Back in the early 90's the hip hop scene was well on its way out of infancy, and it began to gain the attention of the mainstream and major record labels. It reached the eye of the public and moved full throttle into the phenomenon it would soon become. I'm from the East Coast and I respect what my coast did for the hip hop culture, but it was the West Coast to officially put hip hop on the map, and the real thanks goes to Dr. Dre and Suge Knight of Death Row Records. The record label grabbed the music world by the throat and eventually became the most powerful entity in hip hop. Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog, Kurupt, Daz, and 2 Pac, all lead the charge. In truth, they had the rap game in a smash for about a solid 5 years. This DVD, Death Row Uncut, features some of the most popular music videos that made the MC's careers.

Hosted by Suge Knight, this feature is said to be too gangsta for TV. In other words, you get the whole deal; X-Rated music videos, uncensored videos, and all. Unfortunately, Suge Knight proves along being a ledge-dropper, he's also a ball dropper because this is one seriously weak release, and this is not coming from a West Coast hater either. On the contrary, a true lover of hip hop who was terribly disappointed with this lackluster product.

I'll talk about the good first. Despite the issues I have with it, there's a good selection of videos off The Chronic and Doggystyle album's; Dre Day, Nuthin' But a G Thang, Gin & Juice, Hit' Em Up, What Would You Do? and others. The videos no doubt took me back and put me in a blunts and brew thing mood. The highly offensive videos like DJ Quik - Mo Pussy, and 2 Pac featuring K-Ci and Jo Jo - How Do You Want It?, are in full X-rated glory. They are very stripper heavy with full nudity pushing the envelop towards X-rated, packed with full profanity in the lyrics and everything. During certain moments the DVD lives up to its claim of being "Too gangsta for TV."

Now this is where the DVD just clearly sucks. Almost all of the songs are the clean versions, full of bleeps, blocked out tits and chronic leafs. In short, this is MTV censored shit here which is totally unforgivable when looking at how the DVD is billed. The picture quality really isn't much and the sound can sometimes be low as hell. Suge Knight is going on in light commentary but you can barely hear what he's saying. The videos also aren't in their entirety, as they just cut off with like a minute to it, and Natural Born Killaz featuring Dr. Dre and Ice Cube cuts off after the second verse with Cube. This really sucks since this video was uncensored and well, it was always bad ass to begin with. On top of this, instead of adding in some good archived footage or maybe more videos, there are some live performance cuts I really couldn't get into, and in the case of Hit Em' Up for example, the actual video switches in between with the live performance, and last but not least, there'a a group of guys working as the interlude between the videos taking shots at all former Death Row affiliates, with Dr. Dre taking most of the heat rounds, and them getting on that little gay rumor started by Eazy-E when they were beefing. Suge should have focused more on giving the fans more, instead of his feud with Dre and Snoop which was running at the time. The DVD really does have a weak feel to it.

In closing, Death Row Uncut really doesn't completely live up to its billing. And as a fan, I can't just sing its praises or even recommend it. I'll just say this, if you were a serious, die-hard fan of the record label and its artists, then go ahead and pick it up.

Pros:
-Has that nostalgic feel

Cons:
-An overall lazy product