In 1996, DJ Quik was among the cast of acclaimed producers to work on Tupac’s All Eyez On Me. The double album would reach #1 on the charts and eventually be certified diamond (10 million units sold). However, it experienced a leak that involved Quik, who produced “Heartz Of Men” and mixed much of the Death Row Records 2LP.

DJ Quik is the latest guest on The People’s Party With Talib Kweli. At 48:00, show cohost Jasmin Leigh asks Quik about an incident involving a Tupac leak, which he reveals had grave consequences. “I almost got killed over a Tupac bootleg; I had a machine gun put in my face. But I was still defending him; I’m like, ‘F*ck it, do what you gotta…’ I just manned up: ‘just what you gotta do.’ This what we say ‘Handle your business.’ I can’t run; this mothaf*cka got 30 shots in it. So I’m just gonna man up and take this sh*t; you ain’t gonna shoot me in my back. ‘Handle your handles, bruh.'” Quik reveals that he has never spoken on the issue publicly before.

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“It was in my car, and my security at the time used my car. He’s a hood ni**a. And he took my car, took the CD, took the CD out, and let his homeboys hear it. ‘Let me get a copy of that.’ ‘Cool.’ But I was fancy, because back then, everybody didn’t have CD burners; them sh*ts used to cost $5,000. So I’m in the studio proofreading and listening to these mixes and making sure that they sound good, and I would give Suge [Knight] a CD or Pac a CD—it was like I was a little pressing plant in that h*e—that was before it got popular.” DJ Quik’s dubs of All Eyez On Me sessions ended up becoming a problem. “The CD ended up in the neighborhood at Earthquake Sounds, [a] car show or whatever. Dudes up there called Suge like, ‘Ay, you know ni**as up here [are] playin’ that new Tupac sh*t y’all [are] in there workin’ on?’ He’s like, ‘What!?’ What!?'”

Death Row Records feared co-founder and CEO took action. “So I get a call, ‘Hey man, come up to the office.’ I already know with them Death Row meetings, when they call you randomly at 4:20 [in the afternoon to] fight traffic and get up here, ‘Aw, this finna’ be some bullsh*t.'” Quik drove to Death Row’s Wilshire Boulevard offices in Beverly Hills, California. “So we get up there and we confront it. And then a fight started in the f*ckin’ Death Row [office]—scrappin’ and sh*t, right? So after the fight was done, my dumb ass, I’m like, ‘Man, we just got accused of somethin’ we didn’t do.’ [I asked the security guard], ‘Man, what did you do?’ He’s like, ‘Man, I didn’t pull…’ I’m like, ‘Who did you give the CD to?’ ‘Man, it’s this guy.’ Right? So we go over to this guy’s house. I’m sittin’ there—I’m mad, right, ’cause ni**as is…we just got into fisticuffs over this sh*t. And I never shared this story before, ’cause this sh*t might get me into another fight, but at this point, I don’t care.”

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After leaving a tense situation at Death Row, DJ Quik says he paid a house visit to whom he believed was behind the bootleg. “He’s talkin’ to us; he came down the street. He’s talkin’ to me and Donnell and sh*t about the [CD], that he didn’t do it; yada yada yada—somebody else did it. So me and my infinite wisdom, I take off on him. It’s some bullsh*t; I gotta fight somebody ’cause we just got into a fight over here—you don’t know what just happened.”

It is here that Quik says the fight got nearly deadly. “So I fight the dude, and he dropped his Hennessy, and I think he was more mad that he dropped his Hennessy than me actually swinging on him or whatever. So he told his homeboy, ‘Man, blast this mothaf*cka!’ My man just pulled out a Tec [and cocked it]. I just [stopped and became] cold over this dumb-ass Tupac tape. So my man didn’t shoot me. My security got the gun from him and was like, ‘Y’all just go ahead up.’ I’m fighting with this guy, then I end up fighting with the other guy. The guy ended up kickin’ me all in the head and sh*t; I’m on the ground getting stomped and sh*t. I get up, and I’m still fighting this guy, and I’m like, I can’t fight both—[somebody] help me fight these mothaf*ckas. Why you got me out here fighting two people?”

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Quik notes that the event did not end there. Battered and bruised, he was still requested at a label party. “And then we had to go a party that night still—a Whispers party that Death Row was throwing, so we ended up at the Whispers party with [battered faces].” “Supposedly, the guy that did it, I ended up making amends with him. I went and hung out with him a couple of years ago and apologized, ’cause I shouldn’t have did that. Death Row was the single most dangerous record company in the world. But if you had on the chain, nothing ever happened to you. It was like the amulet, a good-luck charm.”

At the 58:00, DJ Quik says that the incident involving the bootleg made him and Tupac closer. “Tupac found out that I fought these ni**as over his tape—over his sh*t gettin’ leaked, and he loved me infinitely for that. We were just two peas in a pod. We hung out; we did so much sh*t together. We used to hang out and film it, and I just took it for granted, like he’s gonna be here for always. He’s outta jail now, and he gonna stay out; it’s fine. We gave him the best record in the world: All Eyez On Me. I didn’t even leave the studio. Usually, I’ll go home. I stayed there like 48 hours mixin’ them sh*ts, smokin’ bidis when they were brand new.” Quik adds, “He worked so fast. Then we toured. We did a short little tour.”

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Quik alludes to memories of performing in New Orleans, Louisiana. Notably, the two artists ended up at odds for a time. “Then he got mad at me and wanted to fight me because I jumped on the speakers. He was like, ‘You’re stealing my show. He told Suge, ‘He’s stealing my f*ckin’ show! He’s stealin’ my sh*t.’ I’m like, ‘Bro, we been jumpin’ on speakers; I got that from Bobby Brown.'”

Quik produced other Tupac songs that released after All Eyez On Me, including “Late Night” and “Words 2 My First Born.”

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Elsewhere in the interview, Quik recalls performing his “Dollaz + Sense” diss in front of MC Eiht, breaking Talib’s Reflection Eternal songs on Los Angeles radio, and why Suga Free is finally getting his just due.

Quik last released Rosecrans with Problem in 2017.

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#BonusBeat: A 2021 What’s The Headline interview with Kurupt. He discusses Death Row Records freestyles that became classic songs: