WIDEawake Death Row Records Reportedly Being Sold In Wake Of Parent Company's Bankruptcy

Exclusive: A new company is slated to take over WIDEawake Death Row.

WIDEawake Death Row and its catalog is reportedly being sold to a publicly held company, HipHopDX has exclusively learned.

According to former Hoopla president and former Death Row publicist Jonathan Hay, New Solutions Financial Corp., a Canadian company that owns WIDEawake Death Row, has gone bankrupt and is selling both the label and catalog to a publicly held company. The deal is set to be closed on December 10th.

Hay explains that the label tried to release remastered and remixed versions of albums from the catalog over the pst four years but were not satisfied with the end results. He said that many of their ideas were shot down and was unhappy with the decisions of the staff at WIDEawake Death Row "across the board," blaming it on "inexperience."

The future of the label's distribution deal with eOne will be addressed in the forthcoming weeks. Read the full statement below.

New Solutions Financial Corp., the Canadian umbrella company that currently owns WIDEawake Death Row, is bankrupt. The historical record label and catalog is being sold to a publicly held company. Being on the inside, we are hearing that the deal will be closed on December 10th.  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. 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.  As far as our own distribution deal through WIDEawake Death Row and eOne, we will speaking with everyone about this transition after the holidays.

Daz Dillinger Reflects On Working With Tupac, Life At Death Row

Interviewer: I wanted to ask you about the Makaveli & Dilllinger Don’t Go 2 Sleep EP. What was the real story behind that album? When did you and ‘Pac put that together?

Daz Dillinger: We put that thing together when he got to Death Row ‘cause I had so many beats. Then when he died I had a lot of music, and it just seemed like everybody was trying to steal his music, so that’s why I came out with Makaveli & Dillinger: Don’t  Go 2 Sleep. And then the mom, Ms. Afeni Shakur sued me to get the masters, and that was cool with me ‘cause I wanted them to recognize that I had it and not Death Row, ‘cause [Suge Knight] was on some bullshit. Right now, off all those Tupac songs, I get 15%, just ‘cause I had the lyrics and all the other stuff. I’m cool with it.

Interviewer: So did ‘Pac just record tracks over these beats, or did you two have plans for an album?

Daz Dillinger: We always had plans to do albums. It was like... when he’d wake up in the morning, he’d come knock on my door like, “What beats you got?” You know, ‘cause I’m coming with the beats! So I always would give him beats first ‘cause he’d be the first one to hit me up, ‘cause he an early bird. Legitimately, he’d get up pretty early.

Then I made Makaveli & Dillinger after he died, ‘cause I had a lot of songs with him. And there’s some songs to this day that I haven’t heard. At least about 10-20 songs. And at the new Death Row [ownership], they don’t know what the fuck they doing, the just fucking all the shit up. They just putting shit out and not mixing it right. [Current Death Row Records President] John Payne think he the creator of Death Row, he [was] nothing but a studio mothafuckin’ intern. Now he over there running it and it’s like he over there trying to make deals with us, but ain’t trying to give us no money. Like, “Y'all come over here and promote this album.” Man, who the fuck is you? So I’m going to take an album that I just titled, make it the same title as yours- they made the Doggy Bag and we made Dogg Bag. So we like “Fuck you,” we got a new Dogg Pound album coming out, and it’s going to be hard. We got a movie to it too. Everything is visual now when you making music.

Interviewer: Have you been making videos at all for Witit Witit?

Daz Dillinger: Yeah I got two. I got “Once Again” and I got one in Atlanta called “Come Thru” with Schy Keaton, with bitches and hoes and ass and titties and shit. Women. And then I got another one I’m working on now called “4 Tha Hood” which I’m shooting in Long Beach, [California].

But you know, I’ma do videos for all these songs, they’re going to come out between the whole year, ‘cause I got another project coming out called Street Money. I had Witit Witit... I had two covers forStreet Money and one of them is the cover of this album. Witit Witit and Street Money were the same cover. But the Street Money album, that come with a scale. You can only get that on my website: the scale, CD, and then you get the regular album through the store and everywhere else. But you can only get the Street Money cover and scale through me. So I decided to say, “I’m going to keep theStreet Money original cover, do a remix [of the title track], put [Young Jeezy] and them on there, and then do these nine more songs and come out with Street Money around February. I create my own path, I distribute my own records

Interviewer: I just got one more ‘Pac question for you: back then there was the whole East Coast v. West Coast thing, but we know it wasn’t as clear cut as that. What was it like being able to vibe with ‘Pac, [Method Man and Redman] and record “Got My Mind Made Up”?

