Career and Life

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Marion Hugh "Suge" Knight Jr. is a former American record producer, music executive, former American football player and incarcerated felon. He is best known as the co-founder and former CEO of Death Row Records, which rose to dominate the rap charts after Dr. Dre's breakthrough album The Chronic in 1992, and enjoyed several years of chart successes for artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Outlawz and Tha Dogg Pound.

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Suge Knight is also known for his numerous legal issues. In September 2018, Knight pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in a fatal 2015 hit-and-run, and was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

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From 1983 to 1985, he attended and played football at El Camino College. In 1985, he transferred to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and played there for two years.

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Knight went undrafted in the 1987 NFL Draft, but was invited to the Los Angeles Rams training camp. He was cut by the Rams during camp, but he became a replacement player during the 1987 NFL Players Strike, and played two games for the Rams.

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After the NFL, Knight found work as a concert promoter and a bodyguard for celebrities including Bobby Brown. In 1989, Knight formed his own music publishing company. His first big profit in the business came when Vanilla Ice (Robert Van Winkle) agreed to sign over royalties from his smash hit "Ice Ice Baby", because the song included material allegedly written by Knight's client Mario Johnson. Knight and his bodyguards confronted Van Winkle several times. On one occasion, Knight entered Van Winkle's hotel room and allegedly dangled him by his ankles off the balcony. Van Winkle said only that Knight threatened to throw him off the balcony; the claim was resolved in court.

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Knight next formed an artist management company and signed prominent West Coast hip hop artists DJ Quik and The D.O.C. Through the former, he met several members of the seminal gangsta rap group N.W.A.

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Initially, Knight fulfilled his ambitions: he secured a distribution deal with Interscope, and Dre's 1992 solo debut album, The Chronic, went on to Triple Platinum status in the United States by the end of 1993. It also made a career for Dre's protégé, Snoop Dogg, whose own debut album Doggystyle obtained a Quadruple Platinum certification in the United States in 1994.

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M.C. Hammer's relationship with Suge Knight dates back to 1988. With the success of Hammer's 1994 album, The Funky Headhunter (featuring Tha Dogg Pound), Hammer signed with Death Row Records by 1995, along with Snoop Dogg and his close friend, Tupac. The label did not release the album of Hammer's music (titled Too Tight) while he had a career with them, although he did release versions of some tracks on his next album. However, Hammer did record tracks with Shakur and others, most notably the song "Too Late Playa" (along with Big Daddy Kane and Danny Boy). After the death of Shakur in 1996, Hammer left the record company. He later explained his concern about this circumstance in an interview on Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) since he was in Las Vegas with Tupac the night of his death. Hammer released 2Pac's "Unconditional Love", on his Family Affair album, in 1998. The friendships between Hammer (played by Romany Malco), Tupac (played by Lamont Bentley) and Suge (played by Anthony Norris) were depicted in the television film, Too Legit: The MC Hammer Story (airing on VH1 in 2001).

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The label shrank when Dr. Dre, frustrated with the company's increasingly thuggish reputation and Knight's violent inclinations, decided to leave and form his own label, Aftermath Entertainment. A stream of Dre-dissing records followed.

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In a 1995 federal case, Knight pleaded no contest to two felony convictions: armed robbery and assault with a firearm.

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In 1996, Knight was sentenced to nine years in prison for a probation violation.

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In 2003, Knight was sent to prison again for violating parole when he struck a parking lot attendant. Death Row Records' income rapidly declined during Knight's recurrent incarceration.

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On May 10, 2008, Knight was involved in an altercation involving a monetary dispute outside of a nightclub ("Shag") in Hollywood. He was unconscious for 3 minutes. At the hospital, he did not cooperate with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).

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On February 8, 2012, Knight was arrested in Las Vegas, after police found cannabis in his car and several warrants for prior traffic violations.

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On August 24, 2014, Knight was shot at a pre-Video Music Awards party hosted by Chris Brown at a West Hollywood Sunset Strip nightclub ("1OAK"). Although shot six times, he was able to walk from the venue to an ambulance. His injuries required surgery. It is reported by investigators that evidence from closed circuit television (CCTV) footage showed that Knight was the intended target of the shooting. Knight was released from the hospital on August 27. Friend Keith Middlebrook told the New York Daily News that Knight returned home with the intentions to "heal up in a few days and be stronger than ever".

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On October 29, 2014, Knight and comedian Katt Williams were both arrested and charged with second-degree robbery in connection with an alleged theft of a camera from a paparazzi photographer the previous month in Beverly Hills, California. While in jail, doctors found a blood clot in Knight's lung. Both Knight and Williams pleaded not guilty to robbery. In 2016, the robbery trial was delayed until the resolution of the unrelated murder trial.

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On January 29, 2015, Knight committed voluntary manslaughter killing Terry Carter (co-founder of Heavyweight Records and a friend of Knight) with his car and fled the scene in Compton, California. A second victim, filmmaker Cle Sloan, suffered a mangled foot and head injuries. Witnesses claimed Knight followed the men to a burger stand parking lot after an argument on the Straight Outta Compton film set, and that the collision looked intentional. Security footage video showed Knight running over both men. Knight claimed he acted in self-defense.

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In August 2017, a grand jury indicted Knight on charges of "threatening death or bodily injury" for sending threatening text messages to F. Gary Gray, the director of Straight Outta Compton, on August 8, 2014. Knight pleaded not guilty to the charge, and the charge was dropped as part of Knight's plea agreement in the death of Terry Carter. Source.