DISGRACELAND - Run-DMC (Pt. 2): Loyalty, Betrayal, and Who Shot Jay

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay helped take hip-hop global, but behind the decks was a man under pressure – fiercely loyal yet financially strapped, and secretly entangled in a dangerous world he couldn���t spin his way out of. So when the music industry turned cold and the bills stacked up, Jay made choices that brought the streets back to his doorstep. This is the true story behind his murder: a tangled web of old friends, bad drug deals, silence, and betrayal. And it’s part of hip-hop history that no one wanted to talk about – until now. Run DMC played a pivotal role in hip hop history, but are they the most influential hip hop group of all time? What do you think? Tell Jake at 617-906-6638, [e-mail], or on socials @disgracelandpod. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠⁠⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠⁠⁠. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠TikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream.

Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. Hey guys, so back in 2020, we released an episode on Run DMC, all about how the iconic trio took rap music to New Heights in the 1980s. introduced suburban and mainstream America to a genre that had up to that point been made by and for New Yorkers.

We ended that episode with a brief reference to the murder of Run DMC's Jam Master Jay at his studio in 2002. Now, at the time that that episode of ours was released, police had still not made any arrests, 18 years after the murder. Since Jay's killer still had not been brought to justice, and since there was so much speculation and rumors surrounding the case, We just didn't feel like it was right to get into all that until we had more information that was sourced and verified. Four years after we dropped that episode, however, in February of 2024, two men were convicted of the murder of Jam Master Jay, and we now have a much clearer picture of what happened.

So, without further ado, here's our part two episode on Run DMC, all about the secrets and lies that kept the murder of Jason Maisel, aka Jammaster Jay, unsolved for over. two decades. This is a story about loyalty, about street corners and queens, about sneakers and shelltoes, backroom handshakes, and two old friends walking into a studio. This is the story of a pioneer who helped take a genre from the parks to the penhouses, and the price that he paid for doing that. This is not a story you've likely heard in full. It's not just about a DJ and a hip-hop group who changed everything. It's about what happens when the money runs out, when the industry moves on, and when the streets come calling. This is a story, of course, about Run DMC's Jam Master Jay, a story that places him not just at the birth of hip-hop, but at the center of a brutal conspiracy.

It was fueled by desperation, betrayal, and cocaine. And this being a story about Jam Master Jay means it's also a story about great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called with friends like these, MK, too. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Dilemma by Nellie,

featuring Kelly Rowland. And why would I play you that specific slice of breaking up a happy home cheese, could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on October 30th, 2002. And that was the day that Jam Master Jay was shot down in cold blood inside his own recording studio, a murder that rocked the hip-hop community, and revealed a tangled web of criminals who conspired to silence one of rap's great innovators

at the age of just 37. On this episode, side hustles, loaded 38s, real names, street names, street, and one of the most heartbreaking murders in hip-hop history. Jam Master Jay from Run DMC. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. The disruptors, the pioneers, the ones who go left while the rest of us go right. They all leave their mark on the world, and in turn the world never spins the same way again. But as the world turns, and time passes, even pioneers can get lost in the world.

rotation. And as the new guard shuffles on, it's all too easy for a one-time disruptor to get left behind, along with the dusty yellowing pages of yesterday's papers. This was the situation that hip-hop pioneers Run DMC found themselves in at the dawn of the 1990s. When that G-Funk whistle blew in on the wind from the West Coast and the death row blueprint, the sound of Dr. Dre's The Chronic made Run DMC stripped down boom-bop. Once the authentic soundtrack to the streets of New York City, a more naive artifact of another time and place that was, in fact, still just less than a decade old.

For Jason Mizelle, aka Jam Master Jay, that now familiar sting of cultural irrelevance hit him especially hard. Jay was the DJ in the group, brought on at the last minute after Joseph Simmons, aka. Rund and Darrell McDaniels, aka DMC. had already begun recording their debut album. And contracts were written with this arrangement in mind, meaning that Jay didn't earn as much in royalties or songwriting credits as his bandmates did.

