This episode contains explicit language.
In the 70 and 80s, the founders of Death Row and Bad Boy are coming of age. In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Compton, a young Dre is spinning records before he even learns to read. Dre desperately wants to be a hip-hop DJ, but Los Angeles barely has a hip-hop scene. In New York, on the other hand, rap is popping off. And an 18 year old called Sean “Puffy” Combs has B.I.G. plans for the Big Apple.
They don’t know it yet, but their struggles and successes have already begun to shape the egos and sounds of their multi-million dollar tug of war.
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Join one replies to listen a business wars one week early and ad free and the wonder yap down.
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a note to listeners. This episode can
means adult content and language.
It's obvious, six, nineteen, eighty, nine, that the Jean Louis Arena in Detroit dont your dress on stage with fellow members and end up anyway, but they just been
performing their head straight out. A company and a twenty day
and fans filling the venue hard going nuts. In many ways the group the portray on the map
Elevated gangster rapid from obscurity to mainstream their music has been the subject of media outrage, since the album was released and their song, but the police has caught the attention of the FBI. Just
a few days before this show the group's management got an ominous. We worded letter on Department of Justice letterhead it read
dating violence and assault is wrong. Music places
significant role in Society- and I just
you to be aware of the FBI's position relative to the song and its message tonight. The Detroit Police Department is out in force, they have a command centre under the arena, and so
Three hundred officers are there any other
The crown fired a heading out on individual manager, manager, Heller made a deal with their promoter, Darrell Brooks. If the group were formed, but the police they would be Fun
twenty five thousand dollars that song is off limits, but every time
is a break between tracks a crowd.
chance a line of officers flags in every way on each side of the stage. Dray exchanges looks with his bandits. Therein agreed they're gonna play it
Dray looks to the lead him see, signalling him
the come in on to one
two there's a series of the sound like gunfire the audience,
shoving screen and the police rush to stage from every direction. Dray makes a mad run for the two of us somehow slipping past the coms. This tour will be the p.
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From wondering I'm David Brown, and this is business wars. This is up
So two of death row versus bad boy records in turns and intimidation,
In our last episode, death row teamed up with two bucks occur to push its dominance of gangster wrapped in new heights and bad way launched a new era of hip hop glamour with a notorious, be hygiene
but in the early seventys the days of robbers, sipping champagne are still far in the future. The found
of death row in bad boy come of age.
on opposite coast, p,
deeply influenced by the music culture and vital
struggles of their neighborhoods.
It's obvious nineteen. Seventy one of those perfect,
southern California summer night. That begin just after sunset
the LOS Angeles neighbourhood of Captain, a young
to raise running to turn table that is Moms House Party
Everyone dancing and laughing
playing music. Does the tree he's
you're. So
Drain is moms. First, child is born,
as two weeks after her sixtyth birthday,
The father leaves before Dray learns to walk.
drain? Mom keeps them afloat with a series of low paying jobs, but violence is never very far from the families door, police s.
Made that there are now as many as six hundred street gangs in LOS Angeles County and seventy thousand gang members. Compton is
neighbourhood of compact homes, with lawns that once held the promise of the black american dream, but
just housing policies, high unemployment and the explosion of crack cocaine, combined to turn it into one of the most dangerous sites in the country as
yours his teenage years. Dray wants to make music that expresses the rough world. That's waiting for him
size house. Great desperately wants to be a hip, hop dj
but in nineteen. Eighty six he's stuck on the wrong coast
A New York LOS Angeles, barely has a policy. The west
still shaking off the disco era in order to give book Drake
plays gigs in colorful sequence and a Jerry curl hairdo betting, this free time,
he's designing, beats the donkey.
The damn about the dance floor, this music,
is meant to blast out of sub with like the ones
Ordered by the shabby low writers, cruising Compton Boulevard,.
Is nineteen eighty seven in a studio
torrents California
Doktor Dray, is lined up a group of up and coming wrappers from New York to record a new song
but when they hear the track,
They don't want any part of it. It feels to California so
Dray turns to his new business partner, a neighborhood.
Acting there whose profits are funding this studio time
His name is Eric right, he's a hustler
not you prefer.
but he's not a rapid that doesn't deter
doktor dray one there,
to do this. You ll be perfect,
you're right. I don't rap
I don't see why the
Could I be on this track?
How serious this track is you
drain knows there's something true in right experienced.
that will translate through, is unique, voice. Drake, coaches-
through the track lie
by line take after take until
They have boys in the who saw it becomes an underground success, dry,
transforms Eric ride into easy together bill
in the face of music in the group.
in Way West Coast gangster wrath.
