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 1997.
Biography
Early life
Marion Knight was born April 18, 1965 in Compton, a ghetto of Los Angeles; his trademark nickname Suge (which, despite its spelling, is Template:PronEng) was short for "Sugar Bear."(his childhood nickname)[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 possibly 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.
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 burgled, and a search warrant was issued at his office.
Further time in prison
In 2001, Suge Knight was released from prison and attempted to re-start his label by pushing new artists such as Crooked I.
References
- ^ Hirschberg, Lynn (1996-01-14). "Does a Sugar Bear Bite?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-01-15.
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Further reading
- The Killing of Tupac Shakur. by Cathy Scott[1], 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