The assets of Death Row Records, said to include master recordings of Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, were auctioned off today (Jan. 15) for $18 million to WIDEawake Entertainment Group, a development company out of Canada. Because of the less-than-expected acquisition price, the only creditor likely to capture a return after lawyers and other Chapter 11 administrative fees are paid is the Internal Revenue Service.

That means other creditors, including unsecured ones like co-founder Lydia Harris, will be left out in the cold. Harris isn't content with the verdict.

"This was all a scam from the beginning," a disgruntled Harris tells Billboard. "Everyone wanted me to bring judgment down, and so I brought on the case. But now I'm not getting paid because I'm an unsecured creditor? Yet, administrators are getting paid and Suge [Knight]'s bills are still getting paid? If it wasn't for me no one would be getting money. They made sure it happened this way because I was the biggest creditor. There must be some internal thing going on and I'm obviously not in on it." [Billboard]

In related(???) news, the movie Notorious opens today ("The life and death story of Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Christopher Wallace), who came straight out of Brooklyn to take the world of rap music by storm."). Trailer below...

Continue reading "Death Row Records sold for for $18 Million, Notorious opens"

In a potentially controversial chat with Blender mag, Alicia Keys, 27, says, "Gangsta rap was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. Gangsta rap didn't exist."

Ms. Keys, sporting a gold AK-47 pendant around her neck, says she has been reading books by some of the members of the Black Panthers.

She says the feud between East Coast and West Coast rappers, which led to the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., was fueled "by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing." [Dallas News]