Death Row Records or Future Shock records (Death Rows original name) was really founded back in the early 90's by Dr. Dre and Suge Knight. Dr Dre was a member of the infamous rap group N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitude), he and the rest of the group, headed by Eazy-E took the hip hop world and culture upto and through many high levels unknown to the culture at this time. Probably the most talked about and controversial track ever made by N.W.A. was 'F*ck The Police' the track detailed a racist and corrupted LAPD. Their track was also backed up by a video-camera recording the beating of a black man named Rodney King by a group of police officers. That was a short history on N.W.A. but lets get back into Death Row.

Dr. Dre was meant to have been conned out of large sums of money from Ruthless Records (the label that he and N.W.A. were on, Eazy-E also owned this label), a recently found friend of Dre's, Marion 'Suge' Knight, helped Dre break out of his contract with Ruthless and together (rumoured to be due to capitol provided by drug dealing) they set up Future Shock records which would later become known as Death Row records.

Dr. Dre would be the first man to release an album on the Row. He (being well known as the main producer for N.W.A.) brought along an amazing line up of other rap artists including recent Death Row label related artists and together they made the classic hip hop album, 'The Chronic'. This basically showed the world the talent of not only Dr. Dre but Death Row. Every track was a showcase of things to come, production wise, attitude wise. This constituted as the birth of the row.

1993 saw the release of the very much anticipated album by Snoop Doggy Dogg; 'Doggystlye.' The album really had such a high status( hype wise) was that Snoop was going through a murder trial. Allegedly he, and his body guard, chased someone in a car and killed them. The bodyguard was meant to have killed this guy for Snoop. He was later acquitted but this brought up some hype around the former LA Crip member (a large LA gang). This album would prove to be Snoops best work, two albums later, I haven't been proven wrong.

Suge managed to grab hold of the 'Above The Rim' soundtrack for Death Row to release. Little did everybody know but one of the predominant roles in the film would turn out to be one of Death Rows most successful artists, that being Tupac Shakur. Although Suge had spent time going out and getting this soundtrack for the label, Dre didn't actually produce any material on it.

Snoop Doggy Dogg starred in the short documentary-type film 'Murder was The Case' and Death Row got the rights to the soundtrack. Dre was set to produce a whole host of material, but he only ended up producing one track. The soundtrack was a very profitable success but tensions began to rise in the camp.

Tha Dogg Pound were the only real group around at the beginning of Death Row. They consisted of Dat Nigga Daz and Kurupt Tha Kingpin with Snoop and Nate Dogg appearing quite frequently. The twosome made a great album although they did cause a bit of a stir and a small rift between them and the east coast. The try 'New York, New York' by Tha Dogg Pound had a chorus saying "New York, New York, big city of dreams but everything in New York aint always what it seems, you might get pulled if you come from out of town but I'm bound by a law and I'm from Tha Dogg Pound." Many New Yorkers found this to be an insult and weren't very impressed, in fact when Tha Dogg Pound came to NY to film a video for the track, their trailer van was shot at several times.

Also, signed to the label in 1996 was the world famous MC Hammer. He was meant to have fully written and completed an album featuring many of Death Row's inmates but the album was never released and about a year after not releasing anything MC Hammer was dropped off the label.

In 1996 Tupac Shakur was bailed out of jail by Death Rows head honcho Suge Knight for over a million dollars. Tupac was just getting into his four year sentance on a rape charge when Suge snapped him up and took him out of prison. The deal was; Tupac gets out of jail and then gets on to Death Row. And that is exactly what he did. Tupac set out to create the first double CD album known to hip hop and the album which would also be the highest selling album on Death Row records, 'All Eyez On Me.' This album basically showed the world that 2pac was back although the b-side of a single ('How Do U Want It ?') that he released off the album would contain one of the most enthusiastic and angry dis tracks of all time 'Hit 'Em Up.' This track caused a massive rift between both Death Row records and a lot of the hip hop world, especially Bad Boy records.

Shortly after the release of 'All Eyez On Me' Dr Dre left Death Row and created Aftermath Entertainment. Circumstances surrounding Dre leaving the row have never actually been cleared up but it was well known that 2pac was not a fan of his. 'Pac spread rumours on the track (not released at this date) 'Toss It Up' that Dre was homosexual but this was never proven. Snoop and Suge say that the worst part of Dre leaving the row was the lack of information behind it. He never really stated his reasons and he didn't continue to support Snoop during his murder trial.

Sadly, on September 13th 1996, Tupac Shakur died. Six days beforehand he and Suge had gone to see Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas, there were rumours that Orlando 'Babylane' Anderson (Crip gang member) had been dared to steal Tupacs Death Row chain. Orlando did (there was evidence caught on a surveillance camera), later on that night Suge and Tupac caught up with Orlando and Tupac got his chain back, in the process Orlando got pretty well beaten up by Suge (violating his probation) and for the moment their meetings had ended.

