Suge and Katt Williams fight after club.

[V2DHeart]

Suge Knight simply wouldn't sell out. That's why the label crumbled, not because of the negativity, and not because of the trouble. Suge Knight actually got involved in more trouble in the early 90's than what he did in later years. He actually had smart business sense, an unquestionable powerful presence, a roster of talent, a tremendous eye and ear for that talent and was iconic and marketable in his own right, which made his label product easier to "sell". It doesn't mean anything if they close the door. What that means in basic terms (closing the door) is that if you don't sell out to the corporate elite running the industry then you wont last long. You'll fall fast, and fall hard before you even know what happened. Policy's and all forms of back door legalities will have your label gone. Despite Suge's reluctance to hand his label over (on paper) to these parasites and with them trying their best to bring him and his label down, he still done a fantastic job in Tha Row era, and afterwards. Most would crumble and give up in his position.

Anyone remember C Delores Tucker after his label??? Well, she was simlpy the "front" spokesperson. It was people behind her who really wanted the label, and it pretty much started from there....

You see, in the US (and UK) you can't reach to heights of stardom and extreme wealth without the large suits and corporations noticing and coming in to get a piece!!! Death Row was black owned, by some dude from the streets with its biggest act also from the streets. They tried to get at both Suge & 2Pac. 2Pac rapped about them, Suge fought them off behind closed doors. But eventually, they, like they always do, won!!!

Don't fall for the "Suge's behaviour" was the cause of it, and lack of Dre. All these people you talk about - The Dre's, the Puffy's etc. had no problems selling their souls, bending over and becoming a puppet of the elites running the industry today. Hip Hop was a valuable and profitable part of the music indsutry. That's why Hip Hop music changed dramatically once they came in and took over

[DeeezNuuuts83]

No, the label crumbled because Suge is an idiot.

I don't think Crooked I would've been multi-platinum, but he had a buzz, and Suge kept pushing his album back and having him re-record stuff.  Remember that his album was ready to go before Suge was released from prison, but when he got out, he wanted to be a "part" of its creation and had Crooked re-do everything while Suge was part of the formula.  So Crooked's buzz faded away, along with a lot of the stuff they had done that needed to be capitalized on that very moment... i.e. So Damn Hood... even though Sisqo was a clown, he was still a huge name at the time.

Say what you want about Puffy.  Yeah, he is a bitch for a lot of the shit he did, but he's living comfortably with over $500 million, and Suge is bankrupt even though he "wouldn't sell out."  You can say that Puffy sold his soul, but everyone has to pay their dues before getting in a position of power.  Look at him now -- Puff can make whatever moves he wants to do on a business level.  People used to talk shit on Puffy about how he can't go to the streets or whatever, but it's not like the streets hate him.  I watch a lot of battle rap, and URL (the biggest battle rap league) had an event in Harlem called Summer Madness 2 (arguably the biggest battle rap event ever), and Puffy was there and getting love.  (Busta Rhymes, Q-Tip and Lloyd Banks were also there.)  At some point, Puff put up $10,000 to whoever won (on top of what the both of them would already be getting paid), and it really upped the stakes (look up T-Rex vs. Aye Verb on YouTube).  But that doesn't matter apparently, since Suge wouldn't sell out and is busy picking fights and not making money.

[CharlieBrown]

Puff getting love & money is disgusting. America needs a major population cull.

[Sccit]

like dude said, katt williams is on a path 2 destruction

[CharlieBrown]

Haven't seen the video yet, but all I know is, where I come from, Marion & Katt are girls names.

[V2DHeart]

If Suge could have released Crooked I to the level that "he" knew he would sell, that album would have been out. Suge put money and investment into him from behind prison because he believed in him but again, it goes back to the old problematic situations outwith Suges control.

If you get an advancement on the grounds that you pay of percentage of profit per release and all these avenues are now closing their doors to you (IE: MTV, BET, Radio, Major magazines etc) in order to promote your material - Avenues, which Suge had no problem in assisting in the past - then you are not going to release that album because you are essentially releasing an album, which has cost a lot of money to make, to a closed door market meaning that the likelihood of making anything back is very slim. In fact, he'd be releasing that album "owing" money, so why would he put something out that would instantly have a debt tag attached to it? That would further decay his business/label, which is what I was talking about earlier about blackballing, and shutting doors. If "they" want you down and out, then you'll go down and out. Suge still done pretty damn good in spite of all that.

