Benzino: RSO Was About to Sign to Ruthless Records Before Eazy-E Died

Boston group, The Almighty RSO, was somewhat similar to N.W.A. and according to Benzino, EazyE noticed and wanted in on a piece of their action.

In this exclusive, Benzino divulges some unknown information regarding him and The Almighty RSO in relation to Eazy. According to him, Eazy-E and RSO had a meeting at The Source offices back in 1994. It was then that Eazy offered them their first-ever album deal, and from that point on up until his death, they continued to work out legal deals before they could make things official - Benzino tells us the group was supposed to get up to $450,000 once they signed to Ruthless Records.

The light on the deal began to dim as Eazy E was continuously admitted into the hospital, a bout Benzino thought was over bronchitis and pneumonia. He says Eazy told him he simply "got a cold" and was "just getting checked out," and being that he had no reason to doubt him, he didn't (although he couldn't help but to notice "his voice was real raspy"). At this point RSO was sending cassette tapes to the hospital so Eazy could listen to them, but about a month after Benzino saw him last, he received a phone call informing him of Eazy's demise following a short-lived battle with AIDS. "That moment forever kinda changed my life," Benzino remembers. "He was looking good," he continues as he takes us back to the weeks leading up to his death. "I mean, you didn't see no signs of him deteriorating."

In the end, "we just never made it," he says of RSO and the deal that never came to be with Ruthless. Listen above as he explains why "Straight Outta Compton" is "kinda hard" for him to go see, and why when it comes to the Eazy death theories, "we'll never find out when it's all said and done."