Snoop Dogg announced earlier this month (2/9) that he had acquired the label that catapulted him to fame, Death Row Records. Fans immediately wondered just what the purchase included. Was it only the brand? Were the master recordings of our favorite songs included in the deal? What about unreleased material? According to Billboard, the deal for the labels catalog is still being negotiated. The Death Row recordings are reportedly still owned by MNRK Music and its parent company Blackstone (Blackstone purchased MNRK for 385 million in 2021). Sources say that when the deal closes it will not include some of the label’s biggest albums. MNRK purchased Death Row from the Hasbro company for $4 billion in 2019.

According to Billboard: “With Snoop Dogg having secured ownership of the Death Row Records brand, with plans to make it the first NFT label, the rapper is going to need content to convert into tokens and whatever digital formats become available in the evolving metaverse economy. That’s where his plan to but the Death Row Master Catalog apparently fits in.” As it stands now, the deal does not include some of Death Row’s most significant assets including Dr. Dre and 2Pac’s catalogs because they are “technically no longer on the label.”

“As of Jan. 1, 2022 2Pac’s two 1996 Death Row albums All Eyez On Me and The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory both appear to be on Interscope Records, based on metadata from various digital music services. MNRK refused to disclose whether ownership over those albums changed and wouldn’t confirm what albums they control."