Producer Jermaine Dupri recently addressed footage that features him encouraging Adam “Pacman” Jones to “make it rain” in a strip club, shortly before an infamous shooting involving the star NFL player.
Jones is slated to take the stand as a star witness for the prosecution during the attempted murder trial of Arvin Edwards.
Edwards is accused of shooting three people in 2007, after Jones had an altercation with security inside of a Las Vegas strip club over $40,000 that had gone missing during an alleged fight between Jones and two strippers.
“I’m from a city where in Atlanta, we do this every day,” Dupri said. “You’ll hear this in Jeezy records. When Jeezy say he spends $10,000 on one song? That s**t is for real man. It aint no play.”
After the shooting, Jones denied any involvement or knowledge of the shooting, but seven months later, he told investigators he had been approached by Edwards outside of the club.
Jones told police Edwards said he would retrieve the missing money for him.
Moments after speaking to Jones, Edwards allegedly fired into the crowd striking three people, including the strip club’s shift manager, who is permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Previously unreleased footage of the events inside of the strip club being used as evidence in Edwards’ trial was released by ESPN last week.
Both Jermaine Dupri and Nelly are featured in the video, although neither of them are accused of any wrong doing in the incident.
“A lot of yall comment on how stupid it is. It might be stupid to you, but this is what we do,” Dupri continued. “We eat, we kick it, we throw money. Don’t make this one situation blow the whole thing out.”
Dupri explained why he was shouting to the strippers not to pick the money up off the floor, even though Nelly and Jones were showering tens-of-thousands of dollars upon them.
He also lent some credibility to Jones’ claims that he was attempting to break up two dancers who began to fight over the money.
“You’re not supposed to get your money until the dance is finished,” Dupri said. “These girls was picking the money up [as] soon as the money was flying, like someone was going to steal it. That kind of gave me an idea of the place that we were in. I was like ‘oh these girls are going to start fighting or something because they don’t know understand what the f**k is going on in here.’”
Arvin Edwards’ attempted murder trial was supposed to start last week, but was moved to February 2010.