At the time of his death, Easy-E was only 31
years old and at the height of his solo career. With the N.W.A. biopic
‘Straight Outta Compton’ in theaters this week, we explore the
conspiracy surrounding the polarizing rapper’s untimely passing.
At a Hollywood news conference on March 17, 1995, former N.W.A
frontman Eazy-E told the world that he had AIDS. In a prepared
statement, Ron Sweeney, the rapper’s friend and attorney, said that Eric
Wright had learned two weeks prior – and that he was listed in
critical condition at the intensive care unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center in Los Angeles. “I’m not religious, but wrong or right, that’s
me,” Sweeney said on behalf of Eazy-E. “I’m not saying this because I’m
looking for a soft cushion wherever I’m heading. I just feel I’ve got
thousands and thousands of young fans that have to learn about what’s
real when it comes to AIDS. I’ve learned in the last week that this
thing is real and it doesn’t discriminate. It affects everyone.”
In the years before Wright’s announcement, two other prominent men in
the African American community had come forward with their own HIV
revelations.
On November 7, 1991, Lakers guard Magic Johnson held a press
conference to reveal that he was HIV-positive. Johnson had undergone a
routine physical in October of that same year in order to secure a life
insurance policy. While he was in Salt Lake City for an exhibition game
against the Utah Jazz, he received a call from Lakers team physician,
Dr. Michael Mellman, who delivered the news. Johnson simply thought it
was a mistake and requested a second test – which also came back
positive. As the regular season rolled around, many questioned why
Johnson wasn’t in the lineup. After a third positive test, Johnson knew
he had to tell the world. Bending his head and speaking into a
microphone at the LA Forum, Johnson announced, “Because of the virus I
have attained, I will have to retire from the Lakers.”
Tennis champion
Arthur Ashe had lived with the disease for five years – unbeknownst to
the public – before deciding to come forward after learning that
USA Today
was planning on releasing the details in a forthcoming story. “I am
angry that I was put in the position of having to lie if I wanted to
protect my privacy,” Ashe said in April 1992. “Just as I’m sure everyone
in this room has some personal matter he or she would like to keep
private, so did we. There was certainly no compelling medical or
physical necessity to go public with my medical condition. What I came
to feel about a year ago was that there was a silent and generous
conspiracy to assist me in maintaining my privacy.”
While Johnson has continued to flourish and remains a symbol that HIV
is no longer a death sentence, Ashe passed away from pneumonia, a
complication of AIDS on February 6, 1993 – a year after his
announcement.
Prior to Eazy-E’s own admission, the West Coast rap world was being
dominated by the push and pull between N.W.A’s former home, Ruthless
Records, and the upstart label, Death Row, which had been formed by
Suge Knight – who was intent on launching Dr. Dre as his flagship artist.
According to former N.W.A manager and Ruthless Records co-founder,
Jerry Heller, Knight got Dre out of his contract by threatening him with
baseball bats and lead pipes.
“I think, even more so now, that Suge Knight is an evil human being,”
Jerry Heller told the Murder Master Music Show.
“Eazy said, ‘You know this guy Suge Knight?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He says,
‘Well, I’m gonna kill him.’ He said, ‘This guy is gonna be a problem and
I think I should kill him.’ I said, ‘Let me think this thing through. I
said, ‘First of all, we’re doing $10 million a month with six
employees. We don’t even have a typewriter in the office.’ I said,
‘We’re the most successful start-up record company in the history of the
music business and you want to kill this guy?’ I said, ‘That just
doesn’t make any sense to me.’ You know something? I should have let him
kill him. I would have done the world a favor. He would have done it,
for sure, by himself. He always rolled by himself and he was fearless… I
think that he was gonna go do it. I shouldn’t have talked him out of
it. Ruthless would probably still be around. Dr. Dre. and Ice Cube would
probably still be with Ruthless. It would have been an empire.”
In 1992, Ruthless
Records sued Death Row for racketeering – although the suit was
dismissed in 1993. However, following Dr. Dre’s departure, Ruthless
Records continued to profit off of him. According to
The Los Angeles Times,
“The firm received about $1 million in combined annual royalty payments
from Young and Priority Records, which in 1990 acquired the rights to
N.W.A.’s early albums.”
While in critical condition at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Eazy-E
and his long-time girlfriend Tomica Woods – who was pregnant with the
couple’s second child – were married at approximately 9:30 p.m. on March
14 surrounded by his immediate family.
