So today HipHopDX, HipHopBlog Reason4Rhymes are reporting that Death Row records has been sold to an undisclosed "publicly traded company".  Apparently New Solutions Financial which owns Death Row has gone bankrupt, and the company plans to sell the "historical" label and its entire catalog.  This indicting statement  from Jonathan Hays, the label's recent ex-publicist, paints a different picture than what some of us would have imagined business at Death Row looking like.

Honestly, we are not surprised by the bankruptcy as we have been actively involved with eight of the Death Row Records' releases over the last four years and have seen the problems firsthand. Time and time again we tried to use our influence to get new mixing and mastering for these re-releases because we knew the albums sounded piss-poor from a sonic standpoint. Even though we helped put together a lot of the artwork over the years, we were never happy with the end result and how it looked, as most of our visual ideas weren't executed as we requested. We wanted every Death Row release to look and feel like a box set with the highest quality of work because we felt that every project deserved that kind of treatment. Most of our ideas for publicity and marketing were shot down, even though we were paid to do the job. Over the years, we have argued, fussed, kicked and screamed with the staff of WIDEawake Death Row over the decisions being made, all across the board. In my opinion, the fatal problem of the company was the inexperience of the people involved, who at times seemed to prideful to accept direction.

Someone is a little bitter. God knows why these ignorant musicians and music industry folks didn't take sound mastering advice from their publicist, but it is clearly the source of this bankruptcy. The musical sage, and genius Jon Hay continues below:

 It was around this time last year that we had Snoop Dogg, with the help of Big Holis, willing to sit down with WIDEawake to discuss the possibility of becoming the face of Death Row Records again. As exciting as this could have been, WIDEawake rejected the idea. With this new company taking over Death Row, hopefully some of our ideas will finally be implemented to help preserve the Death Row Records catalog and legacy.

Who is Snoop Dog? He certainly couldn't mean Snoop Lion, the meta-hood who through spiritual revelation and weed transcended violence to become the worlds first true gangster of peace (as well as securing a spot in what will be the second Justice League movie). But if he did, it sure doesn't seem logical for Snoop Lion to return to poster-boy status at the label he proliferated violent music and mentality (and just plain violence, occasionally)at for his entire pre-career?  The very name of the label is death row, which people may not realize is a reference to "death row" where real death penalty inmates wait to actually die. Pretty dark for the rasta prince eh? Below we have a vid clip from Snoops killing days, from his 2006 movie "Hood of Horrors"  and a track with him pretending not to want to murder you. Jon Hay and I support a return to full gangsta regalia.