Daz Dillinger: Well how that story came was, I was at my house [in] Silver Lake, California. Kurupt called me. He was like, “I got [Method Man, Redman] and Inspectah Deck in my car, we fittin’ to do a song.” I’m like, “Cool,” plus [Lady of Rage] is over my house at the time. So the original song was me, Rage, Inspectah Deck, Redman, Method Man, Kurupt. [We] Laid the song down...I took it to Dr. Dre’s house to transfer it from DAT to tape-deck, and I forgot the tape-deck. Then I left and Dr. Dre heard it and played it for Tupac. Rage didn’t want to be on there ‘cause there were so many guys on there, so Tupac was like, “I’m taking her spot and I’m putting this on [All Eyez On Me].”

Interviewer: That’s crazy. When it started, was it going to be a Dogg Pound track at first?

Daz Dillinger: Yeah it was going to be a Dogg Pound track. Everything I produced was Dogg Pound. That was my first time even bustin’ with Red and Meth. We been friends ever since.

Interviewer: Switching gears a little bit, you talked about this next album coming out in February, you’re working on two movies, you’re always busy.

Daz Dillinger: Movies. Still working on albums. I got this one album that I’ve really been working on that I’m producing. I got Cam’ron on there, I got Freddie Gibbs, I got a lot of big names on this album. I’m just holding back ‘cause the title scares me. A lot of my friends been dying, family member been dying, and the name of this album is When We All Get to Heaven. So I don’t really be playing around with stuff like this, that’s why I gotta make this album- that’s why I ain’t even holding back on that album ‘cause I’m like, “Shit, I don’t want to come out with this if some shit going to happen to me” [Laughs]. You know how Rap go. Even Tupac talked about death, and it even [about] none of that shit.

So I just been holding on to the album right now, mixing it and just getting it together and coming out with that one in the middle of [2013]. I’ma drop Street Money then the other one. Just keeping it going, man.

Interviewer: Just curious because you’ve known him for so long, what were your thoughts on the Snoop Lion experiment?

Daz Dillinger: It was an experience for me, him- ‘cause I went to Jamaica to film, I’m in the movie. So you see that, I’m the joy and the laughter of the movie. I make people laugh when they get sad.

It was an experience for us. It was a culture experience, it was a knowledge experience, it was a life experience. Smoking and just as far as smoking being religion, and even eating right, getting your body in order. When you go to Jamaica, they don’t really like eating meat and dealing with shit that’s processed, they eat fruits, nuts, dairy, shit that’s natural. I like to eat shit that’s green, that’s growing. It’s not about eating something that’s dead; a leaf grows, so that’s going to keep your body going. Plenty of vegetables.

So I learned that from Snoop, I congratulated him, I just saw him the other day. We going on tour tomorrow, and that’s my cousin, my third-cousin. We had our childhood together, with no money, taking baths together, all that shit. 

Interviewer: Where’s the tour?

Daz Dillinger: We got an all-West Coast run from here [Los Angeles] to Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington to like Christmas. Then we go to India, Amsterdam, places like that. Then you know, me and Kurupt, we get back on the road we’re going to China and South Korea. Hip Hop take you all over the world, man. We been doing this for almost 25 years.

Still poppin’ and have money and can compete with anybody. If you look at some of these rappers that come out- this person, that person- but they can’t hang with us on stage, what they going to do? Two songs that they got, the new songs that they got? We could be on stage for what, 20 years? Just the first year alone is three hours on stage. Imagine if we did all the music we ever made, how long would that take on stage.

Interviewer: Yeah that would be a long show.

Daz Dillinger: That’s why we say. “We fittin’ to do the first five years on stage, then move to the other 10. Then we going to kick it to that 15-year, the 20-year, and shit going to be poppin’!” ‘Cause me and Kurupt been doing Tha Dogg Pound experience, we just do that album [Dogg Food] period. Just keeping it moving.

Interviewer: This is my last question. December 15 marks the 20th Anniversary of the release of The Chronic. In honor of that, what verse of your is your favorite from that album?

Daz Dillinger: “The outcome of this is destruction so the more fall / Niggas don't give a fuck so tem bust and before / Niggas backin up three black shows / No justice so they copied ya right / And here I am again.”

You know what song that is, right? That’s “The Day the Niggaz Took Over.” That’s me rapping the Jamaican part, which no one ever knew that was me rapping that part.

I did a lot of stuff on that album, and it’s one of the greatest... if it wasn’t for that album, ain’t nobody in the world be smoking. Like, really just be smoking real weed. Everybody be smoking some Reggie and some bullshit, they wouldn’t even know the word “Chronic.” All these rappers that’s rapping about weed now, we taught you how to smoke weed.