Murder trial exposes the double life of a hip-hop pioneer

Before he was gunned down in his Queens recording studio in 2002 in what prosecutors say was a drug deal gone wrong, Jam Master Jay of the New York hip-hop trio Run-DMC faced a dire situation.

“The money wasn't coming in,” an assistant U.S. attorney, Miranda Gonzalez, told jurors in the Brooklyn federal trial of two men accused of killing Jam Master Jay, which began late last month. “But people still depended on him.”

While Run-DMC, which had spearheaded hip-hop's mainstream explosion in the 1980s, retreated from the charts and MTV playlists, Jam Master Jay – born Jason Mizell – struggled financially and turned to the drug trade to to meet his obligations, prosecutors and witnesses say.

A pioneering DJ and role model who publicly campaigned against drug use, Mr. Mizell led a double life in his final years, according to testimony and court documents: He worked as a drug middleman while managing intertwined public roles: entertainer, record label owner, father of three and financial lifeline for family members, colleagues and friends.

Mr. Mizell lent money to “everyone who was around him,” Michael Rapley, one of five other people in the Queens studio when Mr. Mizell was shot on Oct. 30, 2002, told jurors. When Mr. Rapley's mother died, Mr. Mizell paid for her funeral, he testified.

Mr. Mizell, the turntable artist who provided the record scratches and thumping beats for Run-DMC's music, was still able to make money performing with the group and as a solo act in the 1990s and 2000s.

But he spent more time in his studio on Merrick Boulevard in Queens — near Hollis, where he grew up and first became famous — producing music from younger hip-hop acts he recruited to his label, JMJ Records, and trying to help them to replicate. his own breakthrough.

Mr. Rapley said Mr. Mizell produced his music and never charged him for studio time. By the end of his Run-DMC career, as Mr. Rapley put it, Mr. Mizell was a member of hip-hop royalty and enjoying a second act as a producer and music manager.

But he also transported drugs for cash, prosecutors said, quietly acting as a middleman between cocaine suppliers and street vendors for at least six years before his death.

One of the defendants on trial, Ronald Washington, 59, also known as Tinard, was a childhood friend of Mr. Mizell who helped him sell the drugs and then plotted to kill him when Mr. Mizell cut him out of a potentially lucrative cocaine deal deleted. , prosecutors said.

In the days before Mr. Mizell's death, Mr. Washington — who had already been in prison for heroin distribution — slept on a couch in the DJ's childhood home in Queens, which, according to testimony, was then occupied by the elder sister of Mr. Mizell. .

Mr. Washington's co-defendant, Karl Jordan Jr., 40, who prosecutors say was the shooter, was Mr. Mizell's godson. He grew up across the street from Mr. Mizell and was still living at that address at the time of the murder.

Mr. Jordan was 18 when Mr. Mizell was killed and had no adult criminal record when he and Mr. Washington were arrested in 2020, although prosecutors said in a filing that Mr. Jordan had been in the drug trade for several years and the charges included several additional narcotics distribution charges against him.

A third defendant, Jay Bryant, who was charged last year in connection with the killing, will be tried separately. All three men have pleaded not guilty.

As Mr. Mizell met competing demands in his close circle toward the end of his life, he became “nervous” enough about his personal safety to arm himself, according to a cousin who worked for Mr. Mizell's record label.

“It wasn't until just before his death that I saw him carrying a gun,” the cousin, Stephon Watford, testified. When a lawyer asked why Mr. Mizell felt he needed a firearm, Mr. Watford replied: “We haven't talked about it.”

Mr. Mizell continued to keep elite company in popular music circles later in his career, touring arenas with Run-DMC in the summer of 2002 when the group opened for Aerosmith, the collaborators of the seminal 1986 hip-hop remake of the hit of the rock band. Walk this way.”

Days before his death, Mr. Mizell reconnected with Queens-born rapper Curtis Jackson — better known as 50 Cent — during a trip to the Midwest, according to testimony. Five years earlier, Mr. Mizell a track for Mr. Jackson and released it on JMJ. When they met in Chicago, 50 Cent had recently signed a $1 million recording contract with rap icons Dr. Dre and Eminem and worked on his debut, which would become the best-selling album in the United States in 2003.

But as the riches continued to flow to other artists and record labels, Mr. Mizell's business stumbled. Mr. Watford, who did promotional work for Mr. Mizell and JMJ, testified that his pay sometimes bounced. When they did, he knew he had to wait until Mr. Mizell returned from tour.

“He wanted to put his hand in his pocket to make sure I was okay,” Mr Watford said.

Mr. Mizell kept his ties to the drug trade largely secret. A convicted drug dealer, Ralph Mullgrav, testified under subpoena that he sometimes bought cocaine from Mr. Mizell in quantities of one or two kilos to resell, according to The Associated Press.

“Jason was not a drug dealer,” Mr. Mullgrav said. “He just used it to make ends meet.”

Fans knew or remembered Run-DMC mainly for the group's upbeat songs about sneakers (“My Adidas”), children's songs (“Peter Piper”) and everyday problems (“It's Like That”), even when rap got tougher. In the 1990s, Run-DMC's successors rhymed explicitly about drug trafficking and gang wars.

Jam Master Jay even once had one “Say No to Drugs” public service announcement with his Run-DMC bandmates: Joseph Simmons, known as Run, and Darryl McDaniels, who went by DMC.

The wall that Mr. Mizell tried to maintain between his different worlds collapsed that October evening in 2002, when prosecutors said Mr. Jordan and Mr. Washington entered the lounge at Mr. Mizell's studio, where he was playing a video game was playing and talking to an assistant. , Uriel Rincon. Another employee, Lydia High, was nearby.

A few feet away, behind a closed door, three people were in the studio's control room, according to testimony. Among them were Mr. Rapley; Randy Allen, Mr. Mizell's JMJ business partner; and an aspiring singer, Yarrah Concepcion, who auditioned for her songs.

A silver pistol belonging to Mr. Mizell was clearly located in the lounge, Mr. Rincon and Ms. Concepcion testified. It remained there untouched, Mr. Rincon said, until Mr. Mizell was shot and Mr. Allen — who emerged from the control room — grabbed the gun and ran out the front door of the studio after the two attackers.

In his testimony, Mr. Rincon, who was hit in the leg by a bullet, identified Mr. Jordan as the shooter and Mr. Washington as the accomplice after telling investigators for years that he did not recognize the attackers.

Mr. Rincon, who had pursued a career as a music manager and called Mr. Mizell a friend and mentor — “He was friends with everyone,” Mr. Rincon testified — said he moved from New York for a while after the killing. . He was “afraid” to cooperate with investigators and was under so much “stress and duress” that he sought professional mental health care, he told attorneys who questioned him.

Mr. Watford, who subsequently became a 2008 documentary about Mr. Mizellcompared him to an older brother.

“He took me on a trip,” he testified. “Whatever blessings he had in his life, he made me a part of them.”

Karen Zraick reporting contributed.