Kurupt

Ricardo Emmanuel Brown, better known by his stage name Kurupt, is an American rapper and record producer. Born in Philadelphia and raised in Hawthorne, California, he formed Tha Dogg Pound in 1992 along with Daz Dillinger; the rap duo has released eight albums.

Kurupt's tenure with Tha Dogg Pound alongside Daz Dillinger made him a pillar of Death Row's West Coast dominance, but his solo career revealed an artist equally comfortable in the trenches of rap beef as behind the boards. His 1998 debut *Kuruption!* and the grimier *Tha Streetz Iz a Mutha* proved he could operate independently from Suge Knight's shadow, trading bars with DMX over romantic entanglements involving Foxy Brown—a feud that rippled across the East Coast when Ja Rule got caught in the crossfire. Though his discography never matched his pedigree, Kurupt remained a respected voice throughout the 2000s, releasing *Space Boogie: Smoke Odyssey* and maintaining creative control through mixtapes that kept him relevant long after Death Row's collapse.