Check out our Bad Boy Records section for more posts about Bad Boy Records.

It seems like you surrounded yourself with all these loose cannons. Why?

My loyalty to Guru. He gave me the opportunity to get to that point in my career. Any smart person would have left Guru and Gang Starr and done their own thing and that’s because I was tired of the negative energy but I stayed loyal to him. I still love Jeru [the Damaja]. We speak. We just spoke about doing music together again. I held a grudge for many years. Now I’ve learned to let go of that. That is poison in your body. I let go of that grudge I had with Chuck D over “Ten Crack Commandments.” [Writer’s Note: Chuck D sued Premier over sampling his voice on “Ten Crack Commandments.” He objected to his voice being used on a song about drugs.] He said he would dead the issue and when we got home from the Smokin’ Grooves tour, he changed his numbers. Back in 1998, 1999, I ran into him at the 7-11. He had his kids with him and we got into it. I told him, “I can’t believe you lied to me.” This is Chuck D, one of my idols, and I was cursing him out in front of his children. We got the lawsuit and it said Works of Mart, Bad Boy and the Estate of Christopher Wallace. I was like, “Have a heart and let her breath, man.” She lost a son but he doesn’t like his name or voice associated with drugs or alcohol and I respect that. Just tell me, “F*** off, I’m suing you.” Don’t tell me that you are going to dead the issue when we get home from tour, and Don’t worry, you’re not going to pay the money and then I have to pay the money. Puffy helped me out and said he would split the costs. That’s why I’m cool with Puff because he helped me deal with that.

When we were leaving Jam Master Jay’s wake, I was dapping up certain people and then I turned around and it’s Chuck. I just hugged him. I was like, “Chuck, I love you.” I apologized for yelling at him. We’re cool now and kick it. Even though he got that money—$85,000 to be exact.

Did “Ya’ Playin Yaself” strain your relationship with Puffy?

Biggie and them took that it the wrong way. We weren’t making that record to diss them. “Playin’ Yaself” had popped off but Puff had power and got [the song] shut down on Hot 97. We weren’t talking about Kim [with the line about] skimpy a** dresses. It was a bigger scope than that. I wouldn’t have made a record like that and then played both sides of the fence. “One Day” is what set the whole thing off. That was talking about the state of hip-hop and how hip-hop had a Versace suit on. We weren’t doing that to diss Big. Big took it that way. I was like, “Dude, why would I work with you and then diss you with my crew?” Same thing when Foxy got mad. Jeru had a good point, he said, “All I said was that she had fake alligator boots on. I said nothing else about her.” She said that she was disease infested on “I Shot Ya.” Jay Black got the worst of it. Jeru said, “We snatched up Jay Black and beat his b**** a** down.” Jay Black would be cool with Jeru to his face but then behind his back to this girl, he would be like, “Why you hanging out with that punk motherfucker?” She said, “What?” And put the phone next to Jeru’s ear. He said, “Why you hanging out with that punk motherf*****?” So Jeru heard him say it on the phone. Next time we were at the Tunnel, Jay Black was right there and Jeru got in his face. When Jeru did “One Day,” he was like, “Let’s throw that dart.” I wasn’t against that.