During Death Row’s dominant run in early nineties, Knight expressed plans of launching Death Row East, but they were stalled after he was sentenced to nine years in prison when he violated his probation during a brawl that also involved Tupac Shakur in a Las Vegas hotel in September of 1996.

“Everybody knows Lake is hot,” said Knight who was with Lake when he made the announcement. “It speaks for itself. It’s really important for me to sign somebody that can go back to their own neighborhood. My whole thing is that, far as the music business, it used to be fun. Its time for me to deal with people that don’t tell on me and I don’t tell on them.”

In the past five years, Lake has made a name for himself on the mixtape circuit and released a compilation titled Lake Entertainment Presents The 41st Side which boated features from Nas, Cormega, Nature, Havoc and other well-known Queensbridge rappers.

“We doing this for the streets” said Lake about the signing. “Death Row is back. The streets is ready, the penitentiary is ready. The foundation of what we doing [starts with] the music.”Knight also divulged that he plans to add incarcerated rapper Shyne to the Death Row East roster.