The aftermath of The D.O.C.'s accident saw him sink into deep depression as he came to grips with losing his voice. He also had to take a hard look at his relationship with Ruthless Records after the label began sending him bills for monies owed while he was still recuperating. He'd come up with Eazy-E, and now he was thinking that he might need to heed his old friend Suge Knight's advice and find his own thing.
"It was Eazy that would act up when Suge was with me, because nobody wanted to fuck with that dude," The D.O.C. recalled. "And if they did wanna fuck with him, then it would be on. I think Suge and I got kicked out of every [club] – no, not kicked out, we got banned from every fuckin’ club in Hollywood. We’d go in, I’d see some female, and then I’d go right up and slap her on her ass."
But now, Suge was telling him that Ruthless was fleecing him, and The D.O.C. had made no money from the songwriting he'd done on Straight Outta Compton, never mind No One Can Do It Better. Jerry Heller offered to pay for his therapy, but it just further angered The D.O.C.
"Where did he get all that money from? It had to come from somewhere. And to this day, I don’t own the publishing to any of those records. Not even from my own record. That’s sad but true. So if there’s anything I can do for today’s kids – especially the next muthafucka that’s as talented as I was – don’t live my life, nigga. It’s fucked up. Be better than me."
The D.O.C. would follow Ice Cube's lead away from Ruthless Records, and he'd convince Dr. Dre to come with him. They would depart their old friend's record label and sow the seeds to launch Death Row Records with Suge Knight and associate Dick Griffey. The D.O.C. would channel his frustration into ghostwriting for Dre and the producer's newest protege, a lanky Long Beach rapper named Snoop Doggy Dogg. The D.O.C. would eventually release a second album, 1996s Helter Skelter, but so much of his legacy centers around his brilliant debut.