Brian Nagata / Rapzines Collection

Abrams, Jonathan. “A Higher Level of Execution: Los Angeles, 1992-1993.” In The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop. New York: Crown, 2022.

FROM THE JANUARY 2009 DEATH ROW RECORDS OFFICE AUCTION, A 19 MAGAZINE COLLECTION FEATURING SOME OF THE LABEL'S GREATEST COVER STORIES

Founded by Dr. Dre, the D.O.C., American producer Dick Griffey, and Dre's former bodyguard Marion "Suge" Knight in 1991, Death Row Records dominated the West Coast Hip Hop charts, becoming synonymous with gangster rap🌄 by the end of the decade (Abrams, 321).

Death Row introduced themselves to the culture with Dr. Dre's solo debut The Chronic in 1992, an album which would pioneer the gangsta rap subgenre of G-funk and would peak at number 3 on the Billboard 200 charts, with United States sales going upwards of 3 million copies. The Chronic also introduced the new generation of gangsta rappers with features from Snoop Doggy Dogg, Warren G, and Nate Dogg. Following The Chronic with Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle in 1993 and Tupac Shakur's All Eyez on Me in 1996, Death Row became responsible for producing some of Hip Hop's earliest classics😼. Death Row's hold on the West Coast industry held until the mid-2000s, being sold from conglomerate to conglomerate until purchased outright by one of the label's earliest artists, Snoo♉p Dogg in 2022.

The present lot 𒆙hails from an auction held at the Death Row Offices in January 2009, a small piece of the label's in house library collecting issues of classic Hip Hop publications featuring Death Row artists as cover story features.