VIBE Magazine - February 1996: START:An Uneazy Post Mortem

From his days in N.W.A to his tenure as president of Ruthless Records right up to his death from AIDS on March 26 of last year, Eric "Eazy-E" Wright always gave people something to talk about. Now, as two posthumous albums are released-eternal-E, a greatest hits package with proceeds earmarked for pediatric AIDS research, and Str8 Off tha Streetz of Muthaphu**in' Compton, a long-planned collection of new material-his most lasting legacy might prove to be the tangled web of lawsuits surrounding his estate.

The fight over Eazy's fortune, once estimated at $30 million (although, according to sources familiar with his finances, it was only worth half that amount), began the day after his death. The first lawsuit was filed by Michael Klein, Ruthless's former director of business affairs, who questioned the legality of Wright's deathbed marriage to 26-year-old Tomica Woods. Klein's suit also challenged the validity of a trust document, signed at the same time, that gave Woods, Eazy's former attorney Ron Sweeney, and the rapper's parents status as cotrustees of his estate. On May 22, a probate judge ordered a special administrator to sort out the estate's finances and determine a value for the label.

The second lawsuit was filed on April 12, 1995 by the mothers of two of Eazy's other five children. As a result of both suits, the offices of Ruthless records have been closed for over six months, leaving employees of the company without pay as well as the six mothers of Eazy's seven children without child support ever since. Both lawsuits are still pending, with more expected involving the mothers of his other children.

Woods gave birth to a baby girl, Daijah Nakia-her second child with Wright-on September 26. She says the legal drama surrounding her late husband's death has made her life much harder. "People are more concerned about what they can get from him now that he's gone," she says. "Nobody knows the Eazy I knew. This would really hurt him to see people trying to destroy what he created." According to a family friend, Woods and the new baby have both tested negative for AIDS.

Friends say Woods is struggling to keep her family afloat. While Wright bought her a sprawling $1 million Woodlands Hills mansion about five months before his death, he left Woods with payments she can barely afford. "She's just getting by," says a longtime friend. "She really loved that man, and now she's paying the price."

The future of Wright's 10-year-old record label is uncertain. Even the success of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (whose No. 1, double-platinum album E. 1999 Eternal was dedicated to their late mentor) and the $1 million Ruthless earns annually from Dr. Dre and Priority Records (which bought the rights to N.W.A's catalog in 1990) may not save it from the barrage of lawsuits anticipated in the coming months.

After the lawsuits are sorted out-which could take at least three years, according to people familiar with the proceedings-there will be little left of the record company that launched the careers of Eazy, Dre, and Ice Cube. "By the time the attorneys collect on the lawsuits, Ruthless will be history," says one label president. "It's really a shame a successful black company has to come to an end like this."

Allison Samuels