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Suge Knight, born Marion Knight in Compton to a custodian father and schoolteacher mother, 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 (1992, 1992 in music). After several years of outstanding chart success for a roster of artists including Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tupac, Tha Dogg Pound and at one time even MC Hammer, Death Row Records disintegrated after Knight's incarceration on parole violation charges in 1996.
Knight went to college on a sports scholarship, and played football as a replacement player for the Oakland Raiders during the NFL strike of the early 1980's. He then retired from professional sports and decided to become a bodyguard for musicians like Bobby Brown, where he learned that the key to artistic and financial freedom is owning your masters.
A physically huge man, standing 6 feet and 2 inches tall, and weighing in at 320 lbs., Knight has been accused of acts of violence including forcing business rivals to drink urine and having extensive ties to street gangs, specifically the Bloods. Rapper Vanilla Ice has accused Knight of dangling him out of a window of a high-rise building several stories up. Vanilla 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 wrote. Even though Suge Knight had business relations with him, Vanilla Ice later refuted the whole balcony story or has told a toned down version.
Knight has frequently been implicated in the murder of Death Row artist Tupac Shakur and his business rival The Notorious B.I.G. aka Biggie Smalls. In 2002, British conspiracy documentarian Nick Broomfield did a film called Biggie and 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 it look like a East Coast-West Coast Beef. Suge vehemently denies this on several occasions, calling *2pac his "brother".
In 2001, Suge Knight was released from prison, but before having a chance to re-start his fledgling label with new artists such as Crooked I, Tha Realist, and Eastwood. He also signed the late Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes of TLC under the pseudonym "N.I.N.A.", before her untimely death in a car accident in 2002. He was incarcerated in December 2002 for allegedly associating with gang members, thus violating his probation.
Knight was arrested and jailed again in 2003, allegedly for assaulting parking lot attendant Mehdi Lazrak, despite the fact that Lazrak was punched in the back of the head and admittedly unable to identify the perpetrator.
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 families of soldiers serving in Iraq.
Suge is currently planning his autobiography "American Dream/American Nightmare" to be released this holiday season. He hints that he will dish on his experiances as a bodyguard and rap impresario which include stories of 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 *2pac and Biggie.
Legacy
Throughout his career in the music business, Suge has been both entrepreneurial and philanthropic. He insisted on owning master recordings, for instance. He also oversaw non-musical businesses that had ties to the gangsta rap way of life, notably the custom auto-hydraulics shop Let Me Ride, named for Dr. Dre's Chronic ode to cruising. At the same time, Suge embarked on ambitious programs--some not realized--ranging from entertaining single mothers on Mother's Day to caring for soul singers left poor after their careers were finished.