Kokane says Dr. Dre "Stole" G-Funk from Above The Law & The Ice Cube "No Vaseline" Club Story

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:06]What was it like around Dre at the time when you first got there?

[00:00:11]>> And what was everybody saying about Ice Cube being gone and you were there for the No Vaseline records?

[00:00:17]>> Well, you know, seeing Dre record, Easy and Dre always used to argue in the studio, but Easy had the last say so because it was like it was his company.

[00:00:26]They always had creative indifferences.

[00:00:29]Well, Dre, um, prior to me signing, actually, Dr. Dre and Hutch was both was supposed to produce my record. And it's incredible to see Dre in there because he's a cold, he's cold on the mixing board, but there was a lot of parts to that production, too, such as DJ Yellow, such as LA Dre, you know, at the time, rest in peace. And it was incredible. So going back to 91 when I had a chance to get on the NWA album just as well as being a writer, it was beautiful. You know what I mean? But then during those times in that same year, I had put out an album called Who Am I? People was like, "Who the is this?" Shut my door. But I didn't care about getting played on the radio because that that was a platinum record.

[00:01:18]So it was like, "Who cares about radio?

[00:01:20]I'm cocaine. Ain't going to change my name for nobody." Right. What was it like when no Vaseline dropped?

[00:01:26]>> Oh, it was crazy. It was crazy because Cube got one leg up, man. That was incredible record. You know what I mean?

[00:01:36]And we used to go in the club all the time and whether you know with Easy. It seemed like every time we went in the club, they would play that record on purpose.

[00:01:46]>> Oh, for real.

[00:01:47]>> Yeah. So, Eric was the type of person he didn't care because he was making bread.

[00:01:53]of of a lot of things.

[00:01:55]>> You guys didn't have to rough up no DJs.

[00:01:58]>> Nah. Well, I I plead the fifth on that one. You know what I'm saying? Certain things we had to do. I can't say.

[00:02:05]>> But Easy said, "Forget this, man. I'mma go back in >> and we're going to do this NWA album."

[00:02:11]>> So, you guys are in the close. You guys are hearing this everywhere. And and Easy doesn't really care. He's just all about the money. He's like, "Well, it's good publicity."

[00:02:20]>> Yeah. Yeah. That's that was his thing because he know controversy sells and >> that was controversial and um the only time that that he said well let's go for it is when they put the [ __ ] for life album he was zagging album and then during that time Ice Cube mentioned some things about Pomona catch that he shouldn't mention. Yeah. So he said something about Pomona and then he came up to the celebrity and you know Hutch and Ice Cube got into a fist fight and uh you know Hutch end up putting in work on Ice Cube at that time. Ice Cube ain't a punk though he felt but you know he got worked at that time because we were real serious about what we do. You know what I'm saying? Um, when you talk about above the law, we were the real deal.

[00:03:12]You know, from hustling to carrying weight to to to beating up people to all kind of stuff, you know what I mean? It really wasn't NWA because they considered above the law all of us, you know, they henchmen, you know, at that time. But when that record cube came out, it really hit hit home. You know what I'm saying? Even though Easy didn't care, he did care because it's like they was playing that everywhere.

[00:03:42]>> I remember it was a huge song, man. Uh, you know, what about Jerry Heler?

[00:03:46]Because in the movie it's got Jerry Heler. Jerry Heler is like, you know, he's extremely mad about the record, >> right? Well, he was extremely mad, but when you think in terms of the NWA movie, it's only 40% true.

[00:03:59]>> Oh, okay. because they, you know, Ruthless Records uh got some notoriety on one record and that was JJ Fad Super Sonic. If there was no JJO >> from Rialto that's right and because of the success of that record open up for NWA and the rest of the Ruthless Artists, that one particular record, Super Signing.

[00:04:24]>> That's crazy.

[00:04:25]>> So, they really wasn't touching on that in the NWA movie like they were supposed to. And everybody know Easy wasn't driving down the street looking at the bulletin board crying. How how the that's gonna happen when you some [ __ ] >> Bone was like the biggest thing in hip hop at the time.

[00:04:40]>> So there's no way Easy E was broke, bro.

[00:04:43]He was making millions.

[00:04:45]>> He was far from broke.

[00:04:46]>> Yeah.

[00:04:47]>> You got to realize Easy was a street cat.

[00:04:50]>> So therefore, what you see is what you don't know behind closed curtains. You know, he had many ways and avenues to make bread.

[00:04:59]and exposing some of the ways he make bread. That's not for me to say, but trust me, it's far from broke.

[00:05:06]>> Right. Right. Okay. Uh, so you guys are with Ruthless, you know, Ruthless is is, you know, NWA is going crazy, but at some point Dre decides to leave, too, >> right? you know, and uh this right here was pretty big, you know, because this led to him linking up with Suge and doing death row. You know, what was that time like? How did you find out he was leaving? Well, Suge was already with us in 1989. He was the bodyguard of DLC, so he was already with us, you know what I mean? And during that time, he was he had some brains on him in intelligence, and he was like, "This paperwork don't say this paperwork." But a lot of people don't know it. They think it started with just Dre leaving. No. Above the Lawn Cocaine was going to leave with Suge just as well as Dre. You see what I'm saying? Because it was some discrepancies with some paperwork. And it was.

