Music publisher EverGreen, now best known as the owners of the 2 Live Crew, Third Eye Blind, MC Hammer and - most importantly - Tupac Shakur catalogues, has just signed a deal with WIDEawake, the Canadian company that acquired the assets of Death Row Records last January.
"After purchasing the Death Row catalog in January, WIDEawake began looking for a partner to help monetize their rights," David Schulhof, co-CEO of EverGreen, tells Billboard.com. "We already had a relationship through the estate of Tupac Shakur; WIDEawake was looking for an exclusive boutique company to help focus on licensing in the film, television, video game and ad world; and because we own the catalogs of Tupac and 2 Live Crew and Teddy Riley and others, they knew we already had experience in the genre. So, it just felt like the obvious choice for them to partner up with us for Death Row."
EverGreen has plans to pimp to the fullest work with the Death Row catalogue on licensing for film, TV, video games and more. They've already licensed tracks including "Nuttin' But A G Thang," "California Love" and "Gin N Juice" for TV shows and movies, and are said to be hard at work on remixes of the Death Row classics for video games.
Death Row will also begin issuing new albums, including yet another disc of unreleased Tupac material, which all conspiracy theorists can look forward to next year. Additionally, September 9th will see the re-release of the seminal album The Chronic titled The Chronic Re-Lit. The re-release will include four unreleased Dr. Dre tracks (but don't expect anything current) as well as a DVD featuring rare footage of Dre and other artists.
As if all that action wasn't enough reason to dust off the bandanas, WIDEawake/Death Row plans to also release several box sets this holiday season, including a four CD collection of previously unreleased Death Row master recordings, never before seen images and video footage. That'll run in tandem with the launch of a new brand extension called Hustle City, which will debut first as a graphic novel including a CD insert of music related to the story line. Presumably, an animated series and line of dead rapper colognes are set to follow.
In other words, Death Row is about to become the new KISS.
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