"[Knight] heavily courted the rapper, flying him out to Los Angeles, flashing wads of cash, and reportedly offering him a $200,000 advance and a recording budget of $1.25 million," according to Craig Mack's former attorney and manager, Paul Insinna . "Word got back to Bad Boy, who 'had us by the short hairs'" Insinna says.
"Eventually, the parties came to an agreement where Mack was able to leave the label but had to withdraw the bankruptcy filing and owed Bad Boy a cut of his new deal. Mack’s Death Row plans were abandoned, though, after Tupac Shakur was murdered in September 1996 and tensions reached a fever pitch between the warring camps."