Jane Handcock
Death Row Records is an American record label that was founded in 1991 by The D.O.C., Dr. Dre, Suge Knight, and Dick Griffey. The label became a sensation by releasing multi-platinum hip-hop albums by West Coast-based artists such as Dr. Dre (The Chronic), Snoop Dogg (Doggystyle, Tha Doggfather) and 2Pac (All Eyez on Me, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory) during the 1990s. At its peak, Death Row made over US $100 million annually.
By the late 1990s, the label began to decline following the death of its star artist 2Pac, the imprisonment of Suge Knight, and the departures of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. Death Row Records became embroiled in controversies, lawsuits, links to organized crime and extreme violence by its artists and associates, despite enjoying financial success.
Death Row Records filed for bankruptcy in 2006, It was then auctioned to WIDEawake Entertainment for $18 million on January 15, 2009. The owner of WIDEawake went bankrupt in 2012; the label was sold to Entertainment One, and it then became a division of Hasbro until April 2021, when eOne Music was sold to the Blackstone Group. Snoop Dogg bought Death Row from MNRK Music Group in February 2022, intending to revive the label.
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