Requiem For A Gangsta

His death, coming so close to Shakur's, has shaken the hip-hop world. All last week rumors flew that Knight had been stabbed in his cell. Though a source in the L.A. County Sheriff's Department told NEWSWEEK that the rumors were true, the department officially denies them. Rappers looked for a place to breathe. ""This industry has a problem with people thinking there isn't enough room for everyone,'' says the producer Jermaine Dupree, a friend to Combs. ""It's this attitude that if you got it, I can't have it, so I am going to take it. That's why these deaths are happening.'' The Rev. Al Sharpton and the Nation of Islam vowed to take the fight to the white executives making fortunes off rap, including bigwig Democratic contributor Ted Field, whose company, Interscope, distributes Death Row. (Field refused to comment on the controversy.) From the inside, executives like Bill Stephney, who is black, are pushing the industry to pump $10 million into community programs. ""It's patronizing to say the [white executives] are accountable because these people should know better,'' he says. At the same time, though, ""what are we doing with the profits to change the environments these kids come from? That has to be dealt with.''

As Brooklyn prepared to mourn Christopher Wallace last weekend, rap fans took stock of their loss. ""Biggie being dead,'' said Jason Weaver, 14, of the Bronx, ""is like rap being dead for me.'' Chuck D of the political rap group Public Enemy put the deaths in a less lofty perspective. Tupac and Biggie, he said, ""are hot now, but three years from now the new generation won't remember. That's the saddest part. These guys are dying for nothing.'' That's grimmer than any rhyme on any rap album.

© 1997