Suge Knight is weighing in on Snoop Dogg’s ownership of Death Row Records. As we previously reported, Snoop Dogg acquired Death Row Records from the Blackstone-controlled company MNRK Music Group last year.
On Monday (April 24), TMZ released audio of a phone call with Knight and he spoke about Snoop’s current role as owner and CEO of Death Row. In the clip, which was uploaded to YouTube, Knight claims Snoop’s stake in the label only occurred due to an alleged crime committed by the rapper and Michael “Harry-O” Harris.
“Snoop has a partner, which is Michael Harris, right” the 58-year-old told the outlet. “If you look at it, they committed bankruptcy fraud. I didn’t lose my company by doing anything wrong. They went in, and the lawyer didn’t show up, and they got a default judgment. I settled the judgement, they turned around and said I didn’t settle the judgement.” Knight said.
“When they filed [for] bankruptcy in 1995, they said it didn’t have anything to do with Death Row-anything and the lawyer did also,” the infamous music exec claims. “And their lawyer knew.”
“You can’t take a person who committed the worst crime of the century to take Death Row from Black people to try to give it to white people,” he said. “And think you’re gonna turn around and reward and say he’s gonna grab Snoop and he’s gonna go get it back and have Death Row. It don’t work like that. So if we’re gonna talk about something, let’s talk about it.”
As we know, Snoop originally joined Death Row in 1993 where he dropped his critically acclaimed debut album, Doggystyle. After Snoop’s announcement of the new ownership the rapper released a statement saying how proud he was to officially own the label.
“I am thrilled and appreciative of the opportunity to acquire the iconic and culturally significant Death Row Records brand, which has immense untapped future value,” shared the rapper. “It feels good to have ownership of the label I was part of at the beginning of my career and as one of the founding members.
“This is an extremely meaningful moment for me. I would like to personally thank the teams at Blackstone, MNRK, and especially David Kestnbaum, who worked collaboratively with me over several months to make this exciting homecoming a reality. I’m looking forward to building the next chapter of Death Row Records.”