All of us know the feeling. To love something so much, to hold it near our hearts but then, somehow, it gets lost. You figure it’s gone for good, done for. But then one magical day, the thing comes back into your life. You find it where you never thought you would. And it’s yours again!
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For iconic rapper and the newest coach on NBC’s The Voice, that is exactly what happened to Snoop Dogg and his beloved Death Row Records. Want to know more? Let’s explore it here below.
The Start
The Los Angeles-based record label Death Row Records was founded in 1991. The label was originally headed by four men—iconic producer Dr. Dre, maligned businessman Suge Knight, accomplished rapper The D.O.C., and music promoter Dick Griffey.
The choice to form a new record label came out of issues with another label. Ruthless Records, which was the home of the groundbreaking rap group, N.W.A., featured Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, DJ Yella, and MC Ren.
Despite the group earning global success and much notoriety, members like Dre and Ice Cube believed they were being conned out of money they were owed. Enter: Suge Knight, who approached Dr. Dre and pitched the formation of a new record. Death Row.
The Golden Years
With the pushy (and dangerous) Knight at the helm and Dre making the beats, Death Row became a force of nature. The group released Dre’s debut solo album in 1992. The Chronic is still, to this day, considered one of the greatest rap records of all time. That was followed by more giant releases, including Snoop Dogg’s debut solo LP, Doggystyle. And All Eyez on Me, which was brash rapper Tupac Shakur’s fourth studio release.
Fans of the film Straight Outta Compton may be familiar with the outlines of this story. The quick rise and the precipitous fall of the label, which couldn’t seem to stay out of its own way. That was the result of Knight’s gangster-like approach. He wasn’t afraid to ruffle feathers. He also wasn’t scared to ruff up those standing in his way (indeed, Knight is currently serving a jail sentence for violence). But at the label’s height, it was making upwards of $150 million per year.
The label, which included other big names like Kurupt and Nate Dogg, was even producing soundtracks for movies like Above the Rim. It was practically printing money.
West Coast vs. East Coast
Sadly, Death Row lived up to its name in the mid-1990s as it provided some of the fuel that led to the well-known West Coast vs. East Coast rap battles that cost the rap genre the lives of icons Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. The scene came to a head publicly at the Source Awards on August 3, 1995, when Knight grabbed the microphone and began to call out Bad Boy Records (based in New York) and its leader Puff Daddy.
Snoop got into the mix, too. He shouted into the mic, “Y’all don’t love us? East Coast don’t got love for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg?!” It was a mess that continued to boil over, eventually claiming the lives of the two rappers at the top of the food chain at the time, Tupac and Biggie.
What Goes Up Must Come Down
Everything began to go downhill. The violence and loss and gotten to be too much after that. The public became fearful of the rap beef and people like Knight. And music fans mourned the loss of two of the greatest voices of the 1990s. Indeed, Tupac and Biggie’s music continues to live on today, cut short as it was.
Knight was sentenced to prison time and he has been in and out of jail ever since. And in the wake of that mess, Interscope, the company that had a lucrative distribution deal with Death Row, dropped the label.
On April 4, 2000, Knight filed for Bankruptcy. And on January 15, 2009, the company was auctioned for $18 million, bought by Ontario-based WIDEawake Entertainment Group. For Death Row, which had been the equivalent today of a billion-dollar company back in the mid-90s, to be sold for just $18 was as embarrassing as it was sad. How far it had fallen.
Enter: The Doggfather
After a few legal battles, the company changed hands a few more times. But in came a savior for the label. On February 9, 2022, Snoop Dogg, one of Death Row’s original success stories, announced before his halftime performance at Super Bowl LVI that he would buy Death Row Records and breathe new life into the outfit.
And two days later on February 11, 2022, Snoop released his third-ever studio LP on the label, some 26 years after his last album on Death Row, the 1996 album, Tha Doggfather. The once-rising star had now become the label’s savior.
For Snoop, who is today one of the most recognizable and marketable pop culture stars, the purchase is full circle. He released his debut LP on Death Row and now he can offer that chance to many other new, up-and-coming artists. Including those, perhaps he encounters this year as a coach on the 26th season of The Voice.
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