Marion Knight, Jr., a.k.a Sugar Bear, Suge Knight (born April 18, 1965 in Compton, California), is a controversial entrepreneur in the hip hop music industry and co-founder and CEO of Death Row Records. The record label rose to dominate the charts after Dr. Dre's breakthrough success 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 fell into a stagnant limbo after Knight's incarceration on parole violation charges in September 1996.

Biography

Early life

Marion Knight was born April 19, 1965, in the Compton area of Los Angeles; his trademark nickname Suge (which, despite its spelling, is Template:PronEng) was short for "Sugar Bear."^[1] As a youth, he was associated with the Mob Piru Bloods street gang because he lived in a gang-dominated neighborhood. Though he was never a true member, Knight was frequently seen wearing their colors. He remained an excellent student and athlete, so much so that he won a football scholarship to University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he played collegiate football for several years. After school, he played professionally for the Los Angeles Rams for a short time, but couldn't quite make the grade. Instead, he found work as a concert promoter and a bodyguard for celebrities including Bobby Brown. Knight's legal problems began in 1987 when he faced auto theft, concealed weapon and attempted murder charges, ultimately receiving probation. Two years later, he formed his own music-publishing company, and allegedly made his first big fortune in the business by coercing Vanilla Ice into signing over royalties from his smash hit "Ice Ice Baby" owing to material that he supposedly sampled from one of Knight's company associates. (The apocryphal story holds that Knight held Ice by his ankles off of a 20th-floor balcony, though in Ice's version, the threat was more implied.) Knight next formed an artist management company and signed prominent West Coast figures The D.O.C. and DJ Quik. Through the former, he met several members of the seminal gangsta rap group N.W.A.

Dr. Dre of N.W.A. wished to depart from both his group and their label, Ruthless Records, run by Eazy-E, another member of N.W.A. This process involved Suge Knight who negotiated a contract release for Dr. Dre that, according to N.W.A's manager Jerry Heller, involved Knight and his henchmen threatening Heller and Eazy-E with pipes and baseball bats. Ultimately, Dre 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 Doggy Dogg, whose debut album, Doggystyle, was another smash hit in 1993. As Dre's signature G-funk production style took over hip-hop, Death Row became a reliable brand name for gangsta rap fans, and even its lesser releases sold consistently well. However, Knight was already courting controversy; during the recording sessions for The Chronic, he was arrested for assaulting two aspiring rappers who allegedly used a phone without his permission, and was placed on several years probation.

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 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. He also pleaded no contest to firearms trafficking charges, and was sentenced again but placed on probation. In 1995, he ran afoul of activist C. Delores Tucker, whose criticism of Death Row's glamorization of the "gangsta" lifestyle helped scuttle a lucrative deal with Time Warner.

Additionally, Knight's feud with East Coast impresario Sean Combs took a nasty turn when Knight insulted the Bad Boy label honcho on air at the Source Awards in August 1995. Openly critical of Puffy's tendency of ad-libbing on his artists' songs and dancing in their videos, Knight announced to the audience of recording artists and industry figures, "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."

However, the year was partially redeemed when 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.

However, 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 later in 1996, when Shakur was murdered in a drive-by shooting as a passenger in a car driven by Knight. 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. 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 and its artists during off hours, but to date, both murders remain unsolved.

Imprisonment

Videotape at the Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel where Knight and Shakur had attended a boxing match prior to the shooting showed an altercation with Crips gang member Orlando Anderson, who some believe was the eventual shooter. Knight's involvement in the fight violated the terms of his probation. Moreover, it was revealed that Knight's light sentence may have involved a conflict of interest on the part of prosecutor Lawrence Longo, who rented out a Malibu home to Knight and even had his teenage daughter sign a recording contract with Death Row. Knight was sentenced to nine years in prison, which effectively spelled the end of his Death Row empire. Knight's home was also burglarized, and a search warrant was issued at his office.

Further time in prison

In 2001, Suge Knight was released from prison and tried to re-start his label by pushing new artists such as Crooked I, Top Dogg, Soopafly, Tha Realest, and later, Eastwood, Ray J, and, under the pseudonym "N.I.N.A.", the late Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes of TLC, before her untimely death in a car accident in 2002. However, in December 2002 he was jailed again for violating his probation by associating with gang members. After his release, he was arrested and jailed yet again in 2003, for assaulting parking lot attendant Mehdi Lazrak.

Recent activities

Knight was released from jail April 23, 2004. Original artist Kurupt is now the label's headliner, and his album, Against Tha Grain, was released in 2005. After his release, Knight announced Death Row Records would join with other labels to produce a Christmas hip-hop album to benefit both the families of soldiers serving in Iraq and the relatives of those who died. However, no such album has been released.

Suge has a son, Andrew, who shares his same birthday and lives in Los Angeles with his mother. His other son, Taj, is said to be living in Atlanta with his mother, Davina Barnes.

