Dialogue that dropped on Thursday (March 14), the Onyx rhymer recalled a moment with Pac and Suge at the ‘premiere of the movie Sunset Park.
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At a party celebrating the release of the 1996 film which starred Fredro and featured 2Pac’s “High ‘Til I Die” on the soundtrack, Fredro recalled ‘Pac and Suge showing up.
“2Pac, he was like the sun. When he came around, you felt his energy,” Fredro said. “When he walks in, you could feel power… [A]t that time, he was the biggest star in Hip Hop.”
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The New York City native said that after the movie, Suge Knight asked to speak to him privately.
“So me, 2Pac and Suge Knight, we take a walk, just us three,” he continued. “Then Suge was like, ‘I want to sign you to Death Row.’ And I’m like, ‘Huh? What are you talking about?’
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“Suge Knight had a reputation for being…when I talked about energy, ‘Pac is the sun, Suge Knight is the moon. He got the dark energy. So when he was like, ‘I want to sign you to Death Row,’ I got kind of shook.
“I was like, ‘But I’m already signed to Def Jam.’ I was trying to figure my way out the shit. ‘Nah, don’t worry about that. I’ll figure that shit out. I know [Jam Master] Jay. I know Russell [Simmons]. I’ll take care of that. Ain’t nothing to worry about.’”
Then, Fredro claimed, ‘Pac made his move.
“[T]he n-gga 2Pac was looking at me, he was giving me that side-eye. He wasn’t encouraging the shit. He wasn’t like, ‘Yeah, n-gga! Sign with Death Row, n-gga! We got it popping!’ I didn’t hear none of that from that n-gga. That n-gga was quiet.
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“[He was giving me a look like], ‘You don’t want to do this, my brother. Stay where you at, my n-gga.'”
Fredro said he extricated himself from the conversation, and that was that. He left determined to stay on Def Jam, in large part because of his loyalty to the man who discovered Onyx in the first place, Run-DMC‘s Jam Master Jay.
“[M]y loyalty to Jam Master Jay, I would never even think about some shit like that, unless Jay was with it. … Because Jay put me in the game. There was no reason to do some shit like that,” he concluded.
The new interview comes a little over a year after Fredro Starr announced he was retiring.
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Appearing on an episode of The Dr. Greenthumb Show in early January 2023, the Onyx co-founder commented on Westside Gunn’s retirement announcement before explaining that the time has come for him to exit the game also.
“You supposed to say: ‘I’m gonna retire.’ You gotta make the comeback. Michael Jordan did it. Guess what? I’m retiring too this year. After this year, I’m done. All jokes in side pocket,” Fredro said.
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He added: “I’m retiring, man. Thirty years of Hip Hop. This is the last year. I’m retiring. Don’t call me for no verses, nothing. I might do a show here and there.”
