Hip-Hop Artist Sues Death Row Records

Hip-hop producer and composer Delmar Arnaud, known in the rap world as “Daz Dillinger,” has sued Death Row Records, alleging the record label and its controversial founder, Marion “Suge” Knight, cheated Arnaud out of more than $1 million.

“Death Row and Suge Knight exploited Daz shamelessly,” says the lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court. “They collected tens of millions of dollars in record sales and royalties. They violated agreement after agreement. . . . Greed knew no bounds at Death Row.”

Death Row officials declined to comment.

Arnaud is one of Death Row’s original artists, signing on with the Los Angeles record label in 1993. The company is expected to score a top 20 hit on the pop chart this week with a newly released collection from Arnaud’s group, Tha Dogg Pound.

Knight was released from a federal prison in Oregon on Monday after serving five years. He was incarcerated in October 1996, when a judge determined that the burly rap kingpin had violated his probation by kicking a man during a scuffle at a Las Vegas hotel. Knight had been placed on state probation after attacking two rappers at a Hollywood recording studio in 1992.

Arnaud wrote more than 100 songs from 1993 to 1999, composing numbers for some of hip-hop’s biggest names, including M.C. Hammer, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg. According to the lawsuit, Arnaud’s work generated more than $15 million in record sales during his more than seven-year association with Death Row and Knight.

The suit also contends that Arnaud was bullied into signing renegotiated contracts with Death Row in 1997 and 1998 without the benefit of an outside audit. Contract negotiations “were accompanied by the deliberate withholding of funds owed and threats of physical violence,” the suit said.

Arnaud received $75,000 as an initial payment under the 1998 agreement, the suit said. The 1998 agreement was supposed to supersede earlier agreements, but the two sides disagree over whether Arnaud is owed royalties under those previous agreements.

Arnaud says Death Row failed to pay recording costs, in addition to royalties. He will not know exactly how much he is owed until Death Row’s financial records are audited, the suit said.