Death Row: A Rapping Empire

An empire is a symbol of power. The entire process of forming and maintaining an empire involves one powerful entity ruling over other smaller, subjugated entities. An emperor is the highest physical embodiment of the empire itself. They must command respect and obedience from the entities that they have power over, and even those they do not directly rule. Marion “Suge” Knight certainly fits this description of an emperor, and his record label company, Death Row, adopts the title of an empire astonishingly accurately. Death Row created its own subgenre –or “culture”– within the rap industry and used intimidation and thuggery to dominate its competitors.

Knight’s defacto place as emperor of Death Row was facilitated largely by his initiative to make a profit in the music industry, but also by his personality and presence. Knight is 6’2”, and his weight exceeded over three-hundred pounds in the early 1990s, and had played football throughout high school, college, and a short, two-game career professionally for the Los Angeles Rams. Suge’s physical stature combined with his reputation for violence was truly what propagated him as a force to be reconned with.  In fact, Knight already had a criminal record following a plea deal after being charged with attempted murder and grand theft auto in 1987 (“Original Gangstas,” Ben Westhoff).

Suge Knight (left) and Tupac Shakur (right). Knight had a terrifying presence due to his physical size and tendencies to become violent.

As Suge began to create a name for himself in the rap industry, he also set his plans of forming his own record label to dominate the industry. Suge night was introduced to NWA member DOC through mutual friend Andre Bolton and met Dr. Dre through him (Westhoff). Knight understood that if he wanted to launch a highly successful company, having a highly successful and experienced producer like Dr. Dre would almost guarantee the prosperity of the label. Knight first tried to intimidate Eazy-E, and following several legal issues involving Eazy-E signing under duress, negotiated Dre’s and DOC’s release from Ruthless Records with its new security director, Mike Klein, who reportedly was a member of Isreali security forces (Westhoff). Following their official departure from Ruthless, Dr. Dre and DOC formed Death Row Records with Knight and a fourth partner, Dick Griffey (Westhoff). Following the formation of the label, artists like Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Warren G, DJ Quik, Daz were recruited to make music for Death Row. Every artist was specifically chosen because of Knight’s plan to create a label that perpetuates a gangster culture. Most of the artists that Death Row signed were associated with either the various Crip or Blood gangs in the greater LA area. This association with ruthless gangs gave the artists subject matter and gave them a hardcore edge to their persona. Aligning with certain gangs also gave artists a sense of “credibility” because of the dangerous lifestyle that they live.

Photo of the Death Row logo with Snoop Dogg (left), Dr. Dre (top), Suge Knight (bottom), and Tupac Shakur (right)

A successful empire has a strong sense of culture, and Death Row was no difference. The company, and, more specifically, Dr. Dre, Warren G, and DJ Quik were instrumental in creating the genre of music that is now known as G-Funk. The genre is distinguishable by its deep, rough bass and the high-pitched, “whiny” synthesizer beat. It was inspired by  Parliament/Funkadelic, two sister groups who were both led by George Clinton. DJ Quik is regarded as the father of G-Funk, but Dr. Dre’s The Chronic introduced the genre to the mainstream after its explosive release, and Warren G’s song “Regulate” is almost universally considered the genre’s most widely known anthem. Beyond the genre itself, Death Row wanted to propagate a gangster lifestyle to its audience. Throughout The Chronic and Snoop Dogg’s 1993 album Doggystyle reference gang culture, illegal activity, the neighborhoods and projects that each respective artists grew up in, and “hustlin.” Further cementing Death Row’s legacy of idealizing gang culture is the fact that Suge Kight would hire various convicted gang member of both the Blood and Crips, the two most infamous gangs of Los Angeles (and the United States) at the time (Westhoff). G-Funk separated Death Row, and West Coast rap, from its East Coast predecessors and gave them a niche that is easily recognizable from listeners. This sense of culture was the type of music that Death Row made exclusively during its prime. Listeners understood that the sound created by the label was theirs, and the public could not get enough of it.

Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” Album cover

Two objections to the classification of Death Row as a music industry empire are that the company could not have been an empire if it had competitors just as big as the label itself, and because the record label simply isn’t an empire to being with; that is, it was not a nation-state that conquered and ruled over other political entities. However, both of these claims are invalidated after understanding the power relationship between Death Row and its competitors, specifically its rival, Ruthless Records. To simply state that Suge Knight sought to compete with and outsell Ruthless records does not truly do his business vision justice. Knight didn’t just want to make more money than everyone else, Knight wanted to dominate everyone else. Suge made extra provisions to humiliate and make an example of anyone who he believed to be his competition. Three instances specifically stand out, one of which was when he allegedly hung rapper Vanilla Ice from a balcony in order to have him sign over a percentage of royalties from his number one song, “Ice, Ice, Baby.

Another instance is when Suge Knight signed Tracy Jernagin, a mother of one of Eazy-E’s child, to Death Row in order to humiliate Eazy (Westhoff). Undoubtedly the most heinous act of Knight was when he forced an associate of one of his rivals, Sean “Puffy” Combs, to drink urine while Knight’s posse intimidated him.

His over-the-top aggression is perhaps comparable to Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, in which he decimated most of what is now modern day France, Belgium, and Holland. In the battle of the Sabis, Caesar’s forces reportedly left only 500 Nervian warriors alive out of an army with an estimated size of 60,000. Although not literally, and perhaps without knowing, Suge Knight wanted to embody the meaning of what it means to be an empire by dominating his competition in the rap industry.

Death Row’s aggression and culture allowed the label to dominate its competitors in a way unseen before in the music industry. The label was not only successful, they practically owned the industry by setting status quos for what music will be made and successful, and how rap artists present themselves and develop their gangsta rap persona.

Westhoff, Ben. Original Gangstas. Hatchette Books, 2016.

The Biography.com Website. A&E Television Networks. April 2, 2014. https://www.biography.com/people/suge-knight-21371211

Allmusic.com. https://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/g-funk-ma0000011824

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Website. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/parliament-funkadelic

Vanilla Ice. Interview by Brian Ross. ABC News. 

Livius.org. http://www.livius.org/articles/person/caesar/caesar-04/