I mean, the group was called Run DMC. The names of the two MCs are in that name. Jay wasn't even featured in the cover photos for their first three records, even though the B-Boy style that Run and DMC represented was All Jay. Those were his Adidas that Joseph and Daryl were rapping about. And when the group hit the road on tour in the mid-1980s, as their success began to really take off, according to Run DMC's tour manager at the time,

Jay got a meager cut of each day's take, something like $2 or $300 out of the $4 or $5 grand that they were making nightly. In his defense, MC Run, said that he promised Jay one-third of their touring revenue and that their tour manager, Jeff Flood, Jay's former DJ, partner could not be trusted. Trust, as it turns out, is a pretty big part of this story, but I'm getting ahead of myself. My point here is that by the time the 1990s rolled around, as Run DMC's popularity began to wane along with their record sales, Jason Mizell, aka Jam Master Jay, had to pivot, not to stay relevant

musically, but just to stay afloat. He owed back taxes to the IRS from the raising hell days, when Run DMC were making history as the first hip-hop group to go platinum and then multi-platinum. Now, instead of celebrating one million records sold, Jay was trying to wrap his head around the half million dollars that he owed the U.S. government. So he opened a recording studio,

called 24-7, and started a record label, JMJ Records, to get work as a producer and talent scout, but not before Uncle Sam put a lean on the money that was coming in, which sucked. because he needed that money, desperately, not only for himself, but because a lot of people depended on him. There was his mom down in North Carolina, his cousins who needed help hang their way through college, his own wife and kids, and his sister in her house, which Jay Bank rolled along with the guy currently crashing on his sister's couch, Jay's old childhood friend, Ronald Washington,

a.k.a. Tanard, who had just gotten out of prison in Maryland and returned home to Hollis Queens, the neighborhood, where ever since there were kids, Jay was known to have your back. That's how it worked in the close-knit community of Hollis. Jay had your back, you had Jay's. Still, one couldn't be too safe. Out in the reception area, really just a corner with a computer off to the side of this makeshift lounge, Randy's sister, Lydia High, JMJ's office manager, was busy looking through Jay's itinerary for tomorrow.

It entailed a flight to Washington, D.C., where he was scheduled to perform with Run DMC at a Wizard Celtics basketball game. Jay wasn't thinking about planes or basketball at the moment. He was mashing the buttons on his controller trying to get the ball downfield and score on his young opponent here. So he wasn't paying attention when the footsteps from outside approached the main door of the studio, directly across the room from where Jay and Rancone were gaming. Jay wasn't expecting anyone. But tonight's visitor was unexpected and unannounced. The door flew open and two men walked inside, one tall and one short.

They were armed. Lydia, right there by the entrance in her little nook, screamed and tried to make a run for it. The tall one pushed her down to the ground, aimed his gun at her head, told her not to move. Rinkoen's cell phone began to ring, and Jay jumped as the short one. A hoodie draped over his head made a beeline for the couch.

His arm extended, his gun locked, loaded and pointed, righted at Jay. Oh shit, Jay yelled, reaching over to where his 38 sat on the arm of the leather couch. And before he could grab it, the gunman fired. The shot was loud and the range was close. Gumpower burned Jay's shirt. The bullet hit him in the head, and Jay was killed instantly. The gunman then fired again, this time hitting Rinkoen in the leg.

Rinkoen screamed in pain and fell to the ground, grabbing his bleeding leg while the two gummen hauled ass out of the studio. Randy Allen came bounding out of the adjacent room, a 380 semi-automatic in his hand. Whether or not he'd been dipping his hand in the record company's bank account didn't matter at this moment. He had Jay's back just like Jay had his. And Randy tore out of the studio after Jay's assailants, chasing them for a moment down Merrick Boulevard, but it was no use. The killers had a head start, and they were fast. Soon they had disappeared into the night, and Randy stopped running and turned around.

The cold rain beating down on his face. He tossed the gun in a parking lot and headed back to the studio where his friend, his business partner, and Hollis Queens' caretaker, one of hip-hop's true pioneers, laid dead on his studio floor. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me?

The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

Dennis Leary. I wake up. And I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance. Like he's about to attack me, like making karate noises. And the entire the Kardashians family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been asleep walking.

David O'Yello-O. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting.

I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things. Tena Monjou, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson,

host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened.

His father just grabs him and says, she's gone, she's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it, and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation.

