The rap mogul and founder of Death Row records, Marion "Suge" Knight, was shot in the leg at a party hosted by the Grammy award-winning hip-hop artist Kanye West in Miami on Saturday night.
Witnesses said Knight, 40, a central figure in the rap feud that led to the murders of Notorious BIG and Tupac Shakur, was sitting at a table at the Shore Club with friends just before 1am yesterday when a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt walked up and fired at least two shots.
The gunman ran to the back of the bar as partygoers, who had gathered for the event before last night's MTV Music Awards, began screaming and running. Knight was taken to hospital in a limousine.
A Miami Beach police officer, Bobby Hernandez, told the Associated Press that Knight was shot in the leg. His condition was said to be not serious.
Celebrities who attended the party included West, actor Jessica Alba and comedian Eddie Murphy. It was unclear whether they were still there when the shooting took place.
A witness, Doug Robinson, told the Miami Herald: "The music was pumping and out of nowhere came the shot. Suge hit the ground, and everybody was running. It was scary."
Another witness, Sylvia Lu, said: "I saw a man walk up and start shooting. It sounded like a champagne pop. Then I saw blood in [Knight's] chest area. At the time, he was just kind of chilling. Everyone ran to the front. It was chaos."
In an interview earlier in the evening, Knight had said he loved the music awards because it was good to see "everybody's just getting along".
Knight co-founded the pioneering Death Row Records and hit the charts in the 1990s with west coast stars including Shakur and Snoop Dogg.
Knight was convicted in 1992 of assault and weapons violations and put on probation. In 1996, he was jailed for five years after he and several associates, including Shakur, were recorded on videotape beating a gang rival at a Las Vegas hotel. Later that night Shakur, 25 was shot dead.
Christopher Wallace, aka rapper Notorious BIG, a member of rival east coast label Bad Boy Entertainment, was gunned down six months later, allegedly in retaliation for the murder of Shakur.
Relatives of Wallace have accused Knight of involvement, but the police have never named him as a suspect.
The founder of Bad Boy Entertainment, Sean Combs (now known as Diddy), was the presenter of last night's music awards.
Knight is said to be more than $6m in debt. In 1990, he allegedly held the rapper Vanilla Ice over the a hotel balcony, eventually persuading him to sign away 25% of the royalties from his songs.
Knight grew up in the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Compton, and told the Observer in 2001: "We used to take a short-cut through this alleyway to get to school and every couple of weeks we'd see this dead body lying there - someone had been capped ... After a while, it seemed natural that all my friends would die like that - and perhaps even me too."