If he didn't think Crooked was release-worthy, then he wouldn't have been able to record so much, he wouldn't have had the lead song on the soundtrack or have so many illustrious features in his material over there. He even pushed him towards the Murder Inc camp for crying out loud, but again, the forces against him were far too strong and yeh he tried to shrug off his inability to release Crooked I, by (which I believe was pretty bad on Suges part) claiming that Crook was just a freestyle rapper, not wanting to let the blackballers get to him or let them know they affected him... He just shrugged it off, and tried to keep going, and kept pushing alternative talent. That is the marks of a "good" business man, not a bad one

[sofdark]

Katt needs to hurry up and get that barber

[DeeezNuuuts83]

If Suge could have released Crooked I to the level that "he" knew he would sell, that album would have been out. Suge put money and investment into him from behind prison because he believed in him but again, it goes back to the old problematic situations outwith Suges control.

No, Suge could've put the album out right off the bat, since there was anticipation for Death Row still at the time, particularly a real release and not just some compilation.  Again, Crooked I has gone on record before saying that the album was ready to go, but Suge told Crooked to re-record it with him being a "part" of its process.  Crooked agreed in exchange for being able to do other non-Death Row projects.

If you get an advancement on the grounds that you pay of percentage of profit per release and all these avenues are now closing their doors to you (IE: MTV, BET, Radio, Major magazines etc) in order to promote your material - Avenues, which Suge had no problem in assisting in the past - then you are not going to release that album because you are essentially releasing an album, which has cost a lot of money to make, to a closed door market meaning that the likelihood of making anything back is very slim. In fact, he'd be releasing that album "owing" money, so why would he put something out that would instantly have a debt tag attached to it? That would further decay his business/label, which is what I was talking about earlier about blackballing, and shutting doors. If "they" want you down and out, then you'll go down and out. Suge still done pretty damn good in spite of all that.

How did Suge do "pretty damn good"?  Outside of the 2Pac albums (which were co-released with Amaru and likely more of the result of their work in terms of it getting put out), Death Row released a few albums that barely moved any units, whether they were quality material or not, and then we got a bunch of re-releases of old albums and variations of different greatest hits-type albums (i.e. The Very Best of Death Row) with nothing new of any value, unless you were really eager for Petey Pablo's songs.  Oh yeah, he went bankrupt too, whether he has money tucked away or not.

If he didn't think Crooked was release-worthy, then he wouldn't have been able to record so much, he wouldn't have had the lead song on the soundtrack or have so many illustrious features in his material over there. He even pushed him towards the Murder Inc camp for crying out loud, but again, the forces against him were far too strong and yeh he tried to shrug off his inability to release Crooked I, by (which I believe was pretty bad on Suges part) claiming that Crook was just a freestyle rapper, not wanting to let the blackballers get to him or let them know they affected him... He just shrugged it off, and tried to keep going, and kept pushing alternative talent. That is the marks of a "good" business man, not a bad one

Again, Crooked lost a lot of his buzz when the album continued to be delayed time and time again.  That's not Crooked's fault, since it wasn't his call.  He was never going to be multi-platinum, but he had a shot at really moving units much earlier in his career on Death Row.  Crooked I was already on a number of West Coast albums and was a popular name on The Wake Up Show and even killed Chino XL lyrically on the same appearance -- a lot of people remembered that for a while.  Additionally, from that point onward, hip-hop was getting progressively more lyrical compared to how it was throughout most of the 90s, so someone like Crooked would've had some spotlight on him.  If you think that Suge didn't want to put Crooked out because he didn't think that his album would've done well, then why did he waste his time and money with those half-assed compilations that ended up failing sales-wise?  A Crooked I album released then would've outsold all of the non-2Pac releases they had, which couldn't have been hard.  It was no surprise that the stuff that they put out during that time was as unsuccessful as it was.  And what was the "alternative talent" he pushed?  No one else really got their stuff put out either, so he didn't make any good moves instead.

[Sikotic™]

Katt is mad talented. All his shit before Kattpacalypse was funny as fuck.

Hope he pulls it together. Fuckin with Suge ain't gonna do him any favors lol.

[Blasphemy (A)]

Katt is mad talented. All his shit before Kattpacalypse was funny as fuck.

Hope he pulls it together. Fuckin with Suge ain't gonna do him any favors lol.