Officially arrived
It's early. Ninety. Ninety one in LOS Angeles they had come,
is of historic disco in funk label. Solar records lives in a bland office, complex that houses affair,
or of lawyers offices.
But down one hallways, were dray calls the first love of my life
it's a state of the art mixing board
making machine with as many knobs in dials as the cognitive, a jet
I'll Dray wants to do is sit in front of those buttons and make music he hates dealing with business.
But he also hates getting screwed over by this
Why he's produced a string of gold and platinum records for easy ease company, but he doesn't feel
I keep getting his share of the profits.
drain NOS one guy. He thinks can help a giant with a soft voice who goes by sugar.
Like drain Marian shook, and I grew up in court,
dre. He grew up
a stable home with his mother and father.
section in the neighborhood is controlled by the blood, but he's not again
he's a star football player. He goes on
Lay in college even place two games in the end. I fell for the allay rams, but that it
work out so sure.
what's his have to good use and becomes
a bodyguard for the singer body breath underneath his menacing physique show
scattered my for business, and he
Weekly learns enough to move from being the hired muscle to,
using tell him manager, which
makes him. The perfect man to solve trays problem should
I need you to give me. Others contract easy
taking money in my pocket. Whatever it takes,
Do it
sure raises an eyebrow brow,
stray smile I'll take care of it.
what happens next? Will forever be a part of hip hop, though details very
according to the most common version, should takes easy into a room in the solar records. Billy
three guys as big as should stand over easy, whose only
five foot three
the big guys hold baseball bat. They
they have easy business partner, tied up in a van with a gun to his head
enough for a reason?
have to use the bats,
he signs to document the releases drive from his contract now free for me,
drain should decide to start their own label. They'll call it death row
its nineteen eighty, eight Sean puppy,
is hiding out in the bathroom of an Amtrak train on his way.
Washington DC to New York City ways. Have you
it ready.
hiding out because, as usual he hasn't bought a ticket can afford
he's a business Major Howard University, the prestigious historically black college in Washington DC, put puppies not in class he's the
throwing the wildest parties. Howard, is ever seen, and it's not just for fun
Sitters packing venue as central training for him
future in the music business he's already got it all planned out, he's going to
in his own label, healed
the kingmaker, who elevates all of blackmail,
two new height, but he
oh see is still a long way from that. Take it that way
you waited out in this bathroom as long as he has to
but he's on his way to New York for his first,
on the way to becoming music royalty a two day
Internship at a record label on pop,
his first day at work. He has to do the usual enter and tasks.
delivering mail and washing and waxing is bosses car
This isn't just can a record level. This is uptown records,
but the most important labels in hip, hop and are indeed his boss.
Is Andrei herself
legendary music executive who helped led Motown record. He also
to stand as a vice president of Deaf JAM. The pioneering hip hop label that
Corporate pedigree might intimidate other people, not PA
even as an intern he's already got the Harlem swagger, there will take him to the
top of the music industry he gets it from his father-
even though he barely knew the man, the other
comes was a true hustler in the Harlem tradition, but he paid
heavy price for his criminal connections. He shot
dead near central park before his son terms, three puppies
raised by his mother, when
Middle School. She moves from Harlem to the Middle Class New York suburbs, his wife
neighbours don't invite him over play in their backyard pools. This
sit well with a kid who craves being the centre of attention. He gets the Nick
puffy in high school
from the way you always struts around with his chest. Puffed up he's hungry
for success. Even then
is eighteen. Ninety one puffy
the labels head talent, scouted, leaving uptown. He takes his boss,
rail to lunch
the unleashes his pitch for the job full force.
Let's make uptown the home of ghetto fabulous. Now know our uptown have that hall
kind of cool hustler cachet too. That's not our audience. What do you know about our body?
What do I am your demographic
make you rich. He gets the job.
Hurray can already sense that puffy is visionary. Kid has
genius for selling music is something that's more than
sooner entertainment,
It's a talent. The translates perfectly to puppies passionate side project working is
I profile, party promoter around New York City and its this work that puts puffy front dense
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threatens to and the bad boy story
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Its December.
When he ate ninety ninety one in Manhattan, a crowd of
Thousands waits impatiently in the cold outside
the doors of New York City College, gymnasium they're here, because a puppy
the former, but since he's the one responsible for this event, these bench,
to put his name prominently on the fliers,
it's a charity event to benefit aids, research and puffing is poor.
the crowd. Some of the biggest artists from uptown records, the label.
