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    Irv Gotti: Key Milestones in the Life of the Rap Mogul

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    The producer, who died on Wednesday, built Murder Inc. into one of the most influential record labels of the early 2000s. His career was marred by a federal investigation and trial.Irv Gotti, who founded the record label Murder Inc. and helped shape the sound of hip-hop and R&B in the late 1990s and early 2000s when he shepherded the careers of Ja Rule and Ashanti, died on Wednesday at 54.Here is a brief look at how the rap entrepreneur and record executive worked his way from humble beginnings in Queens, N.Y., to the top of the charts before his momentum was marred by a federal investigation into the label in which he was charged with money laundering and acquitted.A Childhood in Queens, N.Y.Gotti was born Irving Domingo Lorenzo Jr. in Queens, N.Y., in 1970. He was the youngest of eight children, according to “The Murder Inc Story,” a documentary about his life that aired on BET in 2022. His family, which he described as one that didn’t have much money but had plenty of love, recalled him as a “clown” who loved performing, dancing and entertaining, sometimes even for small change.His foray into music began as a preteen, when he played for hours with a turntable and a mixer that his siblings had purchased for him. By the age of 15, he had begun to make a name for himself as a D.J. at local parties.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Irv Gotti, Famed Hip-Hop Music Executive, Dies at 54

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      A founder of Murder Inc. Records, he helped launch the careers of Ja Rule and Ashanti and was credited as a producer on 28 records that made the Billboard Hot 100.Irv Gotti, who founded Murder Inc. Records with his brother and built a hip-hop empire that produced some of the biggest rap and R&B albums of the early 21st century, has died. He was 54.His death was confirmed late Wednesday in a statement by Def Jam Recordings, which was the parent label for Murder Inc. when it was founded in 1998, and where Mr. Gotti had also worked as an executive. The statement did not say where or when he died or cite a cause.Murder Inc., which Mr. Gotti started with his brother Chris, helped launch the careers of the rapper Ja Rule and the R&B singer Ashanti. Their success propelled the label to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s.“I’m important in America because of hip-hop,” Mr. Gotti said in the 2022 BET documentary series “The Murder Inc Story.” “I love hip-hop with a passion.”Mr. Gotti was born Irving Domingo Lorenzo Jr. in Queens on June 26, 1970. He said in the BET documentary that his father was a taxi driver and he was the youngest of eight children. In his early teens, he recalled, he played for hours with turntables and a mixer that his siblings got for him, and he started working as a D.J. for parties when he was 15.He later began working as a music producer and talent scout, and he was credited with helping discover the future hip-hop superstars Jay-Z and DMX. He became an A&R executive at Def Jam.Mr. Gotti was also an executive producer of DMX’s first album, “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot,” released in 1998, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. He also produced Ja Rule’s first album, “Venni Vetti Vecci” (1999), and worked on several successful releases by Ashanti in the early 2000s, cementing his reputation as a hitmaker.Mr. Gotti was credited as a producer on 28 Hot 100 hits, according to Billboard.With the ascent came scrutiny. In 2003, the F.B.I. and the police raided Murder Inc.’s offices in New York. That was followed by a federal investigation into whether the label had been founded with drug money. Mr. Gotti faced charges of laundering money for Kenneth McGriff, a convicted gang leader. In an attempt to clean up the image of his label, Mr. Gotti dropped “Murder” from its name.“They had everybody who loved me in corporate America, who felt I was a good guy, distance themselves from me,” he said after his acquittal in 2005. “All while I was saying, ‘I didn’t do this, I didn’t do this,’ and they was like, ‘OK, we’ll wait and see.’”Information on survivors was not immediately available.A complete obituary will be published shortly. More

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      Fyre Festival Ticket Holders Awarded Settlement Payout in Class Action Lawsuit

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      YouTube

      The music goers who purchased tickets to the disastrous Bahamian music festival are due to receive settlement money as they win in class action lawsuit against the organizers.

      Apr 16, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Fyre Festival ticket holders have been awarded over $7,200 (£5,200) in a class action settlement.

      Trustees have reached a settlement with 277 people who attended the disastrous 2017 Bahamian event, awarding each of them $7,220 pay-outs. The settlement was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court – Southern District of New York on Tuesday (13Apr21).

      “It’s a small but significant step for ticket holders who were defrauded and had their lives up ended as a result of the fraudulent conduct by (Fyre founder) Billy McFarland,” Ben Meiselas, the lead attorney for the class-action, tells Billboard.

      Meiselas went on to admit that not all ticket holders will receive the full sum as there are multiple creditors involved in the bankruptcy case, but added, “There will be monetary relief in some form or fashion pending approval.”

        See also…

      The news of the settlement comes a month after McFarland finally confessed to lying to investors in an unauthorised phone interview from prison, which landed him in solitary confinement.

      He told “Dumpster Fyre” podcast host Jordan Harbinger he “knowingly lied” to those backing the ill-conceived music event on the Bahaman island of Great Exuma to raise money for the festival.

      McFarland, who is currently serving a six-year sentence at the Federal Correction Institution in Elkton, Ohio after pleading guilty to multiple counts of fraud in 2017, told Harbinger, “The crime was inexcusably lying about the status of the company to get the money I thought I needed for the festival.”

      The Fyre Festival was billed as a luxury music festival with Blink-182 and Ja Rule among the acts set to appear, but the event turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, with music fans and thrill seekers, who paid thousands to attend, left stranded without proper accommodation or amenities.

