Marion Knight Jr., a.k.a Sugar Bear, Suge Knight (IPA: ) (born April 19, 1965), is an entrepreneur in the hip hop music industry and co-founder of Death Row Records with Dr. Dre. The record label rose to dominate the charts after Dr. Dre's breakthrough success The Chronic in 1992. After several years of outstanding chart success for artists including Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tupac Shakur, Tha Dogg Pound and at one time even MC Hammer, Death Row Records fell into a stagnant limbo after Knight's incarceration on parole violation charges in 1996.
Early life
Knight was born in Compton, California. Knight's father was a custodian and his mother was a school-teacher. Knight went to UNLV on a sports scholarship from 1985 to 1987. It was during his UNLV football playing days that he was dubbed Suge, short for Sugar Bear. It was a fellow team mate dubbed Cuspus Crispy that first started to call him by his now present moniker. After setting up operations in Las Vegas he moved back to L.A. and played football as a replacement player (scab) for the Los Angeles Rams during the 1987 NFL players' strike. He then retired from professional sports and decided to become a bodyguard for musicians like Bobby Brown, at which point he learned, as he would later say, that the key to artistic and financial freedom is owning your masters.
Accusations of violence
A physically very large man, standing 6 feet and 4 inches (1.93 m) tall, [1] Knight has been accused of acts of violence including forcing business rivals to drink urine and having extensive ties to street gangs, specifically the Mob Piru Bloods located in his hometown of Compton, California. Rapper Vanilla Ice has accused Knight of dangling him out of a window of a high-rise building several stories up. Ice claims that he was forced to agree to grant him a majority of Ice's own royalties from his signature hit "Ice Ice Baby", which a friend of Suge's claimed he had written. Ice later denied the balcony story, in whole or in part.
Accusations of offensive business namery
Knight, who is known to his best friends as "Baby Seals," opened a club in 1999 and innocently named it "Club Baby Seals." When stars Ted Danson and Pamela Anderson led a massive protest against the establishment in 2002, Knight explaned that the club had been thus named due to his longstanding nickname. Danson seemed ready to end the protest, but Knight went on to clarify that he had been dubbed "Baby Seals" due to his propensity to devour live baby seals according to the practices of an Eskimo tribe he had come to admire.
Allegations of involvement in murder
Knight has been implicated in the murder of Death Row artist Tupac Shakur and his business rival The Notorious B.I.G. In 2002, British documentarian Nick Broomfield made a film called Biggie & Tupac, which explored the theory that Suge masterminded Tupac's killing because he was planning on leaving Death Row and wanted to retain his unreleased tapes and royalties, and that Biggie's murder was a cover-up to make Shakur's death look like part of an East Coast-West Coast conflict. Shakur had fired Death Row attorney David Kenner and formed his own production company, Euphanasia, to the ire of Knight. Knight has vehemently denied these allegations on several occasions, calling Tupac his "brother," but former Death Row bodyguard Frank Alexander said Knight invited Shakur out to the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight in Las Vegas as a peace offering and to show there were no hard feelings about him leaving the company.
Alexander goes on to claim however, that he was told to regurgitate the story of a dispute between Orlando Anderson and Death Row Records that has been commonly spread among the police and press. When he showed reservations about lying, he was told by friends of Suge Knight to "watch his back". Alexander provides a tape to Broomfield of an alleged death threat by a Death Row associate. Kevin Hickey, a former LAPD officer and member of Death Row security, corroborates the theory in the film. According to the AP and VIBE magazine, when called to say the same story to a court hearing the Biggie Smalls wrongful death suit, he refused, citing that he feared for his life.
While in the film Broomfield never explicitly accuses Knight, when asked "Who killed Tupac?" in a BBC Radio interview dated March 7, 2005, Broomfield stated "The big guy next to him in the car...Suge Knight." A former policeman who investigated Biggie's murder testified that he had been told that Knight confessed to arranging it.
Snoop Dogg, an original Death Row artist, told police he was attacked by some of Knight's associates soon after his departure from Death Row, and that the person behind his assault was the same who'd had Shakur murdered—Suge Knight. [2]
Suge Knight is also suspected to have had some level of involvement in the murder of LAPD officer Kevin Gaines, who had been carrying on an affair with his wife Sharitha Knight. Gaine's murder investigation led to the Rampart Scandal.
Other murders he is commonly linked to but lack any significant evidence besides rumor or conspiracy theory, include that of rappers Yafeau Fula and Mausberg, as well Shakur's suspected hitter Orlando Anderson.
Allegations of involvement in racketeering
In recent years, Knight has been accused by the LAPD of being involved in racketeering, or running a criminal organization through Death Row that primarily traffics narcotics. utilizing the help of the Rampart Division of the LAPD. Det. Russell Poole has commented on this, while the LAPD officially has stayed mum, despite the fact that they raided the Death Row offices looking for "unknown reasons" in 2003. Both convicted Rampart participants David Mack and Raphael Perez, as well as Kevin Gaines, were all tied to Death Row. Some evidence suggests the FBI has at one time also been interested in Knight's past and present finances.
Recently, a court granted the wife of imprisoned gangster Michael Harry-O Harris, 50% of all the money Death Row Records has accumulated over the years, which forced Knight to declare bankruptcy. This corroborates the story that Knight did in fact use Harris' drug money to start up Death Row.
Further time in prison
In 2001, Suge Knight was released from prison and tried to re-start his label by signing new artists such as Crooked I, Krucifixx, Tha Realist, Eastwood, 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, even though Lazrak was punched in the back of the head and was admittedly unable to identify the perpetrator.[citation needed]
Knight was released on April 23, 2004. Original artist Kurupt is now the label's headliner, and his new LP Against the Grain is currently on hiatus. 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, as of early 2006, no such album has been released, despite a gap of nearly two years from the time of the announcement.
Recent history
Suge claims to be developing an autobiography entitled "American Dream/American Nightmare". However, a targeted release date of fourth-quarter 2005 came and went with no biography 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. [3]
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.[citation needed]
On the evening of February 5, 2005, Knight was arrested in Barstow, California after police pulled him over for making a U-turn and found marijuana in his Ford pickup truck. 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, but he was released shortly thereafter. [4]
Recently, Suge and The Game have begun feuding. Although a claim has been made that the origins of the feud relate to a confrontation between their respective entourages outside a Los Angeles nightclub, [5] it is equally likely that some of the tension between the two ties into the strong relationship between Game and his mentor, Dr. Dre, with whom Suge has had troubled relations for several years following their fallout over Death Row Records.
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 a fractured femur resulting from the gunshot wound. Police say they have not been able to identify the would-be assailants, but they are still talking with eyewitnesses. Some of those present that evening claim Mr. Knight actually shot himself.
On April 4, 2006, Suge Knight filed for 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. He has to pay $107 million to the Harris family.[6]