I agree.. But he was calling the shots at one point when he had Dre,snoop, tupac and others..
Because they were terrified of him. He basically ordered Dre dead after he left the label (Dre was a cofounder of Death Row) and some gang heavies had to intercede on Dre's behalf to call off the contract because they felt it would do too much damage to hip hop and the black community generally if they bumped off the top producer (at the time).
Tupac tried to leave Death Row but Suge showed him a ledger at a closed-door meeting one day where Pac's costs to the company hadn't been paid off with his record earnings, impressive though they were. The luxury cars, the videos, the dancers, the expensive restaurants, the studio time...as Suge told him menacingly that day, "There's to rap than just rapping, homie. You ain't paid us back yet." He was Knight's prisoner and died largely because of being pulled into Suge's beefs with some gangsters at the casino in Vegas (a lot of it was on tape).
Snoop was another one that Suge put out a hit on. Again, he had to beg his friends in hip hop and the crips to Knight out of smoking him. Suge didn't screw around...he was a real gangster. He also beat easy E to a pulp in 1991 to get him to release Dre from his contract with Jerry Heller's NWA. There was some dinner he had with his Death Row crew in the mid-'90s where he beat the living shit out of one of the guys at the table during the meal for allegedly stealing money from the company and skimming profits.