      McFarland also admitted he lied to himself, convinced he could pull the festival off. “I legitimately thought the festival was going to be executed,” he said.

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      Fyre Festival Ticket Holders Win $7,220 Each in Class-Action Settlement

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      Nearly four years after the infamous festival stranded thousands of attendees in the Bahamas, 277 ticket holders learned they will receive payouts, pending approval.Nearly four years after an infamous festival that was billed as an ultraluxurious musical getaway in the Bahamas left attendees scrounging for makeshift shelter on a dark beach, a court has decided how much the nightmare was worth: approximately $7,220 apiece.The $2 million class-action settlement, reached Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York between organizers and 277 ticket holders from the 2017 event, is still subject to final approval, and the amount could ultimately be lower depending on the outcome of Fyre’s bankruptcy case with other creditors.But Ben Meiselas, a partner at Geragos & Geragos and the lead lawyer representing the ticket holders, said on Thursday that he was happy a resolution had at last been reached.“Billy went to jail, ticket holders can get some money back, and some very entertaining documentaries were made,” Meiselas said in an email mentioning Billy McFarland, the event’s mastermind. “Now that’s justice.”Lawyers representing the trustee charged with Fyre’s assets did not immediately respond to a request for comment.McFarland and the festival’s co-founder, the rapper Ja Rule, have faced more than a dozen lawsuits against their company, Fyre Media, in the event’s aftermath. The plaintiffs have sought millions and alleged fraud, breach of contract and more.McFarland, 29, is serving a six-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to wire fraud charges. In 2018, a court ordered him to pay $5 million to two North Carolina residents who spent about $13,000 apiece on VIP packages for the Fyre Festival.“I cannot emphasize enough how sorry I am that we fell short of our goal,” McFarland said in a 2017 statement, though he declined to address specific allegations. “I’m committed to, and working actively to, find a way to make this right, not just for investors but for those who planned to attend.”The festival, billed as “the cultural experience of the decade,” had been scheduled for two weekends beginning in late April 2017. Ticket buyers, who paid between $1,000 and $12,000 to attend, were promised an exotic island adventure with luxury accommodations, gourmet food, the hottest musical acts and celebrity attendees. Influencers including the models Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid promoted it.But when concertgoers arrived, they were met with what the court filing describes as “total disorganization and chaos.” The “luxury accommodations” were in fact FEMA disaster relief tents, the “gourmet food” a cheese sandwich served in a Styrofoam container and the “hottest musical acts” nonexistent.The festival, which sold a total of approximately 8,000 tickets for both weekends, was canceled on the morning it was scheduled to begin, after many attendees had arrived. (The debacle spawned two documentaries, on Hulu and Netflix.)Fyre has attributed its cancellation to a combination of factors, including the weather. But some Fyre employees later said that higher-ups had invented extravagant accommodations like a $400,000 Artist’s Palace ticket package, which included four beds, eight V.I.P. tickets and dinner with a festival performer, just to see if people would buy them. (There was no such palace.) Production crew members stopped being paid as the festival date neared.Mark Geragos, another lawyer at the firm that represented ticket buyers in Tuesday’s settlement, filed the initial $100 million class-action lawsuit days after the event, which stated that Ja Rule and McFarland had known for months that their festival “was dangerously underequipped and posed a serious danger to anyone in attendance.” McFarland faced a second class-action lawsuit two days later.A hearing to approve Tuesday’s settlement is set for May 13. More

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      Ja Rule Challenges 50 Cent to Instagram Live Song Battle

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      WENN

      Fans quickly share an opinion about Ja’s desire to have an online battle with his longtime foe as some of them appear to be skeptical that the battle will really take place.
      Apr 14, 2020
      AceShowbiz – Ja Rule is down for a real battle with rival 50 Cent. After feuding with the “In Da Club” rapper for almost 2 decades, Ja revealed in a new Instagram Live that he was ready for a battle with Fiddy for the next installment of Swizz Beatz and Timbaland’s Versuz series.
      “I want all the smoke but I’ll behave,” he promised to Swizz and Fat Joe during a livestreaming on April 11. Seemingly not being convinced, Swizz responded, “That sounds like a devilish behave.”
      Fans quickly shared an opinion about Ja’s desire to have a battle with Fifty. “Ja Rule will never stand a chance against my man 50. He chasin clout,” one fan wrote on Twitter. Some others appeared to be skeptical that the battle would really take place. “I don’t think it’s gonna happen,” one tweeted.
      However, should they really do this, one fan believed that “Ja Rule would win.” Another supporter said, “Ja has more hits then 50.” Some people were against the idea though, claiming, “Nobody wanna hear no jarule s**t come on.”
      Ja and 50’s feud started back in 1999 when Ja was robbed at gunpoint for his chain in Southside Jamaica, Queens. Fiddy then claimed that Ja saw him at a club with the culprit only weeks later. Ja admitted to being robbed but he denied seeing 50 with the culprit. Further making things worse was when J and Murder Inc. rapper Black Child were arrested when 50 was stabbed at Hit Factory recording studio in New York.
      The two rappers had released diss tracks about each other and openly taken a jab at each other on social media. Talking about their beef on “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen” back in 2019, Ja said, “Here’s the thing. We’ve been having this ongoing feud for, I don’t know, seems like it’s been fifteen years.”
      “And, I think it’s time that we’ve grown past it. So, I’m to take the day on and … I am removing myself from the circus. Because, what I realized is that when you entertain clowns, you become part of the circus,” he continued. “He’s a bad father. He’s got like a big square box head. And, one more thing – he looks like his breath stinks.”

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