CULTURETECHLENSSuge Knight
VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)
Combined Graph record U-07303 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6082.
Marion Hugh Knight Jr., known as Suge Knight, born 19 April 1965 in Compton, California, is an American former record executive, the co-founder and former chief executive of Death Row Records, the Los Angeles label that carried gangsta rap to mass commercial success in the 1990s. A former UNLV defensive end who played briefly for the Los Angeles Rams as a replacement player during the 1987 NFL strike, he co-founded Death Row in 1991; its first two album releases, Dr. Dre's The Chronic (1992) and Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle (1993), defined the era. In October 1995 he posted Tupac Shakur's $1.4 million bail and signed him to the label, which released Shakur's All Eyez on Me in 1996; Knight was driving the car in which Shakur was fatally shot in Las Vegas that September. The label declined and was sold out of bankruptcy in 2009. 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; he remains incarcerated in California, and in 2026 he declined from prison to testify in the trial arising from Shakur's killing.
Answer summary · this record in brief, from its own record text
Marion Hugh Knight Jr., known as Suge Knight, born 19 April 1965 in Compton, California, is an American former record executive, the co-founder and former chief executive of Death Row Records, the Los Angeles label that carried gangsta rap to mass commercial success in the 1990s. A former UNLV defensive end who played briefly for the Los Angeles Rams as a replacement player during the 1987 NFL strike, he co-founded Death Row in 1991; its first two album releases, Dr.
The record
- Also known as: Marion Hugh Knight Jr., Marion Knight
Notes
Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Census Intake Wave 5 — 747 Program, Wave 11; 40-record packet). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Suge Knight entity in the live graph at 3,763 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-6082 assigned at assembly. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 3 — Famous Birthdays ABSENT census, readiness rank 1538 (Entrepreneurs list). The census supplied the NAME ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — African American record executive; co-founder of Death Row Records, a central institution of 1990s hip-hop. Vital status: LIVING, INCARCERATED — interviewed from a California prison by ABC News in August 2026 (V101.9, 12 Aug 2026) and covered as a non-testifying witness in CNN's report of the Duane Davis sentencing (13 Oct 2026); serving the 28-year sentence imposed 4 Oct 2018. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Death Row Records co-founded 1991; The Chronic (1992) and Doggystyle (1993) were the label's first two album releases (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16); legal (adjudicated, one neutral line): on 20 Sept 2018 Knight pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the 2015 death of Terry Carter and on 4 Oct 2018 was sentenced to 28 years in prison (Reuters, 4 Oct 2018). MEDIA: photo HELD (candidate: Wikimedia Commons photograph of Suge Knight in the Death Row Records era; no file page was read at file-page level in this pass, so no image is cleared — CTL-PHOTO-001; a CTL-created graphic is the standing alternative); chart FILLED (charts/chart-temp-1538-suge-knight.svg); video HELD (Shorts Link Map checked by name and variants — no matching-entity CTL Short); audio HELD (no rights basis). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging.)
Relationships
- 2Pac — collaborated with
Knight posted Tupac Shakur's (CTL-E-5379) $1.4 million bail in October 1995 and signed him to Death Row Records, which released All Eyez on Me in 1996 (Wikipedia; Reuters, 4 Oct 2018). - Dr. Dre — collaborated with
Suge Knight co-founded Death Row Records with Dr. Dre (CTL-E-5355) in 1991, and the label's first release era was built on Dre's The Chronic (1992) (Wikipedia; Reuters, 4 Oct 2018). - Snoop Dogg — collaborated with
As Death Row's chief executive, Knight released Snoop Dogg's (CTL-E-5381) debut album Doggystyle (1993), the label's second album release (Wikipedia; Reuters, 4 Oct 2018).
Sources
- Reuters, 'Onetime rap mogul Marion 'Suge' Knight sentenced to 28 years for manslaughter' (4 Oct 2018) — Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records, pleaded no contest on 20 Sept 2018 to voluntary manslaughter for the 29 Jan 2015 hit-and-run death of Terry Carter and was sentenced to 28 years in prison — https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crime-knight/onetime-rap-mogul-marion-suge-knight-sentenced-to-28-years-for-manslaughter-idUSKCN1ME12H/ (primary source · build store)
- Wikipedia, 'Suge Knight' — Marion Hugh Knight Jr., born 19 April 1965, Compton, California; co-founder and former CEO of Death Row Records; played at UNLV and briefly for the Los Angeles Rams in 1987; posted Tupac Shakur's $1.4 million bail in October 1995; eligible for parole in October 2034 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suge_Knight (build store)
- CNN, 'Duane Davis sentenced to 40 years to life for the death of Tupac Shakur' (13 Oct 2026) — in the October 2026 Las Vegas trial coverage, Knight, the Death Row co-founder who survived the 1996 shooting, ultimately did not take the stand — https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/13/us/tupac-shakur-duane-davis-sentencing-trial?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_meta (build store)
- V101.9 WBAV, reporting ABC News, 'Knight Refuses to Testify in Tupac Murder Trial Despite Being Sole Living Witness' (12 Aug 2026) — Knight, 61, interviewed from a California prison where he is serving 28 years for voluntary manslaughter, told ABC News he would not testify in the Duane Davis trial — https://v1019.com/2026/08/12/knight-refuses-to-testify-in-tupac-murder-trial-despite-being-sole-living-witness/ (build store)
Photograph · rights-cleared record, CultureTechLens Photo Rights Log
Suge Knight in 2007
Nick Leisure, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · view at source
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Record CTL-E-6082 · Combined Graph record U-07303 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 4 sources · 3 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.
Cite this record
Chicago: CultureTechLens. “Suge Knight (CTL-E-6082).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-6082/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). Suge Knight (CTL-E-6082) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Combined Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-6082/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “Suge Knight (CTL-E-6082).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-6082/
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