Death Row is DEAD. It is gone. It is no more. It has ceased all existence. The former rap powerhouse (and its owner Suge Knight)  filled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy over a year ago. But, the future of the company still seemed up in the air until recently. Finally, the dust has settled.

The Chronic:
     Most of the debt that Death Row created for itself (we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars here), has been settled or chocked up as a loss. Daz Dillenger famously received millions in a settlement last year, Afeni Shakur has showed Suge who's the boss on SEVERAL occasions, but there's one man who still needs closure: Andre "Your Favorite Producer" Young.
     Dre is filling suit against his, now defunct, former label. You see, the good doctor no longer legally owns the copyrights to The Chronic. In 1996 when tensions were high at the label, Dr. Dre agreed to relinquish his 50 percent ownership interest in Death Row Records. In the same agreement, Dr. Dre agreed to hand over copyrights to the album on the condition he continue receiving royalties.
     Ok, here's where it gets REALLY ugly: Dre's lawyers claim that their client hasn't received royalties in almost a decade. The new lawsuit claims that the copyrights belong to Dr. Dre because he "created, produced and was the principal performer on all master recordings for The Chronic." This lawsuit comes in the midst of rumors that the court-appointed bankruptcy administrator will try to sell the rights. In fact, stories are circulating that bids are already being placed on the copyrights (an idea that reportedly has Dre enraged).
 

The Detox:
Just before hurling himself into this legal mele', Dr. Dre had finally began piecing together his third album, the internationally anticipated Detox.  In 2000, when Dre first announced his next album would be his final, hip hop fans began salivating. That hunger has remained surprisingly constant over the past seven years. In fact, even if you are just a casual Dr. Dre fan, you get excited when the rumors come and go.
     But now, after almost a decade, the album is so close we can taste it. Guest spot confirmations are finally solidifying. So far, Jay-Z,  50 Cent, Floetry, Devin The Dude and The Rza are sitting on the star studded roster. The album's first track will be the amply titled "Intervention."
   But all of this begs the question, can Detox possibly live up to this astronomical hype. Can the expectations that years of anticipation cause ever be met? In a recent interview, 50 Cent noted:

He's working on it. I've recorded two songs for him. He's such a perfectionist. But sometimes that can be a bad thing. You create new pressure when you wait that long. When you put a new album against the last two classics, people will scrutinize it if they become impatient.
 

Will the wait be worth it? The ball is in Dre's court now.