Uncertain if he would survive a procedure to drain excess fluid from his lungs, Eazy and Woods decided to get married in the hospital. They exchanged vows late in the evening on March 14, surrounded by his parents, sister, and brother. The groom was unable to stand.
“He went through the whole list of who to trust, who not to trust, who to look out for, who not to look out for . . . and that was basically it,” Woods-Wright said. Right after the short ceremony, a will was drafted naming Woods-Wright and his attorney Ron Sweeney coexecutors of his estate.
Eazy’s surgery never happened. Instead, he was transferred to the intensive-care unit at Cedars and attached to a ventilator. He was in critical condition.
“By the time I seen my dad, he was already in a coma,” Erica Wright said. “He wasn’t talking, laughing, or joking—nothing. He was on life support, lying there, eyes closed.”
On March 16, 1995, a news conference was held by Sweeney to announce to the world that Eazy had AIDS. As Sweeney read the press statement drafted on Eazy’s behalf, Woods-Wright and DJ Yella sobbed nearby as they were embraced by relatives and friends.
I may not seem like a guy you would pick to preach a sermon, but I feel it is now time to “testify,” because I do have folks who care about me hearing all kinds of stuff about what’s up.
Yeah, I was a brother on the streets of Compton doing a lot of things most people look down on—but it did pay off. Then we started rapping about real stuff that shook up the LAPD and the FBI, but we got our message across big time and everyone in America started paying attention to the boys in the “hood.” Soon, our anger and hopes got everyone riled up.
There were great rewards for me personally, like fancy cars, gorgeous women, and good livin’. Like real nonstop excitement. I’m not religious, but wrong or right, that’s me. I’m not saying this because I’m looking for a soft cushion wherever I’m heading—I just feel that I’ve got thousands and thousands of young fans who have to learn about what’s real when it comes to AIDS. I would like to turn my own problem into something good that will reach out to all my homeboys and their kin, because I want to save their asses before it’s too late. I’m not looking to blame anyone except myself. I’ve learned in the last week that this thing is real and it doesn’t discriminate. It affects everyone.
My girl, Tomica, and I have been together for four years, and we recently got married. She’s good, she’s kind, and [she’s] a wonderful mother. We have a little boy who’s a year old. Before Tomica, I had other women. I have seven children by six different mothers. Maybe success was too good to me. I love all my kids and always took care of them.
Now I’m in the biggest fight of my life, and it ain’t easy. But I want to say much love to those who have been down with me, especially my brothers from N.W.A, and thank you all for your support. Just remember: It’s your real time and your real life.
Fans and hip-hop reporters wept in the street. Hours later Snoop Dogg called into LA radio station 92.3 the Beat to say he was praying for Eazy. The hospital’s switchboard was inundated with calls from Eazy’s fans. About 2,500 calls per day were coming in—more than any other celebrity patient had attracted, including Lucille Ball—though some of the calls came from women claiming to be former lovers who phoned in death threats, believing they, too, were infected. To this day, no woman has ever stepped forward to say she contracted the disease from Eazy.
MC Hammer and Above the Law were among hospital visitors, and the former members of N.W.A visited Eazy at different times, according to legendary Hollywood publicist Norman Winter, who was representing Eazy at the time. “I can remember the way everybody looked; it was like everybody knew that he was gone,” Dre remembered. “I felt . . . stupid, because the couple of years we spent mad at each other was nothing compared to the time we spent together and had happy times.”
Heavily sedated, Eazy fell unconscious as a form of pneumonia commonly seen in people with weakened immune systems ravaged his body. His lung collapsed, causing heart problems. Two hours later he was dead. It was March 26, 1995—a little more than three weeks after he was told of his diagnosis. Eazy was just thirty years old.
Despite the work Magic Johnson had done to quell the perception about the disease, Eazy’s prognosis was the subject of gossip. There were rumors that he was closeted like Rock Hudson and speculation that he was a drug user. How Eazy contracted HIV, and the speed his health deteriorated, has been up for debate ever since his death.
“I’ve never seen anybody die that quick, and I’ve seen people die from AIDS,” said Cold 187um. “It was crazy to me. He always had bronchitis and stuff like that. I’ve never seen him looking sickly, [and] I would be with Eazy from sunup to sundown.”
