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

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, [email protected], or on socials @disgracelandpod. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠⁠⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠⁠⁠ https://cms.megaphone.fm/organizations/c83125d2-8508-11ed-bd28-ff0aff7ee233/podcasts/efca2ef8-85f9-11ed-8fe3-bb208936046f/episodes/29bc673e-85fa-11ed-9d9c-cffe44583488/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 https://disgracelandpod.com/membership. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠⁠ https://mailchi.mp/doubleelvis/disgraceland-email-newsletter Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/disgracelandpod/ ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@disgracelandpod ⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠ https://twitter.com/disgracelandpod (formerly Twitter) ⁠⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/groups/491024204626127/ ⁠⁠⁠TikTok https://tiktok.com/disgracelandpod 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/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This is exactly right.

• 0:13Speaker 01

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• 1:28Speaker 02

  in the nose, flu or flu-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

• 1:43Speaker 03

  Hey guys, time to dust off your detective skills while unwinding in the Caribbean on Virgin Voyages' second true crime voyage. Back by popular demand, this five-night, adults-only escape sets sail March 20, 2027, to Grand Turk in the Beach Club at Bimini. The difference between this year and last will be that I will be on the cruise this year, along with Zeph, and he and I will be taping a live version of DisgraceLand along With podcast hosts from Exactly Right's Buried Bones, Podcast of the Year Award winners, Wisecrack, and other fan favorites. Get on this cruise with us, guys, and enjoy live podcast recordings, behind-the-scenes storytelling, exclusive meet-and-greets, and immersive true crime programming throughout this one-of-a-kind voyage. Head over to

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• 2:34Jake Brennan?

  Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.

• 2:38Jake Brennan?

  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 and 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 J 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

• 3:21Jake Brennan?

  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 J, 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 Mizell, aka Jam Master J, unsolved for over two decades.

• 4:02Jake Brennan?

  This is a story about loyalty, about street corners in Queens, about sneakers and shell toes, backroom handshakes, and two old friends walking into a studio.

• 4:14Jake Brennan?

  This is the story of a pioneer who helped take a genre from the parks to the penthouses, 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 J. A story that places him not just at the birth of hip-hop, but at the center of a brutal conspiracy that was fueled by desperation, betrayal, and cocaine.

• 4:52Jake Brennan?

  And this being a story about Jam Master J 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. And that was a preset loop from my Mellotron called "With Friends Like These," MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to "Dilemma" by Nelly 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 J was shot down in cold blood inside his own recording studio.

• 5:37Jake Brennan?

  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, and one of the most heartbreaking murders in hip-hop history: Jam Master J from Run DMC. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.

• 6:29Jake Brennan?

  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 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,

• 7:12Jake Brennan?

  the sound of Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" made Run DMC strip 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 Mizell, 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 Run, and Darryl 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

• 7:55Jake Brennan?

  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 Darryl 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 $200 or $300 out of the $400 or $500 that they were making nightly.

• 8:35Jake Brennan?

  In his defense, MC Run said that he promised Jay 1/3 of their touring revenue and that their tour manager, Jeff Flood, Jay's former DJ partner, could not be trusted.

• 8:47Jake Brennan?

  Trust, as it turns out, is a pretty big part of this story, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

• 8:54Jake Brennan?

  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 1 million records sold, Jay was trying to wrap his head around the $0.5 million that he owed the US government. So he opened a recording studio, called 24/7, and started a record label, JMJ Records,

• 9:37Jake Brennan?

  to get work as a producer and talent scout, but not before Uncle Sam put a lien 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 paying their way through college, his own wife and kids, and his sister in her house, which Jay bankrolled along with the guy currently crashing on his sister's couch, Jay's old childhood friend, Ronald Washington, aka Tenard, who had just gotten out of prison in Maryland and returned home to Hollis, Queens, the neighborhood where ever since they were kids, Jay was known to have your back. That's how it worked in the close-knit community of Hollis.

• 10:21Jake Brennan?

  Jay had your back, you had Jay's. Still, one couldn't be too safe.

• 10:28Jake Brennan?

  Out in the reception area, really just a corner with a computer off to the side of this makeshift lounge, Randy's sister, Lydia Hi, JMJ's office manager, was busy looking through Jay's itinerary for tomorrow. It entailed a flight to Washington DC where he was scheduled to perform with Run DMC at a Wizards-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 Rincon were gaming.

• 11:09Jake Brennan?

  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. Rincon's cellphone began to ring, and Jay jumped as a short one. A hoodie draped over his head made a beeline for the couch. His arm extended, his gun locked, loaded, and pointed right at Jay. "Oh shit," Jay yelled, reaching over where his .38's at on the arm of the leather couch. And before he could grab it, the gunman fired.

• 11:53Jake Brennan?