New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 22 years earlier in 1980, 15-year-old Jason Mizell was still two years away from becoming his hip-hop alter ego Jam Master Jay. At the time, he was just another kid coming up in Hollis, Queens, and looking for a crew to roll with. Jay's mother and father, a school teacher and a social worker, had moved their family to Hollis back in the 70s, because at that time, it was a safe middle-class neighborhood, far removed from New York City's fabled crime and grime. But by 1980, heroin had long since moved in next door, over on 205th Street, the heroin block, just two streets from where Jay lived on 203rd.

And that changed everything. As Russell Simmons run DMC's manager and the co-founder of Def Jam Records would say, the drug-fueled sea change in Hollis destroyed lives. Instead of moving up, a lot of kids moved down. But at 15 years old, you don't know whether you're going up, down. You're just going with the flow. You hang out with the aptly named Hollis crew, a loose collection of kids from the neighborhood, looking to protect what's yours, whatever that means. And some days it's your rep,

other days it's your turf, doesn't matter. You wake up in the morning, put on your black jeans and your black velour hat, and then your white shelltoe Adidas with laces that match whatever color shirt you're wearing, and you hit the bricks to go roll with the boys. And then, right there inside the halls of Andrew Jackson High School, just months earlier, you all watched Slackjod as cops raided a heroin factory operating out of the school's basement. Those five-percenter dudes are making a beeline to your crew, looking to beef. About what? You don't know. Somebody says some shit or looked at a guy the wrong way or probably some other stupid reason like it always was. But even in the face of stupidity,

you're loyal, and you're always looking out. So when one of the five-percenters pulls out a piece, When the muzzle flashes and the shot rings out, so loud that it rattles the lockers nearby, so loud that you think you've gone deaf in one ear, and you notice your boy Wendell, that's Wendell Fight, by the way, soon to be known on the ones and twos as DJ Hurricane. You see Wendell grimace as he takes a bullet to his leg. You immediately spring into action. You cover Wendell with your own body and help pull him to safety

because you know that Wendell would do the same for you. And when the violence of the Hollis crew turns you off and sends you looking for a different gang, you start hanging out with some smash-and-grab dudes. And this is where you meet some of your lifelong friends, guys like Randy Allen, Darren Big D. Jordan, and the dude who will crash on your sister's couch two decades later, Ronald Tenard, Washington. But unlike these dudes, you don't go full criminal, at least not at first. You play a supporting role. You let the guys stashed their stolen goods in your parents' basement. Soon enough, however, they convince you to go with them on one of their nights.

nightly runs. Tonight, the mark is in a fancier part of Queens, in Jamaica Estates, where you rummage through a doctor's house for the finer things. You're green, and this is your first time, so on your way out, you're sloppy and a security guard spots you. He yells at you and your adrenaline spikes. You start to run, your legs pumping and your heart pounding. You hear a gunshot, and then another. Holy shit, this fucking guy is trying to shoot you. You run faster, Everything's a blur, and you round a corner and there waiting for you, not your friends, not your crew. You only do a little time at a juvie center in the Bronx, but it's your folks' disappointment in you that stings the most. And you're well aware, even as a teenager, that this isn't the way.

There are other crews out there that distance themselves from the long arm of the law. And lucky for you, you are musically inclined. And also lucky for you, this new phenomenon called rap music is taking over. You're in the right place at the right time with the right set of skills. And so, you trade in a life of crime for a life of music. A life behind the decks that will take you from the mean streets of Hollis to the TV sets of every suburban kid in America. Jason Myazel's commitment to a life on the up-and-up,

a life that blazed a trail in the American culture while striking an anti-drug, anti-crime, B-Boy stance, was a big reason why. upon his murder in 2002, so many had a hard time believing that the motive for that murder was rooted in the kind of life that Jay seemingly left behind, like so many other childish things. But disbelief didn't stop the word on the street.