Family members and close friends have long refuted Eazy died from AIDS. Cold 187um and Greg Mack both admit his proclivity for women was undeniable. Mack recalls a time when they were traveling and he went into Eazy’s hotel room, where there were ten naked women in a circle on the floor. “Eazy’s right in the middle and he’s like, ‘Greg, come on grab you one.’ He was just wild,” Mack said. “He was enjoying the fruits of his labor, although it was a little reckless.” Tracy Jernagin, however, maintains the image that Eazy ran through women at his leisure is overrated. “I don’t think he was any more promiscuous than any other male that’s in their prime,” she said. His lyrics said differently, though, as did former band members who mentioned his penchant for going bareback when he slept with women. “It would be hard to imagine a pussyhound more rabid than Eazy,” Jerry Heller once said.
Conspiracy theories around Eazy’s death have only grown more wild as time passes. One popular theory is that he was injected with the virus, a theory Suge Knight spread on national television during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2003, his first appearance since his release from jail. “See, technology is so high. If you shoot somebody, you go to jail forever. You don’t want to go to jail forever. They have a new thing out. They have this stuff . . . they get blood from somebody with AIDS and they shoot you with it,” Suge said, almost braggingly. “That’s a slow death. The Eazy-E thing. You know what I mean?”
Another theory is he was given HIV through acupuncture needles infused with the virus, something that is scientifically impossible despite former Ruthless artist Kid Frost’s assertion.
“Do I think something fishy happened to Eazy? Absolutely,” Jerry Heller said in a radio interview. “I don’t believe for a second that someone with as much money as we [had] and could afford whatever like Magic Johnson could, who doesn’t even test positive anymore. I don’t believe that he could have possibly died that quickly from full-blown AIDS.”
Like many others, the fact that no one has stepped forward claiming Eazy gave them the virus or that none of his children were infected is a point that comes up often. “None of us have anything. The girls he was dealing with didn’t have anything. There was no autopsy. Why?” wondered Erica Wright, admitting the severity of her father’s illness was hidden from her until he was in a coma. Ebie Wright is blunt when asked about her father’s death: “I believe he was murdered,” a sentiment son Marquise Wright has also shared among other relatives.
HIV is a difficult virus to catch sexually and it’s possible to contract it without showing any symptoms or change in health for quite some time. It’s even more likely that Eazy had been living with the virus for years before knowing it. In fact, one in eight people living with HIV have no idea they have it. Regular testing is still promoted far more aggressively among gay and bisexual men, and according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, blacks continue to experience the greatest burden of HIV compared to other races and ethnicities.
The idea that Eazy had possibly lived with the virus for years isn’t far-fetched. Greg Mack said on multiple occasions over the year before Eazy passed that he had what appeared to be an outbreak of shingles on his face. Mack said Eazy would get a painful, nasty looking rash on his face, which is common among
people living with HIV, particularly young people infected with the virus.
“We’d be like, ‘Man, get that shit away from us, what the fuck.’ We’d laugh with each other, but we never really thought . . . we looked at it like no big deal,” Mack said. “There’s all the conspiracy theories about someone injecting him, or there were reasons for him to be dead. Do I believe any of them? No. I think he just had a very promiscuous lifestyle, and it caught up.”
Even before Eazy’s death, those around him were jockeying for control over Ruthless. The label was valued at $30 million, though it had racked up over $1 million worth of debt. Mike Klein, who was appointed as Ruthless’s director of business affairs by Eazy without any terms put on paper, filed a $5 million suit against the estate, claiming to have a 50 percent stake of the label. Ruthless’s Woodland Hills office was locked after a Superior Court judge barred the rapper’s trustees and business associates from entering the premises. Child support to his children ceased and payments to Ruthless artists stopped. Klein alleged Eazy was “forced to sign” his trust and marriage certificate, and there was speculation in the industry that the deathbed marriage was orchestrated by Woods-Wright and Sweeney in a bid to help Motown Records gain control of Ruthless—they both previously worked with Motown chairman Clarence Avant—but none of it was substantiated, with a probate judge finding the marriage and will legally binding.
Woods-Wright has been the target of much vitriol and criticism. At twenty-six she was thrust into a position of executing an estate worth millions and running an infamous label whose best days were thought to be behind it—and that was even before its founder and flagship artist died. “That is a strong lady,” Greg Mack said. “Because with everything that was going on, she was dealing with all the bill collectors, baby mamas, lawyers, and she just hung in there like a champion.”
