Death Row Records acquired for $25 million at auction

Global Music Group buys assets of Tupac Shakur, Dre and Snoop

Tom Porter, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 3:04 pm UTC

Death Row Records acquired for $25 million at auction

2Pac, Snoop, Suge and... lederhosen?

Tennessee-based independent label Global Music Group has acquired Death Row Records for $25 million. As of today, Global Music owns the rights to Death Row's back-catalogue of artists including Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur.

Death Row's founder Marion 'Suge' Knight was forced to file for bankruptcy after a judge demanded he pay co-founder Lydia Harris $107 million. Death Row was put into receivership and its assets were made available via auction - Global Music Group beat Warner Music and EverGreen Copyrights to the punch.

Billboard.com spoke to David Schulhof, EverGreen's co-CEO, about the sale and Death Row's jagged history of unpaid bills: "Honestly, it became too expensive. Whether Death Row still has to pay those songwriters or not as a function of law or whether the court wiped that out is not clear. Global Music Group may wake up and have a nasty surprise".

What will come as no surprise to Global Music are the alleged 20 unreleased Tupac tracks – perhaps we'll see a new album before the year is out?