The records sold hundreds of thousands of copies anyway and drew the squawks of such sentinels of public morality as Tipper Gore, William Bennett and Joe Lieberman. The polyrhythmic beats and explicit lyrics, about drugs, sex, the violence of the streets and police brutality, were way beyond what any radio stations were willing to put on the air. The leading forces of this new militant sound included rappers Eazy E, Ice Cube, MC Ren and Dr. In the end, although the label generated more than $400 million in sales, its top star was dead, its business manager was in jail and all the money was gone, most of it filched by white businessmen.Ĭompton didn’t give birth to rap, but the music that came off the streets of Los Angeles in the late 1980s took the genre to a new level, artistically and politically. It’s a story of mercenary lawyers, drug gangs, and unremitting harassment by police and the FBI. The story told by Welcome to Death Row is a cautionary tale about the grimy realities of the entertainment industry, one that has made billions exploiting the talents of songwriters and musicians. The dozen or so artists who spoke on camera faced various forms of intimidation. About the time Knight regained his freedom, a documentary film, Welcome to Death Row, about the rise and fall of his company was making the rounds looking for a distributor to show it in theaters.įourteen years later, as the much-hyped Hollywood biopic about NWA Straight Outta Compton is set for nationwide release, Welcome to Death Row still hasn’t had much of a public airing. On August 7, 2001, Marion “Suge” Knight, the 350-pound boss of Death Row records, was released from prison after serving five years on charges stemming from a 1992 assault.
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