by Ronin Ro
Epilogue
Wednesday, December 4, 2002, about five weeks after Jay’s murder, Run and D sat in the audience in Los Angeles’s Grand Olympic Auditorium. They were at an awards ceremony held by video channel VH1—the “Big in 2002 Awards”—and watching Kid Rock, Chuck D, and Grandmaster Flash perform the Run-D.M.C. classics “Sucker MCs,” “My Adidas,” “You Be Illin’,” “It’s Like That,” “Beats to the Rhyme,” and “Here We Go.” Kid Rock performed Run’s rhymes, Chuck D shouted D.M.C.’s lyrics, and Flash re-created Jay’s cuts on his turntables, while in their seats, Run and D watched with an admixture of pride and sadness. “Me and Run were like, ‘Yo, is that what Run-D.M.C. does?’” D.M.C. said that night. “’Cause we never got to see Run-D.M.C. in our lifetime.”
After the performance, film star Ice Cube, who had joined Run-D.M.C. on the “Back from Hell” remix eleven years earlier, took the stage to present Run-D.M.C. with a Lifetime Achievement Award. When a huge video monitor began to air footage of their career and Jay’s life, “Me and Run were like, ‘We’re gonna cry now,’” D explained.
Onstage, while accepting the award, D.M.C.—tall, gaunt, visibly moved—told the audience that Run-D.M.C. had only wanted to make people smile. “So the best way to honor Jam Master Jay is to just keep smiling, man.” And Kid Rock and Chuck D would have kept smiling if producers had not told the camera crew to stop filming because the producers wanted the rappers to perform the Run-D.M.C. medley again. The audience sat and waited, watching the closed curtain onstage. Then Rock walked out and told the crowd, “They wanted us to do it with a DAT tape to match the music with the explosions, but fuck that. We did it how Run-D.M.C. did every show and that’s live with turntables.” The producers decided they could air the television program with the original, heartfelt tribute by Rock, Chuck D, and Grandmaster Flash.
Backstage, reporters asked D about his solo album, Checks, Thugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll. D said it would include “I’m Missing My Friend,” a tribute to Jay. “I ain’t talking about him being my DJ,” D.M.C. explained. “I’m talking about stuff like how he taught me to swim, he used to sit and do crossword puzzles while we was hanging, a lot of stuff people didn’t know about him. That’s the legacy I want to leave for him.” D.M.C. also said proceeds from the single would benefit Jay’s family. “I want to make sure his kids can go to college when they’re eighteen ’cause their father was a great musician,” he added.
Five days later, D attended (without Run) the 2002 Billboard Music Awards and watched contemporary rap stars Busta Rhymes, Ja Rule, Nelly, Naughty by Nature (members of which produced a song for Down with the King and praised Run-D.M.C. in The Show), and Queen Latifah perform “Sucker MCs” and “Peter Piper.” This time, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry walked out and joined the rappers for Run-D.M.C.’s version of “Walk This Way.” After the performance, D.M.C. took the stage and tried not to cry. “We just want to thank everybody that ever bought a record, that ever came to a show, because I think Run-D.M.C.’s greatest achievement was longevity. We’ve been through it all.”
Since Jay’s murder, a number of rap artists who once held grudges against Def Jam Records for various reasons told reporters that Run-D.M.C.’s former manager Russell Simmons was somehow to blame for Jay’s reported indigence, as opposed to Jay’s alleged habit of living beyond his means, buying cars and fur coats for friends and associates, and spending thousands on champagne. D.M.C. told New York magazine that the group did not earn much money from their first four albums but stressed, “Russell did the best he could.” For D.M.C., the terms of certain contracts were to blame, not Russell Simmons. And Simmons himself noted, “Jay’s finances were no different from any rapper or rock star [that] hasn’t had a hit record in more than nine years. The question you should be asking is, ‘Did he make wise investments?’” Russell Simmons did whatever he could—and after a certain point in the late 1980s, whatever the group allowed him to do—to help Run-D.M.C. maintain their fame, their status, and their commercial standing in the unpredictable rap music industry.
During his interview for this book, Run claimed that he and D.M.C. were still close. “I laugh with him at least once a week,” Run said. “I could beep him right now and ask him something. I beeped him yesterday…no, about three days ago and said, ‘D, what was that that you said about Cold Crush?’ And we were laughing. We laugh all the time.”
Run explained that he had spent his entire career pushing for the group “to the day Jay died.” He joined D.M.C. and Jay on tour with Aerosmith, and filmed the Gap and Dr Pepper commercials. “We pushed it to the end.”
Today, Run continues to join his brother Russell in public to promote Phat Farm sneakers and athletic wear, and describes life as “unbelievably fantastic.” He wakes up in his large home in Saddle River, New Jersey; he walks outside to Russell’s car (since Russell lives around the corner, they carpool to work); and they costar in commercials. “We make commercials, we design sneakers, and I’m here with my wife and children and a lot of money being made,” said Run. Run loves working with his older brother (“He’s a great man”), and calls his life a dream come true. “I split my life three ways: 34 percent God, 33 percent family, and 33 percent Russell. Church, family, career.” He hangs with his big brother and Bishop Jordan. He donates a lot of his money to Zoë Ministries. He works on solo material from time to time. He raises his children. And he promotes his Reverend Run image even though tour employee Runny Ray claimed, “We were on the fucking Aerosmith tour, and that nigga was still drinking Hennessy and shit like that. Come on, man.” At any rate, Run wanted people to know, “I’m a servant of the world, a servant of God, we’re all here to serve and that’s the deal.”
