These people will be around, the question is, how big will they get without Death Row? Honestly, probably just as big as they got anyway. Tupac had been signed with Interscope for the beginning of his career, and Andre Young was the co-founder of Death Row, and was probably the real impetus for it's founding. It was in fact Knight's shakedown of Vanilla Ice in the PoD that got them the money. If Van Winkle dies and Knight kills him, that means no Death Row immediately, but there's no reason Young couldn't find the money elsewhere and make Death Row himself while Knight's in prison.
We almost certainly would see the East-Coast-West-Coast rivalry be butterflied away however. No Death Row, or at least no Death Row under Knight would mean no Death Row-Bad Boy feud, which means no Tupac-Wallace feud, and if you don't have those two feuds there's no feud at all. At the very least, any such feud would look very different and probably come later than OTL.
Ultimately this might mean the continued survival of famous rappers like Tupac and Biggie. Death Row would continued to survive and accrue famous acts. Overall a better world for rap I think.
There's a timing issue I am not entirely clear on here. Namely, did Knight and Van Winkle's confrontation happen before or after Andre Young was able to extricate himself from Ruthless Records, allegedly with a heavy helping hand from Knight? If "Dr. Dre" is stuck at Ruthless, that's going to have an enormous impact. That situation would mean
The Chronic never happens, and consequently Calvin Broadus' career never happens and g-funk never happens. That's going to have a wide reaching impact on Rap Music, which is not entirely predictable. If it happened afterward, Young could just sign with a different label. And in that case, we see
The Chronic released on an established label, perhaps minus references to Death Row, unless its used for the rappers in Dre's orbit ITTL rather than being the name of a record label. Perhaps Broadus' career could be prevented if the label refuses to sign Broadus along with Young. But conceivably,
The Chronic could simply be released on an established label. Or are you arguing that Andre Young could have found the money to found Death Row Records before December 1991? If so, from where?
In terms of Shakur and Wallace, that really depends on a lot of things which can be easily be butterflied. Assuming Shakur's trial still happens here, and he still goes to prison, it's an open question when Shakur actually leaves prison. Historically it was Knight who paid bail for Shakur while his case was on appeal. Here, Shakur may be stuck in prison. But otherwise, assuming the 1994 shooting still happens, there would still probably be a degree of animosity towards Wallace on the part of Shakur, even without Knight to encourage it.
Shakur seems to have genuinely believed that Wallace and Combs were to some degree responsible for that shooting. The specific accusation differed from an allegation that Wallace and Combs planned the attack, that they knew about it in advance and failed to warn Shakur, and that the shooters were affiliated with Wallace and Bad Boy Records even if Bad Boy per se wasn't behind the attack. Note, I'm not actually saying Shakur was right about any of these accusations, I merely think he did actually believe what he was saying about the incident, and his feud with Wallace and Bad Boy was not merely a matter of him following Suge Knight's orders. If Shakur still believes some form of these sorts of accusations, he's probably still going to be inclined to feud with Wallace with or without Knight. The problem is, without Knight, all else equal, Shakur would have been stuck in prison. But butterflies being what they are, the incident in question might not happen, or Shakur could be killed.
