VMA Pre-Party Turns Into A Bloodshed

Things went terribly wrong at a VMA pre-party hosted by Chris Brown, in a nightclub in Los Angeles. Death Row Records founder and rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight was shot six times in early hours of Sunday morning. He is expected to survive.

Knight was one of three people in the club that got struck by gunfire around 1:30 a.m. at 1OAK on West Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard. Two other victims, a man and a woman, are also treated at local hospitals and are stable. Authorities are still seeking a suspect and declined to release additional information, due to the ongoing investigation.

The shooting came just hours before MTV’s Video Music Awards. R&B singer and all-around trouble maker Chris Brown, who was co-hosting a party at the nightclub with Pia Mia, was also inside the club but he has not been injured.

MTV immediately issued a statement in which they claim that they had no affiliation or connection to the event and that it was Chris Brown’s party.

Although he didn’t mention the shooting directly, Brown seemed to refer to it in his tweet: “It’s disappointing that we as a society can’t have fun or enjoy ourselves without any altercations sometimes. Miss me with the bulls—!!!”

This is not the first time that Knight has been shot. In 2005, he was struck in the leg during (ironically another) MTV awards pre-party in Miami Beach.

Knight is a legend in the world of rap and hip-hop. His keen eye and ear for talent helped him land and make megastars out of Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.

He basically shifted the centre of the rap universe to the West Coast, during the 90’s. Knight co-founded Death Row Records in 1991 with Dr. Dre, who had broken with the legendary Compton rap group N.W.A.

Dr. Dre’s solo debut album, “The Chronic,” became one of the most profitable and influential rap albums of the 1990s. It also made a star of Snoop Dogg, whose debut album “Doggystyle” was also widely popular.
During the drive-in shooting in which legendary rapper Tupac was killed, Knight was behind the wheel of Tupac’s veichle.

 In the many speculations on who was behind Shakur’s murder, Knight is one of the main suspects. This speculation is based on the fact that Shakur wanted to form his own record company, which would leave Death Row Records without a huge income.

Financial troubles also eventually lead to Death Row Records filing for bankruptcy. Over the past two decades, Knight has been in and out of jail due to parole violations and physical attacks relating to a “rap war” he fueled with East Coast artists.