Canada's Death Row

Capital punishment was abolished in Canada in 1976, but the country once again has a Death Row.

Toronto's WIDEawake Entertainment Group purchased the assets of Death Row Records for $18 million U.S. on Thursday, making it the owner of master recordings — including a significant amount of previously unreleased material — by the likes of Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.

The notorioius hip-hop label once headed by Suge Knight was put up for auction after it filed for bankruptcy protection, and WIDEawake came out as the surprise winner. WIDEawake was formed three years ago by Lara Lavi to develop entertainment projects in film, music, television, production and technology. Its record label has Canadian distribution through Universal, but nothing in the U.S. That should change with Death Row's acquisition.

I've done some work with the people at WIDEawake and it just seems odd for such decent people to now be overseeing the company that was renowned for its thuggish practices under Knight. But congratulations to everyone there, and to the label's current focus artist, Sean Jones. He's a truly nice person, even if he doesn't know dick about SOCAN, and hopefully this deal should help open doors for him, too.