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Kurupt Gets Advice From Snoop & Daz On His Signing With Tha Row
01/27/2002 10:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Mark Armstrong
(1/27/02, 10 a.m. ET) -- The recent announcement of Kurupt's decision to sign with Tha Row, formerly Death Row Records, sparked widespread commotion in hip-hop circles. The Snoop Dogg protege, who is one half of the platinum rap duo Tha Dogg Pound, was previously signed to Death Row, but Kurupt left the label to establish his own ANTRA label with Artemis in 1998.
While on the set of the Roger Troutman tribute video shoot on Wednesday (January 23), LAUNCH spoke to Kurupt about rejoining the label headed by controversial label CEO Suge Knight, who has been on a press tour promoting Tha Row and lambasting Dr. Dre and P. Diddy. Kurupt said, "Well, I've been deciding on it for a year, talking back and forth to him. You know, really thinking, 'cause I got kids man. It ain't a decision of myself. Not only do I got kids, I got a whole organization behind me that I have to look out for, talent, artists. I got my mama with me. So it's a lot of people behind me, that's depending on me to make right decisions in different ways. Me going here wasn't just for myself. It was for my whole family. I went to the place where I felt they was going to enhance me more to be a businessman, and f--k a artist. I'm the king of being an artist. Can't nobody see on that mic. They never will, never can," he said.
At Tha Row, which also includes new signing TLC's Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes (now known as N.I.N.A.), Kurupt will serve in an executive capacity as the senior vice president. His first release will be the Tha Row artist Crooked I.
LAUNCH also asked Kurupt if he has received any input from his friends in the rap community, namely Snoop Dogg, who was upset when Death Row released Dead Man Walking, an album of his previously unreleased material. "I talked to them to find out what they think because that is my big homie, and they are people I look up to as well as, I need to know. What you think, you know. I hollered at the homies. I hollered at Daz. Daz is always going to stay with me no matter what. Of course I had to holler at the homies to find out what they thought about it. And all of them, the majority of them, the main thing they said was, 'You know what you facing. Stay safe. Do right,'" he said.
Artemis Records released a statement saying that Kurupt was still signed to its label. Kurupt is creating a new label, Trigger Men, which will be a subsidiary of Tha Row.
Tha Dogg Pound's 1995 debut Dogg Food has been certified double platinum.
-- Billy Johnson Jr., Los Angeles
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