And while All Eyez on Me pointed to a bright future for both the artist and the label, it quickly became a tragic reminder of an otherworldly talent gone too soon. The label had its greatest triumphs that year, but also lost some of the key figures in building its legend. 1996 would prove to be one of the most tumultuous times in rap history, with Death Row at its center. The release of Tupac’s All Eyez on Me, the sprawling magnum opus that turns 25 this weekend, would be the final step in constructing an unstoppable, genre-crushing tank.īut that apex wouldn’t last long. From Sugar Hill to Def Jam to Profile to Ruthless, rap music had seen a handful of successful imprints in its young history, but none had become as famous-or as feared-as Death Row Records. were now setting the narrative in the media-the Death Row camp had essentially invented their feud with the East Coast’s Bad Boy out of thin air, but it raised the profile of both sides, even if outsiders worried it could lead to real-life violence. Its music was everywhere-on MTV and radio in suburban markets, as it helped turn gangsta rap mainstream while changing the sound of West Coast hip-hop in the process. All five of its full-length releases to that point charted at least in the top three on Billboard, all eventually going multiplatinum. Not even four years old, the label was on an unprecedented run of success. The near-constant threat of violence had served the physically imposing Compton native well as he rose from college football standout to bodyguard to mogul: As Powell noted, that electric-chair logo had come to represent a company worth an estimated $100 million.Īt the time of the cover story, Death Row looked unfadeable. The man owned an attack German shepherd named Damu, the Swahili word for “blood.” “The mere mention of name was enough to cause some of the most powerful people in the music business to whisper, change the subject, or beg to be quoted off the record,” Powell wrote. Knight, of course, wanted it this way: Stories of him assaulting producers and rival executives hung over his every interaction. It was omnipresent in both the label’s output, led by classics like The Chronic and Doggystyle, and in the surrounding drama-Tupac had just joined the roster fresh from prison Snoop was awaiting trial on first-degree murder charges as the article went to press. Violence had been a founding principle of Death Row, which traced its roots to Knight strong-arming Eazy-E-and possibly threatening to harm his mother-to get Dre out of his contract with Ruthless Records, where the producer had redefined gangsta rap with N.W.A. What would happen should someone violate this rule is left unsaid, but anyone with even a passing knowledge of the players involved understood. “I was told by another journalist that no one steps on the logo. “Right in front of his big wooden desk, outlined in white on the red carpet, is the Death Row Records logo: a man strapped to an electric chair with a sack over his head,” Powell wrote. Dre, and Tupac Shakur posed like Goodfellas-writer Kevin Powell pauses to acknowledge the deference visitors to Knight’s office were expected to pay. In the February 1996 Vibe magazine cover story on Death Row Records-the one that produced the indelible image of Suge Knight, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Up first, we’re exploring Tupac Shakur’s All Eyez on Me and the fall of Death Row records. The 1996 Rap Yearbook, a recurring series from The Ringer, will explore the landmark releases and moments from a quarter-century ago that redefined how we think of the genre. No year in hip-hop history sticks out quite like 1996: It marked the height of the East Coast–West Coast feud, the debut of several artists who would rule the next few decades, and the last moment before battle lines between “mainstream” and “underground” were fully drawn.
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