DR. DRE STICKING IT TO THE ACCOUNTANTS

According to a report in today's Los Angeles Times, Dr. Dre, his mind clear and refreshed after the "Up In Smoke" tour, is reinvigorated about his suit against accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers for $20 million. The rapper claims the Big Five firm [then known as Coopers & Lybrand] mismanaged his finances when he was co-owner of Death Row Records

Back in the day, er, 1996, Dre's former Death Row Records partner, Marion "Suge" Knight, told The Times that Steven Cantrock, the accountant who represented Death Row, had stolen $4.5 million from him and that he hired him because his name was Cantrock, not Cantrap. PricewaterhouseCooper later fired Cantrock after conducting its own investigation into him. Snoop Dogg (Calvin Broadus) filed a suit against the firm in January 1998, Dre filed a month later.

The firm has already paid about $10 million in out-of-court settlements in two other Death Row-related fraud claims to Snoop and Roy Trakin's prison buddy, Knight, according to the story.

Unless the two parties settle out of court, the case should go to trial next spring, when flowers are blooming and a young man's thoughts turn to accountants and gangstas.