Michael Ray Harris

Michael Ray Harris — known widely as "Harry-O" — was born in Los Angeles in 1960. After dropping out of West Los Angeles Community College and quitting his job before his 20th birthday, he built one of the most expansive street-level cocaine and crack operations in Southern California's history. Working alongside his brother David, and drawing on networks that included both Bloods and Crips sets as well as the Cali Cartel, Harris grew his drug enterprise to a reported $2 million in daily revenue. Alongside the drug operation, he invested proceeds into legitimate Los Angeles businesses — a deli, a beauty salon, a limousine service, an electrical company, and a theatrical production company — including financing the 1988 Broadway play Checkmates, which marked Denzel Washington's debut on that stage. In 1987, before the federal case, Harris received a 28-year California state prison sentence for the kidnapping and attempted murder of James Lester, a relative and member of his own drug ring. He was subsequently charged in federal court for the drug operation itself. On November 26, 1990, Harris was convicted in federal court of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and aiding and abetting possession with intent to distribute cocaine. The federal conviction covered the large-scale cocaine distribution network he had run across multiple states. From prison, Harris played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in American music history. In late 1991, he connected his attorney David Kenner with Marion "Suge" Knight, and invested $1.5 million to co-found Godfather Entertainment — the parent company of Death Row Records, which went on to launch the careers of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur, and generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. Because he was incarcerated, his wife Lydia formally held his stake. Death Row is widely credited as one of the most commercially dominant — and culturally consequential — hip-hop labels in history.