News of April 26, 2021
Death Row Catalog Moves to Blackstone with eOne
Hasbro sells eOne Music to Blackstone for $385 million. The package includes Death Row-and with it, Tupac's 1996 albums.
$385 million for a package that also included Death Row: On April 26, 2021, Hasbro announced it was selling its music business eOne Music to financial investor Blackstone. According to Billboard, eOne also owned the rap catalog of Death Row Records. That directly affected Tupac: his two 1996 albums, All Eyez On Me and The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, were in that catalog.
Up to 40 Percent of Label Activity
Billboard later broke down just how much was at stake: in 2021, the two albums generated 393,000 and 66,000 album units. Tupac’s recordings accounted for 25 to 40 percent of total Death Row activity.
As of January 1, 2022, they disappeared from the label catalog, according to Billboard. In streaming services’ metadata, they were subsequently listed under Interscope. MNRK, as eOne was by then known, did not confirm this.
What happened next is covered in the report on Snoop Dogg’s purchase of Death Row. On the history of the label: Death Row Records.