Jerry Heller has accused Eazy’s widow of never operating in her husband’s best interests, his kids have labeled her as greedy and conniving, Ruthless artists have questioned her business acumen, and others have said far worse.
“Opinions are like assholes—everybody’s got one,” she told Vibe in 1998. “I was not the cause of his death. I did not kill him. I was the one by his side, and I am the one trying to keep his dream alive. As far as anybody else who might be saying stuff, I could give a damn.”
Woods-Wright settled with Klein out of court and when Jerry Heller claimed more than a million dollars in unpaid fees she countersued him for fraud and misuse of company funds—the two settled in 1999 for an undisclosed sum with the terms including a nondisparagement clause. There was a seemingly endless list of claims that kept Woods-Wright in court for years. The other mothers of his children sought to contest Eazy’s will and marriage. As part of that settlement, trusts valued at $75,000 were established for each child. “We got the short end of the stick; we lost our father and we lost everything that was his,” Ebie said, noting that any profits from merchandise or record sales aren’t seen by any of his kids. “Every day you’ll go somewhere and someone will say ‘I’ve seen this and that in the store, do you guys see any of that?’ Every day, constantly, it’s a slap in the face. You see stuff, but we can’t even get a box shipped to us.”
More than three thousand fans descended upon the First African Methodist Episcopal Church for Eazy’s homegoing on April 7, 1995. Harvard Boulevard was crammed with onlookers, including many teenagers who skipped school, as friends, family, industry associates, and even gangbangers wearing their colors filed into the church to pay their final respects. Eazy was dressed in a Compton hat, Pendleton shirt, khakis, and boots. Compton Mayor Omar Bradley, who had previously berated Eazy for perpetuating negative stereotypes of the city in his lyrics, declared “Eazy-E Day” in the city and proclaimed the fallen Gangsta-rap pioneer “Compton’s favorite son.” Of N.W.A’s five former members, only DJ Yella showed up to send off Eazy’s golden casket. “I never turned my back on him. I was there in the beginning, and I was there putting dirt on him when nobody else was around in the end,” Yella said.
Four months after Eazy’s death, Ruthless issued E. 1999 Eternal from protégés Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. It was another landmark for Gangsta rap, selling four million records largely in part to the emotional, Grammy-winning ballad “Tha Crossroads,” which was dedicated to their late mentor. Eazy’s final record, Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton was completed with Yella’s assistance. It was cobbled together using leftover records and scraps of songs he had yet to complete for his Temporary Insanity project. There were hundreds of tracks to sort through, the majority of which didn’t have any vocals on them. Yella took snippets from an old interview and inserted them between songs. Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton was completed as a single disc and released in January 1996—nine months after Eazy’s death.
The last song Eazy ever recorded, “Tha Muthaphukkin Real,” is included, and serves as the centerpiece of the record. Unsurprisingly, it’s a partial N.W.A reunion with Yella and MC Ren. Recorded three months before his untimely death, a few lines felt prophetic, and still do now.
When I die, niggas bury me.
Make sure my shit reads Eazy-muthaphukkin’-E.
And it’s a fact, to be exact, my tombstone should read,
“He put Compton on that map.”
EPILOGUE
At a lavish estate in Beverly Hills, the scene looked like a more sophisticated take on N.W.A’s infamous Wet ’N Wild parties from the early nineties. The place was exquisite, with Romanesque statues, lush greenery, and a sparkling infinity pool taking second place only to the breathtaking views of Los Angeles. It was the quintessential Saturday afternoon in LA—the sun hot enough to warm your skin but tempered by a crisp breeze. There were beautiful women everywhere. The liquor was flowing, and quite bountifully. And the ground slightly shook as the vibrations of classic G-funk records from Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg blasted from speakers placed throughout the property. Plumes of marijuana smoke wafted from a few of the cabanas in the backyard, as guests danced and sipped on gin and juice, albeit a far more artisan dressing-up of the elixir.
If this were Wet ’N Wild, things might have gotten freaky as intoxicated guests lost their inhibitions as the afternoon went on, but this August 2015 gathering wasn’t about toasting unbridled hedonism. It was a celebration of Dre’s new radio show, The Pharmacy, which he recently debuted on Apple Music. The private bash served as a live watch party for an episode that helped drum up even more anticipation for Straight Outta Compton, the highly anticipated biopic of N.W.A. Dre was also using the occasion to make a stunning announcement to fans: he was releasing his first album in sixteen years, and the record, inspired by the film, would be his last.
