SCOTT SIMON, host:
This is Weekend Edition from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.
(Soundbite of song "Thugz Mansion")
Mr. TUPAC SHAKUR: (Singing) A place to spend my quiet nights, time to unwind So much pressure in this life of mine, I cry at times...
SIMON: Tomorrow, just outside Los Angeles, the remaining assets of Death Row Records will go on the auction block. Death Row helped launch a generation of West Coast hip-hop artists, including Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur. But Shakur was gunned down in 1996 when feuds broke out between the company's founders Suge Knight and Dr. Dre. Then in 2005, Death Row was unable to pay a $107 million judgment, awarded to woman that contended that she helped found the company. Death Row Records was forced to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy the following year. Steve Grove, president of the auction company Kohn-Megibow. Mr. Grove said he expects bidders from around the country to converge on the auction for a chance to buy pieces of hip-hop history including Suge Knight's cigars and engraved cases, framed gold and platinum records, fitness equipment, even a model of an electric chair used in the Death Row logo and on some of its videos.
Mr. STEPHEN GROVE (President, Kohn-Megibow): The most interesting thing, really, probably is the electric chair. Then also some of the paintings are, you know, they're rather bizarre and close to pornographic. Of course, the other thing that caught my eye from a dollars and cents standpoint is the hundred of thousands of CDs in their original wrappings.
SIMON: Grove says one potential bidder might be WIDEawake Entertainment Group which just purchased Death Row catalogue for $18 million. Death Row has sold millions of albums worldwide, WIDEawake might bring Death Row back from the grave to sell a few more.
(Soundbite of song "Ain't Nutt'N But G Thang")
SNOOP DOGG: (Rapping) ...goin crazy, Death Row is the label that pays me unfadeable so please don't try to fade this
Dr. DRE: Hell yeah
SNOOP DOGG: (Rapping) But a back to the lecture at hand perfection is perfected so I'ma let em understand from young G's perspective and before me (unintelligible) I have to find a contraceptive you neva know she could be earn'n her man and learn'n her man and at the same time burn'n her man