  The shot was loud, and the range was close. Gunpowder burned Jay's shirt, the bullet hit him in the head, and Jay was killed, instantly. The gunman then fired again, this time hitting Rincon in the leg. Rincon screamed in pain and fell to the ground, grabbing his bleeding leg while the two gunmen 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.

• 12:38Jake Brennan?

  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, lay dead on his studio floor.

• 13:54Speaker 02

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAa. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or flulike symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at Extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

• 14:58Jake Brennan?

  22 anos antes, em 1980, o Jason Mizell de 15 anos ainda estava dois anos longe de se tornar o alter ego hip-hop de Jay Master Jay. Na época, ele era apenas outro filho chegando em Hollis, Queens, e procurando um grupo de crew para rodar. A mãe e o pai dele, um professor da escola e um trabalhador social, tinham mudado a família para Hollis na década de 70, porque naquela época era um bairro seguro e médio de classe, muito distante da favela crime de Nova York. Mas em 1980, a heroina já tinha longe mudado em pátio, sobre a 205ª Rua, o bloco de heroina, apenas duas ruas de onde Jay vivia na 203ª. E isso mudou tudo.

• 15:41Jake Brennan?

  Como o gerente de DMC Russell Simmons e co-fundador de Def Jam Records dizeria, “A mudança de drogas no Hollis destruiu as vidas. Em vez de subir, muitos filhos mudaram para baixo”. Mas quando você tem 15 anos, você não sabe se você está subindo ou baixando, você está apenas indo com o fluxo. Você se joga com o apelo chamado “Crew Hollis”, uma coleção de crianças do bairro procurando proteger o que é seu, o que quer que seja. E algumas vezes é seu rep, outras vezes é seu terra, não importa. Você desperta no dia de manhã, coloca os seus jeans preto e o seu casaco velour negro, e então seu chão de cintura preto Adidas com lacinhos que correspondem a qualquer terno de terno que você está usando, e você atinge os pedaços para ir rodar com os garotos. E então, lá dentro, dentro das salas da escola de high school de Andrew Jackson, onde

• 16:26Jake Brennan?

  apenas meses antes vocês todos assistiram ao Slackjaw, quando os criminosos atiraram uma fábrica de heroina operando no fundo da escola, aqueles cinco porcento de caras estão fazendo uma linha de beija-lá para seu grupo, procurando carne. Sobre o que, você não sabe. Alguém disse algo ou olhou um cara de uma maneira errada, ou provavelmente alguma outra razão, como sempre foi. Mas mesmo na face da estupidez, você é loyal, e você sempre está olhando para fora. Então quando um dos cinco porcento de caras pega uma peça, quando o muzulho flasca e o disparo toca, tão alto que atinge os armários perto, tão alto que você acha que você foi morto em um ouro, e você nota seu garoto Wendell, que é Wendell Fight, por acaso, que se conhecerá nos 1s e 2s como DJ Hurricane, você vê Wendell brincar quando ele pega

• 17:11Jake Brennan?

  uma bala no seu pé. Você acelera imediatamente para a ação, você cobre o Wendell com o seu próprio corpo e ajuda a levá-lo à segurança, porque você sabe que o Wendell faria o mesmo por você.

• 17:22Jake Brennan?

  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 Tannard-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 stash their stolen goods in your parents' basement. Soon enough, however, they convince you to go with them on one of their 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.

• 18:07Jake Brennan?

  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, but the cops. 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.

• 18:52Jake Brennan?

  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 Mizell'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

• 19:34Jake Brennan?

  was rooted in the kind of life that Jay seemingly left behind, like so many other childish things.

• 19:42Jake Brennan?

  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.

• 19:54Jake Brennan?

  No one wanted to believe that Jay was involved in the drug trade. And no one wanted to believe the article 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. And he didn't even have to get his hands dirty. Sometimes he just had to call his contact, a supplier who everyone knew as Uncle,

• 20:38Jake Brennan?

  and then connect Uncle with a seller. Two phone calls, tops. Uncle would make sure the coke was waiting in his stash house. And 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 beat maker 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,

• 21:24Jake Brennan?

  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 Tonya Riccone, the assistant who was shot in the leg by the killer. And not Lydia Hi, 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.

• 22:09Jake Brennan?

  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 would happen to them.

• 22:31Jake Brennan?

  We'll be right back after this.

• 22:32Speaker 05

  Word, word, word.

• 22:36Speaker 01

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• 23:07Speaker 02

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or flulike symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extensure. Learn more at Extensure.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

• 24:12Jake Brennan?

  The man Jay called Uncle was waiting for him in the DC 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

• 24:55Jake Brennan?

  to Jay as the wide-brimmed 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.

• 25:28Jake Brennan?

  For Jay, it was a light lift, some of the easiest money he'd ever made. He thanked Uncle, left the hotel, and went outside to his car where his old friend Ronald Washington, aka Tannard, 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. Tannard didn't have to be there. Tannard 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.

• 26:08Jake Brennan?

  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.

