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Marion Hugh Knight, Jr. (born April 19, 1965), better known as Suge Knight SHUG), is an entrepreneur in the hip hop music industry and co-founder and CEO of Death Row Records, and could have been credited in giving it that name from his 1996 interview with Vibe magazine.


The record label rose to dominate the charts after Dr. Dre`s breakthrough success The Chronic in 1992. After several years of chart successes for artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tha Dogg Pound, Death Row Records stagnated after Knight`s incarceration on parole violation charges in September 1996.

Knight was born in Compton, California. His name, Suge (pronounced , derives from "Sugar Bear", a childhood nickname.[1] He remained an excellent student and athlete, so much so that he won a football scholarship to University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he played collegiate football for several years. After school, he played professionally for the Los Angeles Rams as a replacement player during the 1987 NFL strike.

Later, he found work as a concert promoter and a bodyguard for celebrities including Bobby Brown. Knight`s legal problems began in 1987 when he faced auto theft, concealed weapon and attempted murder charges, ultimately receiving probation.

Two years later, he formed his own music-publishing company, and allegedly made his first big fortune in the business by coercing Vanilla Ice into signing over royalties from his smash hit "Ice Ice Baby" owing to material that he supposedly sampled from one of Knight`s company associates.

(The possibly apocryphal story holds that Knight held Ice by his ankles off of a 20th-floor balcony, though in Ice`s version, the threat was more implied.) Knight next formed an artist management company and signed prominent West Coast figures The D.O.C. and DJ Quik.

Through the former, he met several members of the seminal gangsta rap group N.W.A. In 1993, Suge would have a son, Andrew, born on April 19, sharing the same birthday as him. Andrew is currently living in Greater Los Angeles area with his mother, "Tia".

Another son, Taj, is said to be living in Atlanta with his mother, Davina Barnes. Most recently, a daughter, Bailei, with R&B singer Michel`le.

Dr. Dre of N.W.A. wished to depart from both his group and their label, Ruthless Records, run by Eazy-E, another member of N.W.A. This process involved Suge Knight who negotiated a contract release for Dr.

Dre that, according to N.W.A`s manager Jerry Heller, involved Knight and his henchmen threatening Heller and Eazy-E with pipes and baseball bats.

Ultimately, Dre co-founded Death Row Records in 1991 with Knight, who famously vowed to make it "the Motown of the `90s."

For a time, Knight made good on his ambitions: He secured a distribution deal with Interscope, and Dre`s 1992 solo debut, The Chronic, became one of the most influential rap albums of all time.

It also made a star of Dre`s protégé, Snoop Doggy Dogg, whose debut album, Doggystyle, was another smash hit in 1993.

As Dre`s signature G-funk production style took over hip-hop, Death Row became a reliable brand name for gangsta rap fans, and even its lesser releases sold consistently well.

However, Knight was already courting controversy; during the recording sessions for The Chronic, he was arrested for assaulting two aspiring rappers who allegedly used a phone without his permission, and was placed

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