Word was, Jay had been selling drugs, and he was gunned down after a drug deal had gone very, very bad. No one wanted to believe that Jay was involved in the drug trade. And no one wanted to believe the article raised. written by Frank Owen in Playboy magazine the following year, 2003, that made this explosive rumor public. Frank Owen got a lot of hate from the hip-hop community for writing that piece. A piece that many said was slanderous bullshit that existed for no other reason

but to tear down one of the good guys. But here's the thing. Frank Owen was not bullshitting. Jay had been working a side hustle for years, in which he was a middleman who helped to shift a lot of cocaine. came. And he didn't even have to get his hands dirty. Sometimes he just had a call his contact, a supplier who everyone knew as Uncle, and then connect Uncle with a seller. Two phone calls, tops. Uncle would make sure the Coke was waiting in a stash house. The seller would pick it up,

move it, and everyone got theirs. For Jay, his take was three grand per kilo. So if the deal was 20 kilos, say that was $60,000 in Jay's pocket. And all he had to do to make that money was just match up a supplier with a seller, just like he did in the studio, matching a beatmaker with an MC. All of the shock and surprise and outrage that came in the wake of that Playboy article from those who knew Jay, some of it was legit, but some of it was a put on, because Jay had people watching his back, just like Jay once watched theirs. Now they were looking out for Jay's legacy,

looking to protect his good name from being tarnished by the revelation of some truly shady shit. But given the circumstances, truly necessary shit, or Jay at least, because Jay was in debt. Jay was a provider. Jay needed money. It wasn't about good or bad to Jay. It wasn't about right or wrong. It was about what you needed and what you had to do to get it. But no one talked about what Jay did to make ends meet.

And no one talked about what they saw in Jay's studio the night he was murdered. Not Tony Racon, the assistant who was shot in the leg by the killer. And not really high, the office manager, who was forced to the ground by the second gunman. The cops asked both of them if they knew who shot Jay and they both said they did not. They lied. But they didn't lie out of some noble desire to protect Jay's legacy. They kept quiet to protect themselves because they were afraid. They feared that if they told what they really knew, that the same thing that happened to Jay...

We'll be right back after this... We're, word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends...

Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by it. a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do?

Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going. And the airman.

March is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been in sleepwalking. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban.

Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Zana Monsu. Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more.

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating

and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits,

and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it, and you're like, I can't believe that. really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The man Jay called Uncle was waiting for him in the D.C. hotel room.

Uncle was all business, clear, direct, and to the point. Just as Jay's stripped down rap beats were once the most clear and direct music, you could hear on the radio. But this was the summer of 2002, and Jay, still a young man at age 37, was being forced into entering his godfather era early. The music business was a fickle bitch, yet Jay made the transition gracefully, seeing as how he was already well established as something of a hip-hop ambassador. Mentoring the new crop of talent on the come-up, guys like 50 Cent and Onyx, came as naturally to Jay as the wide-brim fedora he was known to rock on the regular. The money, however, was more elusive.

Hence, this clandestine meetup with Uncle here. Uncle laid it out easy, like he always did. Ten kilos of Coke. Jay had seven days to find a seller. As usual, Jay didn't need to put up any money. Uncle trusted him. In turn, Jay trusted, once he found a seller and had the money in hand, Uncle would reward him with his cut.

which in this instance would be 30 grand. For Jay, it was a light lift. Some of the easiest money he'd ever made. He thanked Uncle, left the hotel, but went outside to his car where his old friend Ronald Washington, aka Tenard, the guy who was crashing on his sister's couch, was waiting.

Together they hit the road, due northeast, to Baltimore, where Jay knew a guy who was ready to pick up what Jay was putting down. Tenard didn't have to be there. Tenard was there because Jay was just about the most loyal dude in the game, and there was a place in his adult life for all the other loyal dudes he used to run with as a kid, like Randy Allen, who now worked as Jay's business partner, or Randy's sister Lydia who ran the record label office. And then there was Carl Big D. Jordan, who Jay and Run DMC had hired as their new tour manager back in 1985.