As Suge and 'Pac were driving off (2pac not wearing a bullet proof vest and Suge not sitting where he usually did which was in the passenger seat), 2pac was sitting in the passenger seat as the car slowed down for some traffic lights, a white cadillac pulled up next to their car and (stories about what happened varies) a man got out of the car, then fired 12 bullets into the car where 'Pac was and speedily drove off. 4 shots were absorbed by Tupacs stomach and he was rushed to hospital.

This would be the start of the Death Row demise.

In November of 1996 Death Row released 'The Don Killuminati : The 7-day Theory' by 2pac under his alias Makaveli. The album contained many, many insults to people who reside on the east coast and very little else. However, saying that I liked the album. It had a lot of enthusiasm although that was clouded with negativity. This album just heated up the beefs that 2pac had with the East side.

'Tha Doggfather' was Snoop Doggy Doggs sophomore album, it was released very near to Makaveli but didn't manage to top it within the charts. This album was very weak in comparison to Snoops first and has been stated by many people to be the 'worst ever' album in hip hop. The album didn't have any production from his close friend Dr Dre and just couldn't create the joints like before.

'A Death Row Christmas' This was an attempt at a christmas album by the row. I didn't really like it that much but that's irrelevant. It contained 'hip hop' remakes of older Christmas tracks plus a couple of new rap tracks about christmas, in terms of sales the album didn't sell too much.

Tupac starred in 'Gridlock'd' along with the very well established actor Tim Roth. The film was about two heroin addicts and was a pretty good one. Death Row got the soundtrack and they made the most of it. This album has quite a few gems on it including; 'Friends,' 'Don't Try To Play Me Homie' and 'Lady Heroin'

A double CD album compiling the biggest hits off of the label and some that weren't. This album would have been a lot better with the originals on it but they placed worse quality remixes on and included Ice Cube's (not signed to Death Row) 'No Vaseline', a diss track to Dre and the other former NWA members. It was heavily speculated that this album was just a straight dis to the former Dr of the label.

The Lady of Rage released her long awaited and very much underrated album 'Necessary Roughness' in 1997. It contained some quite good cuts and to drop names, some production included DJ Premier and Daz Dillinger. Unfortunately, it flopped badly and for some weird reason Rage was only allowed to release one single off of the album, she intended to release many more tracks but Death Row refused to allow her to.

The beating of Orlando Anderson came back to haunt Suge, as security cameras had caught it on tape and it was a violation of his terms of probation. This was disastrous for Death Row, since Suge was sentenced for nine years in jail, so it seemed as if this was the end of the label.

James Belushi and Tupac Shakur, together on the big screen is what 'Gang Related' (the film) offers and Death Row offered a soundtrack to match. 2 CD's worth of the best from the West side including four 2pac tracks.

On the re-issue Death Row included YGD's 'Going Back To Cali.' YGD Tha Top Dawg was an emcee signed to Death Row (in certain peoples minds to get at Snoop and be the next Snoop), his voice was very similar to Snoops and his first 12" was also claimed to be his last. Earlier in 1997 the late Notorious B.I.G. had died. He had also made a track 'Going Back To Cali' the difference between YGD's version and Biggie's was that YGD mocked the death of Biggie, that was rumoured to have got him killed in January of 1998. In actual fact (recently announced) it was just a rumour.

For reasons unknown to myself Nate Dogg left Death Row and re-surfaced with a very disappointing double CD debut, was it this bad because of the lack of Death Row inmates proper influences ? Also Kurupt left Death Row for A & M records and to start the Antra Music Group upon that label.

Things within Death Row between the the leaving of Kurupt and Snoop leaving aren't well documented. But what is known is that Snoop wasn't happy, he wasn't shy about this and tried his hardest to leave the Row. There were rumours that Snoop would be signing with Def Jam but he ended up signing with the very successful No Limit Records.

Daz was now really the only old inmate left. He didn't desert Death Row instead he came up with his debut album 'Retaliation, Revenge and Get Back' an amazingly brilliant album, and for a while that was all that happened on the Row.

In August, 1998 Snoop on No Limit released his third and arguably worst album, with a minimal influence from Death Row, no Kurupt, Dr Dre or Nate Dogg, with Daz only adding scratching to one track, he unleashed 'Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told.' The album featured two sequels 'Gin & Juice 2' and 'Still A G Thang' but didn't hit crowds as well as 'Doggystyle' despite hitting the charts #1 spot.

From Snoop leaving and Suge still imprisoned it seemed that the label that had once created some of hip hops finest creation was on the way out. Interscope no longer distributed their music and nothing seemed to be going correctly.

But since then, news has come that Suge Knights sentence may be decreased by an amazingly large amount plus more albums and material from Death Row will be coming out, Daz will continue to create gems and artists such as Michel'le will be releasing solos, not to mention the unreleased Tupac tracks that will be being released plus YGD and more could re-create one of the West's finest labels.

Note : Since this editorial was written Suge Knight was refused parole and will remain in prison for (as is currently known) the rest of his sentence. Plus to make Death Row's possibilities of survival even worse, Daz Dillinger has left the label.