• 26:50Jake Brennan?

  Just like Ronald "Tannard" Washington, whom the streets had long whispered was the trigger man who shot down Tupac Shakur'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 DC to Baltimore, Jay trusted the guy sitting next to him. After all, Jay had bought Tannard a brand-new wardrobe when Tannard got out of the joint, and Jay gave him walking-around money and a place to stay. Tannard 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 Tannard parked and stepped out of the vehicle.

• 27:33Jake Brennan?

  And the seller was waiting, arms crossed. Jay and Tannard 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 Tannard was acting strange, and Tannard's gait was slowing down. Not in a mellow kind of way, but a skeptical one. Tannard was now locking eyes with the seller, who was returning the same intense stare. "The fuck is he doing here?" Tannard asked, referring to the seller, who, Tannard was only now realizing, was Ralph Mulgrave, a guy everyone called "Yakim."

• 28:08Jake Brennan?

  Jay and Tanard had known Yaqim since way back in high school in Queens. But over the years, Yaqim and Tanard’s relationship had soured. Jay was only now seeing in real time just how much it had soured.

• 28:25Jake Brennan?

  Yaqim shook his head. “Yeah, Jay, you didn’t mention anything to me about this motherfucker.” Tanard was there to help Jay facilitate the movement of this particular batch of cocaine. In fact, by helping out, Tanard, 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. Tanard wasn’t down to work with Yaqim. And Yaqim felt the same. In fact, Yaqim was gonna go get his gun. “What do you need that for?” Jay asked. “To shoot Tanard.” “Hold up, hold up, hold up,” Jay was saying. “Let’s, let’s let cooler heads prevail, or rather, Jay’s cool head.”

• 29:08Jake Brennan?

  If Yaqim and Tanard didn’t want to work together, they didn’t have to work together. It was as simple as that. But this deal was gonna happen, and it had to happen in seven days or less. Jay wasn’t about to break a sweat finding another seller. Yaqim was this guy. The easy solution in Jay’s eyes was to cut Tanard and thus also cut his godson, Carl “Little D” Jordan, out of the deal.

• 29:32Jake Brennan?

  Allegedly, this is what happened. And as soon as it did, as soon as he made that decision, Gem Master Jay’s days were numbered.

• 30:01Jake Brennan?

  Not long after Jay was murdered on October 30th, 2002, police arrested Tanard 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 had been close friends for decades. What Tanard said next was shocking.

• 30:24Jake Brennan?

  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 had 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. Tenard 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 Tenard's eyes. The two men were Carl "Big D" Jordan

• 31:09Jake Brennan?

  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 Rincon, 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,

• 31:50Jake Brennan?

  he was sentenced to 17 and 1/2 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 pissy match crossfire. And there was another known Queens figure, Curtis Schoon, whom the police favored as their guy early on.

• 32:32Jake Brennan?

  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.

• 32:54Jake Brennan?

  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 US Attorney's Office shed some light on the bigger picture concerning the drug trade that Jay was involved in.

• 33:18Jake Brennan?

  In that same year, they uncovered the true identity of Uncle Jay's supplier. Uncle was Terry Flunery, 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 upfront, 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 and their conscience. When it came to big players, you didn't need one to crack this case wide open.

• 34:03Jake Brennan?

  It was actually the smallest player in the whole story who made the biggest noise. Uriel "Tony" Rincon, 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 look 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,

• 34:46Jake Brennan?

  the one who forced Lydia to the floor and covered for Little D as Jay was executed at close range with no mercy. Tannard was just another gangster desperately trying to toss blame to anyone, even his old friends, when he found his ass on the line. Tannard 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 US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. According to the government, Tannard and Little D conspired to kill Jay as retaliation for getting cut out of that Baltimore drug deal, leaving them without their financial

• 35:31Jake Brennan?

  windfall. The reluctant testimony of Ralph Malgrave, aka Yakin, the seller Tannard had refused to work with, helped prove the government's argument. And on February 27th, 2024, a federal jury in Brooklyn returned a guilty verdict against Ronald Tannard-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 Rincon wait 14 years to tell the truth, to positively identify who killed Jay? It's like I told you at the beginning of the episode, people close to Jay were concerned about destroying his reputation.

• 36:15Jake Brennan?

  Or as in Rincon's case, concerned about their own safety. When asked, Rincon gave his reason for keeping quiet in just three short words: "I was scared." Just as Jam Master Jay 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.

• 37:13Jake Brennan?

  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 artist, 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 after party episode. You can also email me [email protected] or hit me up on the socials @disgracelandpod. Guys, I gotta take off. Here comes some credits.

• 37:54Jake Brennan?

  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 Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com/membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland 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 disgracelandpod.com/membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on

• 38:36Jake Brennan?

  Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook @disgracelandpod and on YouTube at youtube.com/disgracelandpod. Rock-a-rola.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  He's a bad, bad man.

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