When Snoop Dogg announced on February 9th that he had acquired the rights to his recording foundation - the iconic Death Row brand, public response went from congratulatory to speculative pretty quickly. Would Snoop own any of the catalog? What about Dr. Dre and Tupac’s music? When Snoop later stated that he wanted Death Row to be an NFT label and the first in the metaverse, it added another layer of questions and speculation. The Doggfather recently sat down with Tidal’s Elliot Wilson and clarified the specifics of the historic acquisition.
“Jimmy Iovine (Interscope Records co-founder and Dr, Dre’s partner in Beats By Dre) told me that the people who own Death Row were at one of his parties and that he thought it would be a good idea for me to talk with them” Snoop said. “Jimmy knew that I wanted my masters. That’s what I was after. He put me in contact with Dave Kestenbaum (Senior Managing Director at the Blackstone Investment Firm) and we started talking about different things. He was like ‘I’m a fan of you Snoop. I’m with you. I ain’t tryin’ to hold this shit. I want to see you with it.'”
Snoop says that he saw Death Row depreciating while he was helping to rebuild Def Jam (Snoop Dogg was named executive creative consultant at Def Jam early in 2021) and he decided to fulfill his obligations to Def Jam (he has one year left) so that when he made his move to acquire Death Row he couldn’t be accused of not accomplishing what he was paid to accomplish. After Snoop signed a few artists, namely Benny The Butcher and dropped a few projects he “Went to get some shit that I was supposed to have, because it ain’t in the right hands. It needs to be in my hands.”
Snoop told Wilson further “To be in control of the brand means that I got all of the pieces that I need to do what I got to do, from the masters to the publishing, to the IP, to the label, to the logo, to everything. It’s all mine. I’m able to move it around and do what I need to do with it. 2Pac’s masters came back to him [his estate] last year. I got a great relationship with his estate, and I’m pretty sure we’re going to be able to work something out. Same with Dr. Dre and The Chronic. I got The Chronic album. I got Doggystyle, Tha Doggfather, Murder Was The Case, Dogg Food, Above The Rim. I got all those records.”
Snoop also spoke of the possibility of releasing Latin and EDM versions of some of the Death Row classics as well as making his debut "Deep Cover" and the "Dre Day" B side : "Puffin' On Blunts And Sippin' On Tanqueray" available for the first time digitally. When asked about the prospect of signing new artists Snoop says: "Im not in there trying to develop: 'Hey man you should rap like this. You should do this. Im trying to find motherfuckers that got shit already locked and loaded and I can just throw the Death Row logo on it.'"
