Snoop Dogg, a rapper and entrepreneur from the United States, has purchased Death Row Records, the label that launched his career.
Following the release of his breakthrough debut album, Doggystyle, on Death Row in 1993, the Californian hip-hop sensation catapulted to popularity.
Gin & Juice, Doggy Dogg World, and Murder Was The Case were among the successful singles.
Snoop Dogg said the move was an “extremely meaningful moment for me” and he was looking forward to “building the next chapter” of the record label.
Future Value
“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,” he said in a statement.
“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.
Dr. Dre, Suge Knight, the DOC, and Dick Griffey launched Death Row Records in 1992.
Snoop Dogg was signed after one of his early mixtapes attracted NWA co-founder Dre, who asked him to an audition and then invited him to participate on his own first album, The Chronic, released in 1992.
Both debut albums were multi-platform hits, propelling Death Row to multi-million dollar status.
Doggystyle was followed by Tha Doggfather in 1996, which sold millions of copies throughout the world.
After a dispute over the terms of his contract and the alleged withholding of royalty payments, he left the record company in 1998 and went on to have greater success as a singer, actor, and media personality.
After the murder of one of its stars, Tupac Shakur, and the imprisonment of Suge Knight, as well as the departures of Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, Death Row began to collapse in the late 1990s.
After a period of controversy and legal battles, the label filed for bankruptcy in 2006 and was auctioned off to WIDEawake Entertainment for $18 million (£13.2 million) in 2009.
After the owner of WIDEawake went bankrupt in 2012, the famed label was sold to Entertainment One, which then became a branch of Hasbro until this year, when One Music was sold to The Blackstone Group.
It’s now in the possession of one of the film’s original stars, who was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018.
Priority Records’ creative chairman, Snoop Dogg, whose full name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr, was previously appointed in 2009.
Snoopify, a cannabis app, and Leafs by Snoop, a cannabis product, are among his other commercial pursuits. He got into esports in 2019 and founded the Gangsta Gaming League.
Source: BBC
