Jerry Heller

“The music business and I were made for each other.”

“I consider the most important period of my life, from March 3rd, 1987, I think it was, to March 26th, 1995: the day I met Eazy-E and the day he died. To me, that was the most important period of my life, of my career, and the part that I am most proud of.”

“My dad wasn't a gangster, and he wasn't a criminal, but he sure liked to rub padded shoulders with them.”

“N.W.A had something in common with the Rolling Stones and MC5 and groups like that: the voice of rebellion. It's rebellion against your parents. It's rebellion against the system. It's rebellion against society.”

“The more parents hate the music, the more their children will like it. It had been true with Elvis, and it had been true with the Rolling Stones. 'Straight Outta Compton' was music that parents could loathe with a passion. I knew we had a massive hit.”

“Eazy was an exceptional human being. He was a visionary. He was very Machiavellian, he understood power and how to use it. He was a good-hearted guy, a good father, just an exemplary human being. I couldn't be any prouder of him than if he had been my blood son.”

“I'm the boogeyman used to scare South Central kids when they tell ghost stories.”

“One thing that N.W.A did, as Larry Flynt did before them, was to expand the boundaries of our reliance upon the good sense of the people to determine what's right and what isn't, what's obscene and what isn't, and what's immoral and what isn't.”

“The problem of the Panthers is that they scared people. The music of N.W.A didn't scare people; it taught people what it was like to grow up in our inner cities.”

“I am what I am, but I'm not a thief. And I'm not scandalous.”

“I don't want to be judged next to guys like Suge Knight. I want to be measured next to David Geffen, Irving Azoff, and Clive Davis. Whether I measure up or not, I let my record speak for me. That's how I want to be judged - by what I've done, not by what people like Ice Cube and Dr. Dre have said about me.”

“I grew up in that era of Hendrix and Joplin and The Doors, and the Summer of Love and Haight-Ashbury, and even the Panthers. That was my era; that's what I was into.”

“Gangsta rap was the most important movement since the beginning of rock n' roll.”

“Eazy was a true visionary. He really was like flesh and blood. Like a son. He was a good kid. He was the best.”

“N.W.A. were the first great rap audio documentarians of the problems in our inner cities.”

“I was always excited about doing things with people that were ahead of their time, that were sort of out of sync with the rest of society.”

“Who were the biggest acts in the world in 1987? Guns N' Roses and Metallica. I shamelessly pandered to surfers and skateboarders, and in pictures from then, you'll see Slash and those guys wearing N.W.A stuff. If they thought it was cool, people in Kansas and Wyoming would buy it. That's how we broached the subject.”

“There are two kinds of people in the entertainment industry: Those that close deals and those that don't.”

“Suge was a part-time security guard at Ruthless. He can be a very charming guy, and my initial instincts were to help him. Eazy was more perceptive: he always thought he was going to be a problem.”

“I think that N.W.A. picked up where Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King would have gone if they hadn't been assassinated.”