[00:06:06]And we were going to leave, but Easy was so adamant about keeping us. He was like, "Uh, I can let Dre go, but I'm not letting the Balo and Cocaine go." Nope.

[00:06:15]>> You guys are supposed to be the future of the label.

[00:06:17]>> Yeah. We were supposed to be the new death row above the law of cocaine. Not just Drake and Snoopin wasn't even put on. They weren't even thought of. I ain't even hear no dog Brown yet. You know what I mean? But the thing of it is easy set up a meeting and Dr. Dre was supposed to come to DOC was there. Um, and it was on it was in Englewood and we rekindled our business relationship with Easy because we didn't want to leave Ruthless Records, but because of the paperwork and all the that was going around, you know, with the paperwork, it it really stemmed from Jerry Heler and the group of people he had behind there, which I can't name.

[00:07:01]the group of people and Easy got real upset because Easy was at the same time when he found out that we're all getting duped.

[00:07:10]He wanted to make it right because he was getting duped too. They were double dipping. That means if you sell records over here and they sell some records over there and they don't tell you about it, which naturally it ain't nothing new. They've been doing that since Mottown days, you know what I mean? But Easy E found it and got pissed off. And I remember walking in the office one day and Jerry Heler was on his side, the senior calabases and easy and Jerry brought me in the room and he said, "Man, I'm not going to be here for too long, man."

[00:07:40]Easy is he was sad, but I don't know why he was sad because you knew what was going on.

[00:07:47]And you know, Ezy was like, "I'm getting rid of this, man. I'm gonna get a cube and everybody else and make it right." You know what I mean? So, ironically, it's like when he started making it right and wanted to make it right, all of a sudden, boom, he did.

[00:08:04]Now, do the rest of the homework. You see what I'm saying?

[00:08:07]>> Let's take it back a little bit, man.

[00:08:10]Suge leaves and starts and Dre leaves, they start Death Row, and but when they leave, they leave and Dre makes Dre Day, >> right?

[00:08:20]>> Which is a monster hit.

[00:08:22]>> Mhm.

[00:08:23]>> But you guys are still with Ruthless.

[00:08:24]Yeah, we're still we're ruthless and during that time, let me back up. We're doing um they're doing Appetite of Destruction. This is still in 91 on [ __ ] for Life album, right? So, we had the U video. They filmed it in LA at the bank. And we out there in in the car, you know, Leila Hutch and we always used to play each other music, you know what I mean? We used to get each other's tapes back when they had the heavy tapes from Bernie Gruntman. So we was playing black mafia life. So why we playing black mafia life? Dre and them coming over and be like what's that y'all playing? We call it gangster folk. We call it G folk. You know what I mean? Because when you listen to NWA, they really wasn't on that parliament like that. They was mostly considered a West Coast bomb squad. You know what I mean? Ah chippy chippy chippy. But when above the law and cocaine, we put the funk in it. You see what I'm saying? So Dre was like, "Hey man, y'all gonna win off that, man.

[00:09:26]What y'all call that? We call it G Funk." Hutch was like, "It's gangster funk. This is our form of music." Cuz we didn't want to be called Punk. So we gangsters and we call it call ourselves gunk. And Dre was so man. Bam. And back then everybody used to have everybody tapes. So like the stuff that we did, Dre heard it.

[00:09:47]Everybody was on it. And during that same time 91 at the end of it we were going to leave with death row but e we rekindled our business relationship with easy e above the law and cocaine but Dr. Dre and Doc left. So when they left, they, you know, Dre left with our tape, the above the law tape, and it's like when we were gonna put out our stuff, somehow the deal at Above the Law, which ain't somehow, got hated on, and Dr. Dres got picked above uh, you know, from over above the laws. And that's why we had to put our record out above the law because I'm really considered like the fifth member of above the law. Um, we had to put out in 1993 or something because a lot of people thought we bit above the law. Uh, uh, thought we bit Dr. Dre's Chronic when all the songs on the the first Chronic sound similar to Above the Lost Black Mafia Life. So, that put a bad taste in our mouth because Dr. Dre was biting our stuff, biting huts, biting our concepts, theories, everything. You know what I mean? And it was cool because that was the first time you ever heard the word Gunkk on record from Tupac from a record we had on.

[00:11:09]>> So I was going to ask you about that because I seen a headline about Tupac coining the phrase Gunkk or like what all like how did how was he involved in that? Well, you heard KMG say G Funk on there all the time, but you know, um, originally Shock G was supposed to be on the record, but he had to go to New York. So, Money B and them mentioned Tupac and Tupac always used to hang around Layaw, Above the Law, NWA. He was soaking it up from us. He always used to come mess with us, you know what I mean?

[00:11:42]And Shak G couldn't get there. So, Tupac got on and he knew the style of music that we did. That's what he that's why he said, "I'm from the G funk, but you can call it what you want." And you never heard that word before, you know, prior to hearing on Above the Law Records. But because Warren G two years ago knew our style of music and our play, he coined it as a spin-off of Gunk era, but it came from above all cocaine. Gunk.

[00:12:13]>> What's up? This is Cam Capone. We got more content like this coming soon. So, hit that like button, subscribe, and stay locked in to Cam Capone News.