During his interviews for this book, D.M.C. honestly described the group’s mistakes, Jay’s mistakes with Run-D.M.C., and his own personal blunders. Speaking with a voice that occasionally quavered with emotion, D said he and Run are not as close as they used to be. “He sends me his little ‘words of wisdom’ e-mail,” D.M.C. said. “He sends it to everybody.” Run appears on one of D.M.C.’s solo songs, but D last saw Run in person at an annual dinner held by the Biggie Foundation in 2003, and only because Jam Master Jay’s mother, Connie, would be present. And that night, D recalled, “Run was like, ‘D, what you doing? What’s up with you?’”
D.M.C. continues to fly to Hollywood, where film producers have optioned a number of his screenplays. He mentors young rappers and joins them during late-night interviews on New York contemporary rap radio stations. He discusses Run-D.M.C. and Jam Master Jay’s legacy in the media and also puts finishing touches on Checks, Thugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll, which, at press time, he hoped to release on his own label, reportedly called D.M.C. (Darryl’s Music Company) with a video costarring the gifted Sarah McLachlan. “When you hear some of his songs, you’ll be shocked at how good they sound,” said Hurricane, who said he helped D produce the Jay-tribute “I’m Missing My Friend.” “I didn’t know what to expect from D with his voice but heard the songs and felt, ‘Yo, D can run with this.’ Some hip-hop heads will be negative, but if you listen with an open mind you’ll say, ‘D’s shit sounds pretty good.’ This is what D always rhymed about but with a twist.”
Jam Master Jay’s homicide remains unsolved, but since there is no statute of limitations for the crime of murder, Jay’s killer may still be brought to justice.
Since Jay’s killing, many theories have appeared in the media worldwide. Some articles claimed that Jam Master Jay was killed because he collaborated with Curtis Scoon—never charged with Jay’s murder—in a drug deal. According to these unproven published rumors, Jay and Scoon allegedly contributed $15,000 each to purchase cocaine from someone in 1993 and supposedly had the drugs delivered to another person in Baltimore, who instead of selling the drugs and handing Jay and his alleged investor their share of the profits absconded with the drugs.
Curtis Scoon, however, vehemently denied being part of any drug deal with
Jam Master Jay and told Playboy that Jay did owe him money at one point but for a personal loan. “If Jay was dealing drugs,” Scoon told reporter Frank Owen, “it wasn’t with me. He paid the debt. I had to get a little heavy with him but he paid. Jay did not owe me a dollar at the time of his death. I hadn’t been in contact with Jay for at least four years.”
And in October 2003, New York Newsday reported that unnamed “detectives have no evidence Mizell was involved in any illicit activities before his slaying, nor have they been able to confirm any of the allegations that have surfaced since his death.”
Jay’s friend Eric “Shake” Williams meanwhile told Playboy, and Web site AllHiphop.com, that while sitting with Randy Allen in a car on November 4, 2002, Shake questioned Randy’s version of events. Randy had reportedly claimed that after Jay was shot, Randy grabbed a pistol they kept in the studio and ran out the back door, ostensibly to chase the killer. Shake claimed that in the car he asked Randy, “Why didn’t you shoot?” Allen allegedly replied, “Dude was gone.” Shake then claimed that he asked Randy why he dropped the gun outside in the alley, and that Randy said he did not want the police to find it in the studio. Shake then claimed to have told Randy, “Randy, it’s just me and you. Who did that to Jay?” Shake claimed that Randy told him, “Shake, the nigga that killed your best friend and mine is Curtis Scoon,” and that Randy knew this because studio bookkeeper Lydia High allegedly recognized the visitor when she opened the door. However, Randy Allen told Playboy’s Frank Owen, “No such meeting took place.”
Since there is no reliable, concrete evidence linking Jam Master Jay to the distribution of illegal narcotics, this book does not focus on claims made about Jay after his death. “Jason is at peace, regardless of what they say about him,” his sixty-nine-year-old mother told a reporter.
Another prevalent theory described by individuals interviewed for this work involves Randy Allen. For a time, headlines pointed every which way—to Jay’s alleged fellow investor in a decade-old drug deal, to Jay’s former road manager and the road manager’s son, to a currently imprisoned New York City drug lord and the record label that federal law enforcement officials suspect the drug dealer financed—but many sources allege that a few of these theories emanated from Randy Allen.
No one has ever said Randy actually killed Jam Master Jay, and the police have certainly never accused Randy Allen of any crime or of involvement in the murder of Jason Mizell. Some of Jay’s friends and family members simply note that some of Allen’s alleged actions confused them.
The police’s reported standpoint on the matter is that no one knows why Jay was murdered. There are too many theories, reluctant witnesses, witnesses recanting their versions of events, suspected masterminds, and possible lookouts pointing fingers and offering too many contradictory versions of events. In fact, for all anyone knows, all of the facts reported to the police and the public—through the media—about Jam Master Jay’s murder may be false. “Everyone in this case is lying,” one law enforcement source told New York Newsday in late October 2003. Whether anyone really walked up a flight of stairs to kill Jay, or whether Jay hugged his murderer—stories provided to police by individuals at one time suspected of involvement—remains unknown. Jay might simply have been playing video games when someone already present in the studio decided it was time to get this done.
All that is known is that someone killed Jay with a gun; police found Jay’s body in a recording studio; and some people present that night might have seen who committed this murder.
Searchable Terms
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Chapin, Harry
Checks, Thugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll (D.M.C.’s solo album)
Cheeba, Eddie
Chic
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Clay, Andrew Dice
Cohen, Lyor
Cold Crush Brothers
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Grandmaster Caz
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Greatest Hits 1983–1998 (album)
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“Hard Times,”
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Hutchins, Jalil
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