At the time of the
rapper’s announcement, both Woods and her one-year-old son had tested
negative for HIV and AIDS. In the prepared statement which was read by
Ron Sweeney, Eazy-E acknowledged that he had led a promiscuous
lifestyle, saying, “Before Tomica I had other women. I have seven
children by six different mothers. Maybe success was too good to me.”
On March 26, 1995 – one month after the initial diagnosis – Eazy-E
passed away at approximately 6:35 p.m. PST. In eulogizing Wright, the
Rev. Cecil Murray urged those in attendance at the First African
Methodist Episcopal Church to rejoice in Wright’s life but learn lessons
from the way he had died. “I know a little blackbird that sings,”
Murray said, pointing his finger at the coffin. “And his lyrics are, ‘I
want you to live. I want you to be careful. I want you to slow down.'”
Compton Mayor Omar
Bradley declared April 7, “Eazy-E Day,” saying, “Eric made Compton
famous not just in California, but all over the world. I recognize Eazy
as a young man who grew up in the streets of Compton–and brothers and
sisters, we know it’s not ‘easy’ growing up in Compton.”
The Los Angeles Times reported
in late April 1995 that a fight over Eazy-E’s estate and stake in
Ruthless Records occurred almost instantaneously following his death.
“Squabbles have erupted between his new wife, Tomica Wood, and the
former director of business affairs at Ruthless, Mike Klein,” the
Times
noted. “Klein filed a lawsuit last week claiming that he owns 50% of
the company. Wood maintains that she is the sole owner. Industry
insiders said the company is worth around $10 million, including its
assets and a double CD compilation finished by Wright before his death.
An April 14 Superior Court hearing is expected to send the once
profitable company into a conservatorship until a judge can decide its
fate.”
As many fans
attempted to grapple with the loss of the “Godfather of Gangster Rap,”
many couldn’t help but question just how quickly Eazy-E’s condition had
deteriorated. However, according to aids.gov, it’s common for people who
have contracted HIV to experience no symptoms at all and to look and
appear like a healthy individual. After the early stage of HIV
infection, the disease moves into a stage called the “clinical latency”
stage. “Latency” means a period where a virus is living or developing in
a person without producing symptoms.
Eventually the HIV virus will weaken a person’s immune system. The
onset of symptoms signals the transition from the clinical latency stage
to AIDS – resulting in symptoms like rapid weight loss and pneumonia –
the latter which Easy-E succumbed to. But those around him during his
final months didn’t notice any rapid changes in his appearance or
behavior.
According to
members of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony – who had just been signed to Ruthless
Records around the time of his diagnosis – Eazy-E was his normal self.
In speaking with Angele Yee,
Krayzie Bone said, “Dude had full blown AIDS and looked regular. He
still had his weight. Still cocky. Still looking like a regular dude. It
just came about all of a sudden.” Layzie Bone added, “He was really
built like a little tank.”
“He was smaller because his appetite had decreased. But there were no
lesions or dementia. None of the other things you associate with AIDS, ”
said Charms Henry, Eazy’s former personal assistant and longtime
friend. “I know because I lost an uncle to it last year.”
While the conspiracy rumors have increased in recent years, there was
an early indication that Eazy-E may have been HIV-positive.
On Snoop’s debut album,
Doggystyle, there’s a skit entitled “
House Party”
in which Dr. Dre and Daz Dillinger have a conversation. Daz asks,
“Aiyyo what’s up with them niggas that was on the TV dissin’ you?” Dre
responds, “Man fuck them niggas, man I ain’t thinkin’ about that old
shit, man.,” to which Daz echoes, “Busta ass, HIV pussy-ass
motherfuckers.,” and Dre retorts, “Yo yo yo Daz, easy come, easy
(gunshot noise).”
In his first public appearance after being released from jail in 2003, Suge Knight appeared on
Jimmy Kimmel Live! – with
the host donning a bulletproof vest as a subtle jab at Knight’s
notorious reputation for violence and intimidation tactics. When Knight
finally acknowledged it, he laughed it off, before going into how
shooting someone wasn’t his preferred method of getting his point
across, saying, “See, technology is so high. So, 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 called — they get blood from
somebody with AIDS and they shoot you with it. That’s a slow death. The
Eazy-E thing. You know what I mean?”
