Death Row Records, once home to some of the biggest West Coast rappers, will head back to the auction block on January 15 as part of a Chapter 11 proceeding.

Death Row filed for Chapter 11 protection in April 2006, which allows a company to continue business operations while restructuring, listing debts of $137.4 million and $4.4 million in assets.

Since July of that year, companies such as Warner Music Group and Koch Records have bid for the label, but both say due diligence showed that inadequate record keeping made it difficult to ascertain the label’s valuation, let alone whether it was worth the $25 million bid both had made.

Rumour has it that 50 Cent wants to buy it.

I cant believe KOCH made a bid, that label is famous for not paying its bills at all, they were one of the "indie" labels that caused issues with Tower Records and Sam Goody for not giving credit on their cds that didnt sell. Their game was dump the product on the store, then the shit never sold, and then they wouldnt take it back. KOCH is also famous for its "illegal" tribute albums.

Who would want 2 be involved in this?

lastdecember said:

I didn't know Koch (distribution) did that? No wonder some stores didn't bother carrying their product.

Graycap23 said:

Can't the label's catalog just be purchased? I mean... no one is really making new (classic) records on Death Row anymore.

Cinnie said:

KOCH was infamous for this, every month i can remember trying to get them to take back their shit that they would dump on us, and they would always give the runaround and almost never take back their product, especially on those bogus "tribut" cds, which were illegal to begin with, we petitioned our buyers to STOP buying those things from them, but in some markets they were selling because alot of "companies" wanted to buy those things for background music.

lastdecember said:

The part about the tribute CDs was the only part I still really have no idea about.. probably I would have no interest as a customer in those CDs, but they were instrumental "muzak" MIDI cover versions of hot songs?

Cinnie said:

Yes they can but this just bad karma.

Graycap23 said:

Yeah, whoever chooses to deal with it, will soon be going nuts to the police claiming to see visions of Suge in the woods.....the thing is, it won't be visions, it'll actually be Suge in the woods. Otherwise, Dre or Snoop would had taken care of this a long time ago, but they too scared. And with good reason.

I can't stop laughing.

$137 million in debts and $4 million in assets?

Holy crap, that is just too freaking funny. I hate to see anyone lose money, but whoever extended those cats credit probably was going to lose everything sooner or later.