At the time, Big D was running his own side hustle as a confidential informant for the Queen's DA office. The same year he started on Run's payroll, in order to avoid doing two to six for a weapons charge, Big D testified against a guy named Joseph Money Thomas, who was on trial for murder. Big D helped put money in prison, 25 to life. In the eyes of the streets, Run DMC was now running with a snitch. But to Jay, Big D was a friend first, always. Just like Ronald Tenard, Washington. the streets had long whispered was the trigger man who shot down Tupac Shakura's best friend Randy Stretch Wallace as he was riding in a car in Hollis. Jay didn't fuck with all the gossip. Instead,

Jay fucked with trust. And right now, in a car headed from D.C. to Baltimore, Jay trusted the guy sitting next to him. After all, Jay had bought Tenard a brand new wardrobe when Tanar got out of the joint. And Jay gave him walking around money in a place to stay. Tanar needed Jay. And it's really easy to trust a guy who needs you. The car approached the agreed-upon meeting place, and Jay and Tenard parked and stepped out of the vehicle. And the cellar was waiting, arms crossed. Jay and Tenard began their approach on foot, ready to quickly lay out the terms before the inevitable deal went down. But as they got closer, Jay could sense Tenard was acting strange, and Tenard's gate was slowing down, not in a mellow kind of way, but a skeptical one.

Tenard was now locking eyes with the cellar who was returning the same intense stare. The fuck is he doing here? Ternard asked, referring to the cellar, who Ternard was only now realizing was Ralph Mowgrave, a guy everyone called Yakeem. Jay and Ternard had known Yakeem since way back in high school in Queens. But over the years, Yakeem and Tinar's relationship had soured. Jay was only now seeing in real time just how long. much it had soured. Yaquine shook his head.

Yeah, Jay, you didn't mention anything to me about this motherfucker. Tenard was there to help Jay facilitate the movement of this particular batch of cocaine. In fact, by helping out, Tenard, along with Carl Big D. Jordan's son, Carl Little D. Jordan, Jay's godson, were going to split a good chunk of Jay's earnings. But the tension that was starting to swamp this little meetup, like the Maryland humidity was saying otherwise. Ternard wasn't down to work with Yakim. A yakim felt the same.

In fact, Yakeem was going to go get his gun. What do you need that for, Jay asked, to shoot Tynard. Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up, Jay was saying. Let's let cooler heads prevail, or rather, Jay's cool head. If Yakeem and Tinar didn't want to work together, they didn't have to work together. It was as simple as that. But this deal was going to happen, and it had to happen in seven days or less. Jay wasn't about to break a sweat finding another seller.

Yaquine was this guy. The easy solution in Jay's eyes was to cut Tenard and thus also cut his godson, Carl Little D. Jordan, out of the... Allegedly, this is what happened. And as soon as it did, as soon as he made that decision,

Jamaster Jay's days were numbered. Not long after Jay was murdered on October 30, 2002, police arrested Tenard for knocking over a string of stores and hotels while armed. In custody, he was asked if he knew anything about who killed Jay, seeing as he and the DJ have been close friends for decades. What Tenard said next was shocking.

He told the cops that on the night of October 30th, he was walking toward Jay's studio in the rain with a pocketful of bullets. He procured the bullets for Jay, who was currently holed up in his studio, recording, yes, but also increasingly paranoid as he got deeper and deeper into the drug trade and all its inherent dangers. The bullets meant for Jay's 38 were designed to make Jay feel a little safer. Ternard was walking fast, walking with purpose, dodging the raindrops,

and he was just about there, when suddenly he saw two figures emerge from the studio and start running up the street. One was tall and one was short, and there was no mistaking who they were in Ternard's eyes. The two men were Carl Big D. Jordan and his son, Jay's godson, Carl Little D. Jordan Jr. Days later, according to Tenard, Little D. told him, My Pops wasn't supposed to shoot Jay.

This version of events struck the cops as a little odd because both Lydia High, the office manager, and Tony Rincone, the young studio gopher who got shot in the leg, had both gotten a good look at the gunman that night. And they knew who Big D and Little D were, and yet they claimed they didn't recognize either assassin. And if Tenard was hoping that his eyewitness testimony would somehow help with his own legal troubles, he was dead wrong.