Agreed dude is made funny, but I doubt Suge is the reason other then maybe his drug connection. I think that's what's fucking him up is he's getting too high to often and at the wrong places. IMO The Label did good because it was fucking Dr. Dre, I mean remember Dr. Dre just came off of N.W.A Literally the biggest rap group, Say what you will about the Wu, but N.W.A changed everything (With respect to School D, Ice T, and King T, and all the New York OGs). Ice Cube had already proved that it's possible to be successful without Eazy E/Ruthless or anyone else of N.W.A , When The label first started they were fucking broke.

When The Chronic and it's singles got released it sold themselves. When you got the hottest thing in the entire genre of course people are gonna fuck with you. You had the bext biggest rising Star of the West Coast (Snoop dogg) on your label,  Just like N.W.A The controversy helped the album sells. The success of The Chronic, Doggystyle and the various Soundtracks helped the label keep afloat, Who found the main talent during the labels early/middle years? Dr. Dre. Who handled the arranging of the early successful soundtracks? Dr. Dre.


Hell Dr. Dre repeated the same fucking thing with Aftermath.What did he do? He found the next biggest star (Shady) and basically repeated the whole process again. Meanwhile Suge Knight had a label already known for it's hits, it's talents, it's gold fucking standard at that point, and what exactly did he do? He fucked it up, He didn't get any good talent outside of Crooked I, nothing on The caliber of talent the label had previously, he didn't release a single album.allegedly because it didn't meet his standard, but imo I think All the previous early releases  were met by Dre's Standards. Think about it the Dre involved projects in the beginning were high caliber products. When Suge Knight started taking over the music side what we get? Dogg Food, All Eyez, Makaveli, Tha Doggfather, Don't get me wrong good albums, But Nothing compared to the two dr. Dre involved releases (The biggest hit outta those 4 was a Dr. Dre produced single, Doggfather didn't even chart, that's suges standard?).

The Row didn't do anything while Aftermath dominated the early to mid 2000s. By 2006 Death Row was going into bankruptcy while Aftermath was just starting to slow down, and even then nearly every release has gone Plat since then, except for Busta Rhymes release (Gold). Face it outside of bring in Security and running the so called Day to Day operations, Suge Knight didn't do shit for the label. The Albums sold themselves, The Chronic made Death row a Brand, and The reason they put up with Suge Knights stupidity was because the product was worth it. When the people who were responsible for making said product what it is left, Suge Knight failed and he failed hard, because at the end of the day he can't make a product worth selling.

That's why his TV Show never got picked up, That's why the soundtracks he released on his own failed, That's why NONE of the artist who worked with him before do not want to work with him again, because he wasn't the reason for it's success, all he did was got eazy e to release Dr. Dre so he could do his magic.

Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Eazy E Were the only reason they made their success, Anyone else who got involved was merely piggybacking of em. Just because he's suppose to run the business doesn't necessary mean he made it what it was.

[DeeezNuuuts83]

Excellent points.  It blows my mind when people talk about how much they think Suge had to do with the musical success of Death Row, acting like he was the one coming up with the marketing strategies.  Death Row would've easily survived without Dre, but they needed a self-sustaining roster like what they had in 1996 to do it.  It had very little to do with Suge, which is obviously the case, considering how the label went down the drain.

[Sccit]

piggybacking is the perfect term

[V2DHeart]

You don't understand. These re-releases and 2Pac releases came from material already recorded, already paid for and with certain stipulations in place (non-exclusive rights etc.). These "new" albums were recorded at a time when Death Row essentially had "no" money. So investment came from other areas to enable studio time, musicians, appearances etc. Releasing them without the correct promotional contracts in place meant that these releases would have hit the shelves at a loss and had Death Row owing money rather than making it. Releasing them to try and 'eventually' reach gold was not an option and Suge being blackballed meant that no major and no network would touch him.

2Pac just achieved platinum and that was with the likes of Tom Whalley pushing for any 2Pac releases (UTEOT & BD) to get as far as they did because without him pulling strings, they would never have went as far as they did.

In spite of the obstacles, they still put together good compilations, and released what many 2Pac fans consider as most legitimate posthumous tracks (Thug Nature, Late Night, Friends) compared to the other remixes. Yes, plenty of re-releases but these came out to keep the Death Row functioning as a publishing company in the hopes to ride the storm. As previously said, most men would have caved and threw in the towel in 95, in the 2nd generation era, yet Suge fought until the end