It was a few weeks before the premiere of Straight Outta Compton, and Dre and Ice Cube were ruminating on N.W.A’s legacy and the group’s controversial rise in the late eighties, which managed to jolt America, put law enforcement on high alert, and define a new era for rap simultaneously. Nearly three decades have passed since N.W.A made its incendiary debut, which the film is named after. They became Gangsta rap antiheroes on the strength of one brazen album, before crumbling amid beef with leader Eazy-E over money and management. The debut of the biopic, like that of the group, couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune moment.
Depending on whom you ask, N.W.A’s music was either grossly obscene or prophetic tales of the rage brewing among blacks struggling to survive in South Central. Long before the police beating of Rodney King stunned the nation, N.W.A screamed about police brutality in their hood. When LA exploded in violent unrest after the cops were acquitted of wrongdoing, many pointed to N.W.A’s collection of polemics as the warning, with the group’s brazen “Fuck tha Police” becoming a mantra during the fiery 1992 riots. Though much has changed since then—especially for the group’s surviving members—the arrival of Straight Outta Compton struck a nerve as the deaths of unarmed blacks in Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore; Cleveland; Staten Island; North Charlest
on, South Carolina; Cincinnati; and Waller County, Texas; became footnotes in the ongoing debate over the treatment of minorities by law enforcement and flash points of civil unrest all over the country.
“ ‘Fuck tha Police’ did change the world,” Cube said, when asked to look back on the record’s impact. “If you think about how the police were getting away with murder before ‘Fuck tha Police’ and then you see how much scrutiny they get after you say, ‘Okay this song changed [something].’ Before that song and after, now police have to tell the truth.”
The men of N.W.A might be decades removed from the brash gangster personas that saw them hyped as the World’s Most Dangerous Group, but their message was still just as potent, as the film became a summer blockbuster—making history as the highest-grossing music biopic of all time—and sparked renewed interest in the group. That their story was made for the big screen wasn’t entirely a shock, especially considering the stratospheric ascent of Dre and Cube—N.W.A’s most famous members—in the years since they departed the group to pursue solo interests.
Dre built his own rap empire in Death Row, the most controversial rap label since Eazy launched Ruthless at the tail end of the eighties. He dropped The Chronic, arguably one of the most groundbreaking rap albums of all time, and launched Snoop Dogg to rap stardom before splitting with Death Row’s infamous co-owner Suge Knight and starting Aftermath. Dre’s Midas touch continued, with his imprint serving as the launching pad for Eminem, 50 Cent, the Game, and Kendrick Lamar. And as if the unanimous distinction as one of the world’s most successful producers wasn’t enough, Dre has become a rap magnate, with his electronics company Beats, which he founded with longtime friend and business partner Jimmy Iovine, being acquired by Apple for $3 billion in August 2014 (The Pharmacy is one of many live, personality-driven shows broadcast across the globe on Apple’s innovative twenty-four-seven Beats 1 online radio station). Dre has also endowed an arts academy at the University of Southern California and pledged $10 million to fund the construction of a performing arts complex at Compton High School. As a solo artist, Cube’s earliest recordings were pivotal in defining West Coast hip-hop in the nineties, with his angry narratives of disenfranchised life in the ghetto among some of the genre’s finest work, and he’s continued to be one of rap’s most respected emcees. Although he’s long enjoyed being an independent artist, in the spring of 2017 he inked a deal with Interscope Records, which controls the catalog of music he did with Priority, to launch a series of anniversary reissues for some of his most seminal releases, starting with Death Certificate. And he’s planning on releasing twenty-fifth-anniversary editions of The Predator and Lethal Injection. But even more impressively is the way he’s parlayed rap success into a career in Hollywood, becoming a major industry player whose bona fides and broad reach have been proved multiple times over. His film and television production company, Cube Vision, has produced multiple hit franchises including Friday, which he wrote; Barbershop; the family-friendly Are We There Yet?; and Ride Along. Altogether his movies have grossed nearly $2 billion at the box office, and in the spring of 2017 Cube became only the sixth rapper to earn a star on the iconic Hollywood Walk of Fame—a stunning turn of events from the days when he’d been labeled an anti-Semite and a racist.
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