With Tenard's revelation not panning out due to the lack of evidence, he was sentenced to 17 and a half years for his past transgressions. The suspects, meanwhile, began to pile up. There was Randy Allen, Jay's longtime friend and business partner, who, according to some sources, was about to be fired by Jay because he'd been stealing money from the record label. Some even swore that Randy was the benefactor of Jay's half a million dollar life insurance policy. Then there was New York City drug lord, Kenneth Supreme Griff,

who'd been beefing with Jay's protege 50 cent. The cops couldn't rule out the possibility that Jay had somehow wound up caught in some sort of pissing match crossfire. And there was another known queen's figure, Curtis Schoon, whom the police favored as their guy early on. Schoon, it turned out, had been burned some seven years prior to the murder when he was unable to recoup the money he put up for one of Jay's drug deals. But Schoon was adamant that Jay had ultimately made it good, and there was no bad blood between them. And besides, why the hell would Schoon murder Jay over some missing money from seven years ago?

It just didn't make any sense. And all of this continued to make no sense for years. But in 2016, nearly a decade and a half after Jay's murder, after it looked like the case had gone cold for good, a witness's conscience finally got the best of them and they talked. First, however, the U.S. Attorney's Office shed some light on the bigger picture concerning the drug trade that Jay was involved in. In that same year, they uncovered the true identity of Uncle, Jay's supplier.

Uncle was Terry Flunnery, one of the co-founders of the Black Mafia family, who, at the time of Jay's death, were one of the largest cocaine distributors in the country. They were also rumored to have given Diddy the startup cash for Bad Boy Records. Again, rumored, but I digress. The reason that Jay was given such large amounts of coke to move, with no money expected up front, was because he was being used, knowingly or unknowingly, to launder dirty drug money for one of the biggest players in the game. But back to this witness in their conscience.

When it came to big players, you didn't need one to crack this case wide open. It was actually the small. smallest player in the whole story who made the biggest noise. Uriel Tony Rincone, the studio gopher, 25 at the time of Jay's death, who had for years said that he either didn't know the gunman or didn't get a good luck at their faces. In 2016, however, Rincon finally came forward with the identity of the man who shot him and murdered Jay. It was Jay's godson, Carl, Little D. Jordan. Little D pulled the trigger.

Not his father, Jay's old friend, Big D, as Tenard had claimed. In fact, Big D wasn't involved at all. It was Tenard all along. He was the other gunman, the one who forced Lydia to the floor and covered for Little D as Jay was executed at close range, with no mercy. Tenard was just another gangster desperately trying to toss blame to anyone, even his old friends when he found his ass on the line. Tenard was still serving time for his armed robbery spree in the summer of 2020.

Just months after our first episode on Run DMC went live, when he and Little D. were charged with the murder of Jason Mizell, aka Jam Master Jay, by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. According to the government, Tanard and Little D. conspired to kill Jay as retaliation for getting cut out of that Baltimore drug deal, leaving them without their financial windfall. The reluctant testimony of Ralph Mulgrave, aka Yaquine, the seller, Tenard, had refused to work with,

helped prove the government's argument. And on February 27, 2004, a federal jury in Brooklyn returned a guilty verdict against Ronald Tenard, Washington, and Carl Little D. Jordan, Jr. As of the recording of this episode, both men are still awaiting sentencing, facing a mandatory minimum of 20 years to life in prison. So why did Tony Rincone wait 14 years to tell the truth

to positively identify who killed J? It's like I told you at the beginning of the episode. People close to J were concerned about destroying his reputation, or as in Rincolns' case, concerned about their own safety. When asked, Rincone gave his reason for keeping quiet in just three short words, was scared. Just as Jamaster J was scared, on the night he died, his 38 by his side, knowing that something, that someone was coming,

even if he didn't know who or why. But damn, to have the deed done by your so-called friends, by your family, by the ones who were supposed to have your back, just as you had theirs, that's nothing short of a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. All right, thanks for rolling with me through this Run DMC episode on the great Jam Master Jay Apple Podcast listeners. Make sure you have auto downloads turned on so you don't miss any episodes. Guys, I want to know was Run DMC the most influential hip-hop group of all time? Not most influential artists.

Group. Were they the most influential group? Okay, if they weren't, who was? Let me know. 617-906-6638. Send me a voicemail. Send me a text. You might hear your voice or an answer to your question on the upcoming afternoon.

party episode. You can also email me, Disgracelandpod at gmail.com, or hit me up on the socials at Disgraceland Pod. Guys, I've got to take off. Here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours, truly, and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelampod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of disgrace land ad free.

Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelandPod. and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at Disgraceland Pod. Rockerola.

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