Rapper B.G. Knocc Out is perhaps best known for appearing on Eazy-E’s 1993 single, “
Real Muthaphuckkin G’s.” In his 2011 song, “N My Prime” from his album,
Easy-E’s Protege,
he raps “the way my big homie went out, he didn’t deserve it/they say
he died of AIDS, but Eazy was cold murdered. I filtered out all the
bullshit with my third iris/full blown AIDS but Tamica ain’t got the
virus?”
In a 2011 interview with HipHopDX, B.G.
Knocc Out stated, ” I believe in my heart somebody did something to
Eric. Whether it was Jerry [Heller], whether it was [his widow] Tomica
[Woods-Wright], I have yet to really know the truth about it. But, for a
person to have full-blown AIDS [that quickly is suspicious]. My little
brother, his father died from full-blown AIDS … from sharing a needle
[‘cause] he was [an addict]. Now, I seen this man go through these
stages, from HIV to full-blown AIDS. And, when you get a cold, any
little thing like that, your whole immune system shut down. So you have
to go into the hospital just to recover. Now, to be around Eric for the
last three years of his life and he never had an episode like this –
never ever – something is strange, something is real odd. And then you
gon’ come out and tell me when the man go in there for bronchitis, you
gon’ come out and tell me this man had full-blown AIDS. And we done been
to New York, we done been to Chicago in below zero weather [and] he
never got sick. He never had an episode. Like, c’mon bruh. Who are you
kidding?”
Jerry Heller was another person close to Eazy-E who believed that foul
play was a real possibility. “Do I think something fishy happened to
Eazy? Absolutely,” Heller told First Fam Radio
. “I don’t
believe for a second that someone with as much money as we did – 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. I don’t believe that. I think that
something went on there. And like I say, I have my own ideas who I think
was involved. But all I’m willing to say is this: I’m the only one who
didn’t profit from him passing away.”
“I have my own theory,” Layzie Bone told Angela Yee. “He went in for the
common cough, or pneumonia, which was January. Then in February,
diagnosed as HIV-positive. Then March, full-blow AIDS [and] dead. I was
kinda thinking, [what] kind of doctors did he go to?. Even the children
that were born after he died, weren’t positive. Even their mothers
weren’t positive. Nobody was positive. I believe [it’s] just like the
mystery of ‘who killed Tupac’ and ‘who killed Biggie?'”
Before Eazy-E passed away, the oft-feuding members of N.W.A began to
band together to support their one-time friend. “I was so fortunate to
be able to get on the phone with him and talk about maybe putting N.W.A
back together, and we chopped it up about old times and what have you
and maybe not even two weeks after that, he was in the hospital,” Dr.
Dre told
BigBoyTV. “So the last time I actually saw him, he
didn’t know I was in the room. He was on life support. I just reached
down and whispered a few words in his ear and I think maybe the next day
or two he passed away. We had a chance to rekindle it and actually get
back in the studio again.”
In 2011, unsealed FBI document linked both Eazy-E and Tupac Shakur to
an alleged extortion attempt by the Jewish Defense League – who Jerry
Heller had employed to combat threats from Suge Knight, as well as
neo-Nazi skinhead groups who had threatened them. The report stated, “On
September 11, 1996 [omitted] reported that JDL, and others yet
unidentified have been extorting money from various rap music stars via
death threats. The scheme involves [omitted] and other subjects making
telephonic death threats to the rap star. Subjects then intercede by
contacting the victim and offering protection for a ‘fee.’ Source
reported that ERIC WRIGHT, also known as EAZY-E, who owned RUTHLESS
RECORDS, Woodland Hills, California, was a victim of this extortion
scheme prior to dying from AIDS. [Omitted] had also reportedly targeted
TUPAC SHAKUR prior to his recent murder in Las Vegas, Nevada.”
According to the
Southern Poverty Law Center, “The [JDL] has orchestrated countless
terrorist attacks in the U.S. and abroad, and has engaged in intense
harassment of foreign diplomats, Muslims, Jewish scholars and community
leaders, and officials.”
If other deceased rappers are an indication, Eazy-E’s catalog of
previously released songs and the surely mountain of unreleased material
are very valuable. Tupac Shakur has released nine albums since his
death – with each charting in the top 10 on
Billboard. His biggest seller: 2001’s
Until The End of Time has moved 2.2 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
While “denial” is
one of the first stages of grief, many close to Eazy-E refuse to believe
that his rapid decline and subsequent death due to AIDS complications
were caused by his reckless, sexual appetite. To this day, no criminal
charges have been filed.
