Marion Knight, Jr. was born April 19, 1965, known as Suge Knight, is the co-founder and former CEO of Death Row Records. The record label rose to dominate the rap charts after Dr. Dre's breakthrough album The Chronic in 1992. After several years of chart successes for artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tha Dogg Pound, Death Row Records stagnated after Knight's incarceration on parole violation charges in September 1996, as well as the murder of star rapper Tupac Shakur.
Dr. Dre The D.O.C. wished to depart from both the group and their label, Ruthless Records, run by Eazy-E, another member of N.W.A. According to N.W.A's manager Jerry Heller, Knight and his henchmen threatened Heller and Eazy-E with lead pipes and baseball bats in order to secure Dre, Michel'le & The D.O.C.'s release. Ultimately, Dre & DOC co-founded Death Row Records in 1991 with Knight, who famously vowed to make it "the Motown of the '90s."
For a time, Knight made good on his ambitions: He secured a distribution deal with Interscope, and Dre's 1992 solo debut, The Chronic, became one of the most influential rap albums of all time. It also made a star of Dre's protégé, Snoop Dogg, whose debut album, Doggystyle, was another smash hit in 1993. As Dre's signature G-funk production style became an influential part of hip-hop, Death Row became a reliable brand name for gangsta rap fans, and even its lesser releases sold consistently well.
Meanwhile, Death Row had begun a public feud with 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell, and when Knight traveled to Miami for a hip-hop convention in 1993, he was apparently seen openly carrying a stolen gun. The following year, he opened a private, by-appointment-only nightclub in Las Vegas called Club 662, so named because the numbers spelled out MOB, Knight's gang affiliation, on telephone keypads. In 1995, he ran afoul of activist C. Delores Tucker, whose criticism of Death Row's glamorization of the "gangsta" lifestyle may have helped scuttle a lucrative deal with Time Warner.
Additionally, Knight's feud with East Coast impresario Sean Combs (aka P Diddy) took a nasty turn when Knight insulted the Bad Boy label honcho on air at the Source Awards in August 1995. Openly critical of Combs's tendency of ad-libbing on his artists' songs and dancing in their videos, Knight announced to the audience, "Anyone out there who wanna be a recording artist and wanna stay a star, but don't have to worry about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos, all on the records, dancing, come to Death Row."
The same year, Knight offered to post a hefty bail for Tupac Shakur if the troubled rapper agreed to sign with Death Row. Shakur agreed, setting the stage for his 1996 blockbuster double album All Eyez on Me and the smash hits "California Love" and "How Do U Want It". Shakur helped Death Row stay on top of a marketplace that was already shifting back toward the East Coast, which had devised its own distinct brand of hardcore rap.
The label suffered a major blow when Dr. Dre, frustrated with the company's increasingly thuggish reputation and Knight's violent inclinations, decided to leave and form his own label. A stream of Dre-dissing records followed, but things turned tragic in September 1996, when Shakur was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas NV.
When Shakur's East Coast rival, The Notorious B.I.G., was murdered in a similar fashion in March 1997, speculation immediately arose that Knight was involved and that B.I.G.'s death was a revenge killing; although former Death Row artists like Snoop Dogg would later state that Suge was involved in Tupac's murder as well. Subsequent investigations exposed a web of connections between Death Row Records, gang members who worked there, and LAPD officers who sometimes worked security for the label. Author Randall Sullivan claimed that the majority of clues found by investigators assigned to B.I.G.’s killing “pointed... directly at Suge Knight”. Mario Ha’mmonds, a convicted felon who shared a cellblock with Knight at San Luis Obispo Men’s Colony in the late 1990s, claimed that Knight took credit for the murder, and quoted him as saying, “'My people handled the business. They took care of him. . . “No one has ever been charged in connection with the crime, however, and Suge has denied any involvement.
Tupac Shakur's bodyguard, Frank Alexander, produced a documentary about the murder, 'Tupac Shakur: Before I Wake' in which he stated that it would be inconceivable that Suge, who was the driver of the car in which Tupac was killed, and a very large man, would put himself in the path of bullets if he knew they were coming. In the documentary Frank also states that he himself has no reason to suspect Suge Knight, and that Suge treated the Security People 'very well' at all times. In addition, Cathy Scott, a journalist who worked closely with the LAPD during her career as a journalist, stated on the same documentary that 'The LAPD found no evidence whatsoever that implicated Suge Knight.' She also said, 'You can be sure that if the LAPD had ANY evidence that Suge Knight was involved in Tupac's killing they would have arrested him.' Cathy Scott wrote a book entitled, 'Who Killed Tupac Shakur.' On a website entitled 'Archived letters,' at http://www.cathyscott.com/askarch.htm, Cathy writes back to a fan of her book stating, 'Thanks very much for your note. Re: your question about Suge Knight, there never was any evidence—or even alleged evidence—linking Suge to Tupac's murder in any way, shape or form. He was never a suspect. The Biggie and Tupac documentary was based solely on one disgruntled ex-cop's theory. He despised Suge and wanted to see him go down.'
After the death of Tupac Shakur and the release of Tha Doggfather, Snoop Doggy Dogg openly blasted Suge Knight for the murder of Shakur and he decided to leave the label, which he did in 1997, moving to Master P's No Limit Records and then forming his own record label, Doggystyle Records. In 2002, Snoop released the song "Pimp Slapp'd", in which he repudiated Suge and Death Row. In 2006, Snoop again attacked Knight verbally charging him for the death of Tupac Shakur. Suge responded stating that Snoop is a "police informer" as he "never goes to jail".
In 1996 Knight was sent to prison for a probation violation. In 1997 he was sentenced to 9 years for the violation. He was released on August 6th 2001. In 2003, however, he was sent to prison again for violating parole when he struck a parking lot attendant. Death Row Record's income rapidly declined due to Knight's incarceration. It managed to save itself from complete bankruptcy by releasing archived Snoop Dogg compilation albums and posthumous Tupac albums. Despite signing new artists, Suge never released any of their albums.
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