The legacy of Death Row Records is once again caught in a high-stakes legal dispute, with co-founder Lydia Harris filing a new lawsuit against Snoop Dogg, Suge Knight, and other heavyweights in the music industry. Harris alleges she was cheated out of a jaw-dropping $107 million judgment, a payment she was awarded almost two decades ago but never saw.
On March 18, 2025, Harris returned to the fray, suing Snoop, Suge, Death Row Records, Interscope Records, and music mogul Jimmy Iovine in Texas, claiming that the men engaged in an elaborate fraud scheme to keep her from collecting what she was owed. The defendants, she said, intentionally gamed the system by lying about financial records, filing fake motions, and ultimately filing bankruptcy to protect their money from her claims.
The lawsuit dates back to a default judgment that Harris obtained in March 2005 in Los Angeles Superior Court. She and her husband then, Michael “Harry-O” Harris, had invested $1.5 million to help start Death Row Records in 1989, earning a 50 percent stake in the now-legendary label. But as Death Row grew into a multi-million-dollar powerhouse, Harris says she was forced out and robbed of her just share of the profits. She prevailed in a $107 million judgment against Suge Knight and Death Row after a lengthy court fight, but she, by her account, never saw a dime of it.
Harris’s latest filing alleges Knight and his associates made a concerted effort to thwart her efforts to collect her judgment. The suit alleges that Death Row and its affiliates deceived the courts with false filings and court motions while abusing Chapter 11 and subsequent Chapter 7 bankruptcy protections to wipe out debts and avoid payouts.
In an explosive revelation, Harris also alleges that the defendants engaged in “systematic misrepresentation and fraudulent telecommunications directed at the Plaintiff in Texas,” implying they operated to conceal their wrongdoing and hinder Harris from receiving her funds.
Although Suge Knight has always been the figurehead behind Death Row’s posthumous fight against the law, Snoop Dogg is now named in the lawsuit because he bought Death Row Records in February 2022. Snoop purchased the legendary label from MNRK Music Group and has since been focused on restoring its legacy. Harris maintains that the debts and financial responsibilities associated with the label shouldn’t have fallen away just because of a change in ownership. She is now seeking full financial accounting, punitive damages, and complete recovery of all assets owed to her.
This new filing is another chapter in Harris’ decades-long search for justice. She has had to fight for years to have her role recognized and compensated, having filed suit against Knight and Death Row in 2002 for a cut of the profits from starting one of hip-hop’s most influential record labels.
How will Snoop address these claims since he is now running Death Row? Is this the last legal obstacle for the legendary label or the first of another round of courtroom drama? Death Row Records has never truly moved on from its past.
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