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Rapper Eve performs onstage during night 3 of the 2023 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture™ at Caesars Superdome on on July 02, 2023 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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Key Takeaways:
- Eve’s memoir ‘Who’s That Girl?’ reveals her brief relationship with Suge Knight during the early 2000s.
- The romance reportedly strained her ties with Interscope Records and affected her third album, Eve-Olution.
- The relationship created friction with label executives and led to strategic career setbacks.
Eve is speaking her truth and spilling tea, on paper. In her recent memoir, the former Ruff Ryders rapper detailed her past relationship with infamous music exec Suge Knight and the drama it caused in her musical career.
HipHopDx first reported that in her book, “Who’s That Girl?,” Eve explained how her tryst with the Death Row Records co-founder strained her relationship with her record label, Interscope. Interestingly, Eve and Knight getting together was partially due to the latter having issues with Dr. Dre. “I was still in my little mood about Dre even though we made a solid hit together, so having Suge, his former boss at Death Row, stomping around Interscope felt like some sweet revenge. I am not really sure how I concocted this idea, yet here we were,” wrote Eve.
Although Dre and Knight co-founded Death Row Records together, the renowned producer and rapper ended up departing about five years later in 1996. Dre was so disenchanted that he didn’t fight to take artists he nurtured, like Snoop Dogg, with him when he founded his own Aftermath Records label. So, to say that Dre and Knight weren’t on the best of terms is an understatement. And since the former N.W.A rapper was good friends with Interscope founder Jimmy Iovine, the label that distributed Ruff Ryders’ and Dr. Dre’s music, Eve’s plan essentially backfired.
“I feel like he (Jimmy) took his anger out on my third album,” wrote Eve when discussing her predicament and its effect on her 2002 Eve-Olution LP, which did feature a couple of Dr. Dre-produced tracks. While successful, none of those songs reached the heights of the duo’s hit single from a year prior, “Let Me Blow Ya Mind,” featuring Gwen Stefani.
At the behest of Ruff Ryders co-founders Dee and Waah Deen, Eve ended her romance with Knight. “They didn’t like the idea of me hanging out with Suge at all. When my guys said it was time to cut the cord, I didn’t think twice,” Eve continued.
Count Eve, who also got complimented by Nicki Minaj for a different memoir confession, as another rapper who left Suge Knight’s vicinity with a story to tell.
