HIP HOP'S HIGH PROFILE ATTORNEY
From Suge Knight, Snoop Doog and Pras Michel, David Kenner has made deals for and defended stars
I have been following the case United States has brought against rapper and Fugee’s member Pras Michel in the media. Here is the core of the case as reported by NPR.
“Grammy-winning hip hop musician Pras Michel pocketed $100 million in an effort to bring "secret, illegal foreign influence to bear" on two different presidential administrations, breaking conspiracy laws and tampering with witnesses along the way, prosecutor Nicole Lockhart told jurors Thursday morning. Michel is standing trial on multiple criminal charges in federal court in Washington, D.C., where 12 jurors will eventually determine his legal fate. Authorities said the case is filled with political intrigue, burner telephones and lies. ‘This is a case about foreign money, foreign influence and concealment,’ Lockhart told the jury. ‘The defendant wanted money and was willing to break any laws necessary to get paid.’ The Justice Department put Michel, 50, at the center of two separate streams of illegal conduct tied to the billionaire Jho Low, who's been accused of stealing $4 billion from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. Low is a fugitive from justice believed to be in China, so Michel is standing trial alone.”
The trial has already made headlines because Leo DiCaprio testified last week. It seems Low invested money in the film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ which the actor helped produce and well as starred in. Moreover Leo was a regular at Low’s many extravagant parties.
But what caught my eye was the photo that accompanied the NPR article. Exiting the car behind Pras was attorney David Kenner, who has played an outsized role in hip hop history. The eighty-one year old lawyer has been involved with the business of hip hop since the 1990s and has his finger prints on some of the culture’s most consequential crime related cases. As we look at the 50th anniversary of hip hop’s its worth noting that some of the most important figures in the game never spit a rhyme or dropped a beat.
Kenner enters the culture’s narrative when he connected with Suge Knight and became attorney of record for Death Row Records. When Tupac was convicted of sexual assault and incarcerated at the Clinton Correctional facility in 1995, Knight and Kenner famously visited the MC and negotiated the deal that brought Tupac to Death Row, putting up $1.4 million bond after Tupac signed a three page hand written contract. Attached here is a separate document from ‘95 that gave Kenner power to handle any deals that came Tupac’s way. Essentially this document made Kenner his representative in negotiating with Death Row. Of course since Kenner was already working for Death Row the conflict of interest is obvious.
When Tupac was killed in Las Vegas in 1996, one of the theories floating around was that Suge and Kenner conspired to have the MC killed. It was bogus - as most of the conspiracy theories were - but they suggest how deeply the attorney was entrenched with Death Row.
But Kenner isn’t necessarily a villain. It was Kenner who led the defense team in the 1993 murder trial of Snoop Dogg. Snoop, along with two others, was charged with the killing of gang member Philip Woldemariam in 1990. It’s the trial that inspired the song, “Murder Was the Case,” and accompanying video. Snoop, with Kenner’s aid, beat the case. As recently as last year Snoop performed at a 80th birthday bash for Kenner and said, “Without David Kenner, there’d be no Snoop Dogg.”
The attorney, who’s been practicing law in California since 1968 and has tried numerous cases at the state and federal level, hasn’t just been involved in old school hip hop. Earlier this year Tory Lanez was convicted of shooting Meagan the Stallion in the foot in 2020. The specific charges were assault with a semiautomatic firearm, possession of a concealed, unregistered firearm, and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. The conviction could put the Canadian performer away for twenty-two years. After his conviction Lanez put out the Bat signal and Kenner responded and is part of the team handling the appeal, which will focus on getting a new trial and reducing some of the charges to misdemeanors. The sentencing has been delayed twice since January - in fact there’s a chance Lanez could be sentenced today or later this week in Los Angeles.
The cases against Pras feel like the government, in lieu of arresting Low, zeroed in on the Fugee as the fall guy. The case is on going and will be fascinating to watch. I had two thoughts when I saw Kenner’s involvement: one, Pras was in good hands: two, if there’s a secret history of hip hop, then Kenner would probably deserve a couple of chapters.