Suge is said to be developing an autobiography entitled "American Dream/American Nightmare". However, a targeted release date of fourth-quarter 2005 came and went with no book being released. He has hinted that he will describe his experiences as a bodyguard and rap impresario and relate stories about John F. Kennedy, Jr., Jennifer Lopez, and the "scoop" on Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, as well as his first public statement about the deaths of Tupac and Biggie. Suge also claims to be planning a movie to tell the "real story" of Death Row. [1]

In October 2004, despite having not been formally invited, Suge attended the VIBE Awards, ostensibly to support Petey Pablo, whom he manages. That night Dr. Dre was to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. With Suge in the audience, a man approached Dr. Dre shortly before Dre was called up for the award and feigned interest in an autograph before punching Dre. In the resulting scuffle, G-Unit rapper Young Buck stabbed the man. Immediately, stories pointed fingers at Suge, who went on The Late Late Show and insisted he supports Dr. Dre. The man, Jimmy James Johnson, faces life in prison due to the three strikes law in California, after Dre insisted he be charged. Johnson is now claiming that Suge paid him $5,000 to punch Dre in order to humiliate him before Dre received his Lifetime Achievement Award from Quincy Jones and Snoop Dogg.

On the evening of February 5, 2005, Knight was arrested in Barstow, California, after police pulled him over for making an illegal U-turn. They found marijuana in his truck, and he was booked on suspicion of violating his parole. Sheriff's officials detained Knight pending his transfer to state prison, where it was to be decided whether Knight would be charged or released. He was released shortly thereafter. [2]

Early Sunday morning on August 28, 2005, the day of the MTV Video Music Awards, Knight was shot in the leg in Miami Beach, Florida during a party held in honor of Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music record label. He was taken to Mount Sinai Medical Center and treated for the gunshot wound. Police say they have not been able to identify the assailants, but they are still talking with eyewitnesses.

On April 4, 2006, Suge Knight filed bankruptcy due to civil litigation against him in which Lydia Harris claimed to have been cheated out of a 50% stake in Death Row Records. Prior to filing, Knight had been ordered to pay $107 million to Harris. [3] Under questioning by creditors, he denied having money tucked away in foreign countries or in an African company that deals in diamonds and gold. Bankruptcy documents filed showed Knight had no income this year from employment or operation of a business. His bank account contained just $11, and he owned clothing worth $1,000, furniture and appliances valued at $2,000, and jewelry worth $25,000, according to the records. He had testified that the last time he checked the label’s financial records was at least 10 years ago. Knight’s lawyer said that his client was still “at the helm” of Death Row and had been working on securing distribution deals for the label’s catalog. Knight had also testified that he had reached an agreement with Lydia Harris, saying "I settled for a million and signed off on it." Harris told reporters she had received a $1 million payment but had not agreed to settle the matter. "I'm telling you, I didn't do a settlement for $1 million. That's ridiculous. Let's keep it real," she said.

Knight skipped a meeting with his creditors after injuring himself in a motorcycle accident. Another scheduled meeting with the creditors had been missed after Suge said he had experienced a death in his family. Finally, the federal judge Ellen Carroll on July 7, 2006 ordered a bankruptcy trustee takeover of Suge Knight's Death Row Records, saying the record label has undergone gross mismanagement. She commented that "apparently there's no one at the helm of Death Row".

He filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which allows a company to continue business operations while restructuring. Death Row is currently being operated by Neilson during the bankruptcy proceedings, while Knight oversees his bankruptcy estate as a debtor in possession.

Recently he was engaged again in a feud with Snoop Dogg after Snoop disrespected him in Rolling Stone magazine. Suge responded on Pagesix.com calling Snoop Dogg "a rat" and "a crybaby", accusing him of not serving time in prison due to his close relations with the police and running away from "real" fights.^[2]

In the 2006 Jean-Claude Van Damme movie The Hard Corps, the character of Terrell Singletery (a violent rap mogul with criminal intentions who was released from prison) is loosely based on Suge Knight's profile.

Knight is featured in the 2007 movie Reno 911!: Miami, though off-camera, as Lieutenant Jim Dangle and Deputy Travis Junior investigate a noise complaint at Knight's Miami home during Knight's birthday.

In June 2007 he placed his seven-bedroom, 9 1/2-bath home in Malibu on the market for $6.2 million as part of his financial makeover.

References

Further reading

• The Killing of Tupac Shakur. by Cathy Scott[4], Huntington Press, October 1, 2002, 235 pages, ISBN 0-929-71220-X

• Have Gun Will Travel: The Spectacular Rise and Violent Fall of Death Row Records, Ronin Ro, Doubleday, 1998, 384 pages, ISBN 0-385-49134-4

• Labyrinth: Corruption and Vice in the L.A.P.D.: The truth behind the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls by Randall Sullivan, Atlantic Monthly Press, April 2, 2002, 384 pages, ISBN 0-87113-838-7

• Suge Knight: The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Death Row Records: The Story of Marion 'Suge' Knight, a Hard Hitting Study of One Man, One Company That Changed the Course of American Music Forever by Jake Brown, Amber Books, October 1, 2001, 218 pages, ISBN 0-9702224-7-5

External links

• Suge Knight bio The 411 on Death Row's Boss [authored by Balance: 411@hiphop.sh]
• "Dead Poets Society," George magazine, Cathy Scott
• Suge Knight