| Copyright Afro American Newspapers Mar 1, 1997 Is execution date near for Death Row Records? Alleged drug dealer claims. stock in company As an impending court date for Death Row Records CEO Marion "Suge" Knight nears, music industry critics continue to speculate on what effect the outcome will have on Knight's future with the once powerful production company. Knight is scheduled for hearing in LA County court, Feb. 28 for failure to appear for drug testing, a condition of a nine year suspended sentence he received after an assault conviction in 1992. Knight's jailing was just one of a series of incidents that occurred in what turned out to be a near fatal year for the California based company. Recently, a former drug dealer from South Central LA claims to have invested in the initial founding of Death Row. Michael Harris, whose street name was "Harrio" claims to have invested $1.5 million in Death Row along with Knight. The deadliest blow to the six year-old company came in spring of 1996 when co-founder and owner Dr. Dre (Andre Young) left the label and sold his half of the company to Knight for an undisclosed sum. Much more than a just a co-owner, Dr. Dre laid down beat tracks, pinned lyrics, rapped and produced most of the projects released by signees on the Death Row label. Using raw, true-life experiences witnessed on the streets of Compton, an LA public housing project known for gang violence and drug related warfare, Dre meshed the talents he developed working for Ruthless Records and its owner The Original Baby Gangster, the late Eazy E. The Dre beat became the heartbeat of Death Row and his departure appears to have been the signal of worse things to come. Tupac Shukar's fatal wounding while riding in a car with Knight in Las Vegas last September, amounted to a gut-shot at point blank range for the company. Shukar's double-album release "All Eyes On Me" containing the hit single "California Love" was the hottest selling item on the label, released soon after Knight plopped down a $1.4 million bail bond to get Shukar out of a New York state prison. The question is with Shukar in thug heaven, Dr. Dre in New York working on projects on his new label Aftermath and Knight in jail, does Snoop Doggy Dogg have the juice to keep the label popping? Snoop has had his problems with the law, beating a murder charge in L A last year. Recent releases on the label other than Shukar's projects have not done so well. The other death Row Inmates, Tha Dogg Pound, Nate Dogg, Lady of Rage, Jewell and O.T.F.B. enjoy cult following from gangsta and Death Row Junkies but aren't even a skeet on Bill Board or R&B charts. Compounding the marketing complications is the ever expanding criminal justice dragnet that is engulfing the label and it's assets. Investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Los Angles and Las Vegas appear ready to throw the switch on Death Row, tearing at the estimated $100 million enterprise like a gang bum rush, hoping turn up evidence of wrong doing. Knight and the company are under suspicion of money laundering, drug trafficking and connections to Los Angles street gangs, along with the Genovese crime syndicate of New York. Afeni Shukar, mother of Tupac, has charged the company and Knight in particular, with stealing from her late son. She described the company as an operation of "thievery and prostitution". "We called it Death Row because most everybody had been involved with the law. The majority of our people were parolees or incarcerated-no joke. We got people that were really on Death Row and still is." Those words spoken by the gargantuan Knight (6-4, 315 lbs) in a Vibe Magazine interview last year. Law enforcement officials apparently believe him now. Prosecutors are attempting to link Knight to the beating of a member of the Southside Crips gang, at a Las Vegas hotel on the same night Shukar was shot. Should they succeed, California law would not allow Knight to operate Death Row from jail which creates the question of who would succeed him as CEO? Targeted by so many influential people, including C. Delores Tucker and William Bennett, has Death Row Records taken a seat in the chair of its widely recognized logo, waiting for the executioner to throw the switch? Photo (Marion "Suge" Knight) | 
