Marion Hugh Knight, Jr. (born April 19, 1965), better known as Suge Knight, is the co-founder and former CEO of Death Row Records. The record label rose to dominate the charts after Dr. Dre's breakthrough album The Chronic in 1992. After several years of chart successes for artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tha Dogg Pound, Death Row Records stagnated after Knight's incarceration on parole violation charges in September 1996.

Early life

Marion Knight was born in Compton, California. His name, Suge (), derives from "Sugar Bear", a childhood nickname.
He remained an excellent student and athlete, so much so that he won a football scholarship to University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he played collegiate football for several years.Rachael Levy, Former coaches portray Knight in positive light, Las Vegas Sun, September 10, 1996 , Accessed November 3, 2008. After school, he played professionally for the Los Angeles Rams as a replacement player during the 1987 NFL strike.imdb.com,Biography for Marion "Suge" Knight Accessed November 15, 2008 Later, he found work as a concert promoter and a bodyguard for celebrities including Bobby Brown.
Knight's legal problems began in 1987 when he faced auto theft, concealed weapon and attempted murder charges, ultimately receiving probation. Two years later, he formed his own music-publishing company, and allegedly made his first big fortune in the business by coercing Vanilla Ice into signing over royalties from his smash hit "Ice Ice Baby" owing to material that he supposedly sampled from one of Knight's company associates. (The possibly apocryphal story holds that Knight held Ice by his ankles off of a 20th-floor balcony, though in Ice's version, the threat was more implied.) Knight next formed an artist management company and signed prominent West Coast hip hop artists The D.O.C. and DJ Quik.