He's gone from in turn to head talent, scale long, sigh,
the uptown artists. He's brought in
members of the legendary New York Hip Hop group run DMZ
There are thousands more people crowding the street thing can possibly fit into the venue. All of them are desperate to get in
people are starting to jostling each other as they try to add to the front. Puffy asked them
least, to put up a barricade,
to the crowd. Pushes thousands
when, for a single door into the GM some trap
on the steps others press
yes towards glass,
shatter. Amid the chaos puffy give see,
the yard, a concert governor strewn across the entrance.
By the end of the night. Nine p
They're dead,
Dozens more are injured.
The story becomes national news with puffy the young record exec in the headlines
The tragedy fuels public perception of rap music is dangerous and unlawful.
Roll Rivera devotes a showed a placing blame for the deaths coming up next honour. All that is wrong
Here's a killing your kid sent, the rapid puffy, is deeply shaken.
Some of the dead are people he knew.
Uptown lawyers advise him to lay low. He can't attend the funerals in the end.
he's not found criminally liable. Still many call for poverty to be kicked out of uptown, but a real sticks by it.
It's late, nineteen. Ninety two, the staff at uptown, are gathered for a meeting.
Harold ahead of the label, sits at the conference table flank
other high level executives there
waiting on puffy, but he is nowhere to be found. Povey
Now, twenty one years old and already of vice president, the youngest at that level anywhere in the recording industry, it took him just two years in the business,
to become a millionaire the weight of the day
that's from the previous year is real, but that's done
Nothing to decrease. His energy bore his swagger. He has a motto: can't stop won't stop.
The top breasted uptown Wanna talk to puffy about his spending habit
feelings wasting too much money promoting is artist. Puffy doesn't
the criticism. Well,
finally arrived at the meeting. He charges in with his shirt off ready.
A trade blows. He points to the white executive. He said
specks of undermining him and his artists don't ever disrespect
nobody does down with me, mother Fucker
Somehow puffy keeps his job yet again.
For rail is willing to put up with puffy, because it see
like every album. Puffy touches goes gold or platinum. Puffy
a marketing genius. He has a knack for turning his artists into aspirational figures
body, men of his vision of a ghetto fabulous. He sells millions of albums with armed, be artists like Josie and Mary J oblige
thanks to his career uptown, when puffy walks into a club,
is almost guaranteed to hear one of his artist
even with his success. He know,
That is a long way from the cutting edge of hip hop culture. He
feeling, like he's behind the times
we go to her office with the idea of starting his own label as an imprint of uptown.
As usual. He d
sensor himself in front of his boss. I would like to get it
shit.
streets while reality they want truth. They want rough. They want tough
It's almost like a girl ignore insane girls like bad boys,
and that's why the labels gotta be called bad boy.
Sits in silence bad boy
wrap, goes mainstream we
real and sees not do, is playing
Thanks to you, put him on
MTV. After a while, her real response, the boss,
can be, as blunt is as protegee shit
Here they are
one line in the jungle you're looking at puppies devastated.
this places is home. Andre Hariri was like a father figure. This is puffs first setback, but his rise to power is just getting star.
Puffy causes lawyer to tell him the bad news the fuck do I do, but his attorney
Doesn't offers sympathy can grow
relations Sean this the best day of your life on the next episode
puffy fights to win the trust of a new artist, the notary
Biagi, while
after dray, ensure ignite struggle to bring death rose, first released a market and politics
I'm and wrap view
together when an uprising, engulfs LOS Angeles.
From wondering this is episode to death row versus bad boy for business world. If you like our show, please give us a five star rating in a review and be sure to tell your friends. Follow business wars on apple casts: Spotify, Amazon, music, the wonder reactor wherever you're listening right now, listen
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We can't know exactly what was said at the time. Those scenes your dramatization, but their based on historical research
and we use many sources when researching our stories. But we
specially recommend chain,
who diary pokers book, unbelievable the life death
after life of the notorious Biagi. Also Zack, oh Molly, Green Bergs book three kings, daddy Doktor, Dray, J, Z,
and here pops multi billion dollar rise,
we'll canyon Mire wrote this story. Karen low is our senior producer and editor edited and
whose by Emily Frost Poyser
by Amari Williams, sound designed by Kyle Randal Arson,
He had producers, K, young, are produced
Dave, shilling, our exit,
producers are Jenny, Lauer, Beckmann and Martial Louie, created by or Non Lopez for wondering.
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Transcript generated on 2021-09-13.