Suge Knight

Marion Hugh "Suge" Knight Jr. (; born April 19, 1965) is an American former music executive, criminal and the co-founder and former CEO of Death Row Records, who was a central figure in gangsta rap's catapult to massive commercialization. This feat is attributed to the record label's first two album releases: Dr. Dre's The Chronic in 1992 and Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle in 1993. Before beginning his music career, Knight played college football at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He then played defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams in 1987 during a player strike as a replacement player. During 1995, Tupac Shakur began a prison sentence of up to four and a half years. Knight struck a deal with Shakur that October, paying his bail and freeing him from prison pending an appeal of his conviction, while signing him to Death Row Records. In 1996, the label released Shakur's greatest commercial success, All Eyez on Me. That September, after departing a Mike Tyson boxing match in Las Vegas, a group that included Knight and Shakur assaulted Orlando Anderson, a Southside Compton Crips gang member. Three hours later, someone shot into the car that Knight was driving and fatally wounded Shakur. Anderson has since become the prime suspect. In the aftermath of Shakur's death, both Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg left Death Row Records. Rapidly, the label declined, and it was soon eclipsed. Meanwhile, allegations mounted that Knight, beyond employing gang members, had often employed intimidation and violence in his business dealings. From the late 1990s into the early 2000s, Knight spent a few years incarcerated for assault convictions and associated violations of probation and parole. In September 2018, upon pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter in a fatal 2015 hit-and-run, Knight was sentenced to 28 years in prison. He is scheduled to become eligible for parole in October 2034. Knight has also been named as a prime suspect in orchestrating the murder of the Notorious B.I.G.

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