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

Summary

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

Date: August 5, 2025
Host: Jake Brennan (Double Elvis Productions)

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode of DISGRACELAND revisits the 2002 murder of Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell) of Run-DMC, weaving together decades of rumor, heartbreak, betrayal, and ultimately, long-overdue justice. Now, with the 2024 conviction of his killers, host Jake Brennan reconstructs the events and secrets that kept the case unsolved for over 20 years. This is not only a tale of a pioneering hip hop group, but also a story of friendship, despair, street loyalty, and the high personal price of fame.

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Structure & Key Segments

1. Introduction & Context ([03:05])
2. Run-DMC's Rise and Jay’s Place in the Group ([06:20])
3. Decline, Financial Strain, and Hustles ([07:55])
4. The Night of the Murder: A Detailed Reconstruction ([10:45])
5. Jay’s Early Years, Loyalty, and Street Codes ([17:30])
6. Rumors, Involvement in Crime, and Inner Circles ([20:34])
7. Unraveling the Crime: Drug Deals, Friendships, and Suspects ([28:48])
8. Break in the Case: New Witnesses and the Trial ([37:05])
9. Aftermath and Reflections on Legacy and Justice ([42:34])

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Main Themes & Insights

Introduction & Purpose

• The episode opens with Jake Brennan recapping the previous Run-DMC episode and framing this one in light of recent developments: "We now have a much clearer picture of what happened" ([03:05]).
• This is a story about how loyalty is tested when money and desperation intervene, and how even legends can be pulled back into the street life they thought they'd left behind.

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Run-DMC’s Shift and Jay’s Increasing Struggles

• Fading Fame:
  As West Coast G-Funk reshaped hip hop in the early 1990s, Run-DMC’s stripped-down sound began to "feel like a more naive artifact of another time and place" ([05:27]).
• Jay’s Unequal Role and Financial Hardship:
  Jay was added to the group after contracts were written, meaning he "didn't earn as much in royalties or songwriting credits" as Run or DMC ([06:47]).
• Jay was often left out of photos, 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" ([07:25]).
• By the 1990s, facing mounting IRS debt and diminished income, Jay had to "pivot... just to stay afloat"—opening 247 Studio and JMJ Records—but the IRS "put a lien on the money coming in" ([08:50]).

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The Night of the Murder ([10:45])

• Immediate Scene:
  Jay is killed instantly after a masked gunman enters the studio, shoots him in the head ("The bullet hit him in the head and Jay was killed instantly" ([12:41])), and wounds an assistant, then flees ([13:33]).
• Theme Emerges:
  Jay’s trust and history of watching friends’ backs runs throughout: "Jay had your back, you had Jay’s" ([09:15]).

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Jay’s Youth: Crime, Loyalty, and Redemption ([17:30])

• Growing Up in Hollis:
  The show paints 1980s Hollis, Queens, as a tight-knit but rough community, where the heroin trade upturned everything ("heroin had long since moved in next door... that changed everything" ([17:42])).
• Loyalty and Violence:
  Jay, as a youth, shielded friends (including future DJ Hurricane) during school shootings—emphasizing the lifelong importance of loyalty ([18:43]).
• Encounters in early criminal circles are recounted, noting how Jay avoided going "full criminal... at least not at first" ([19:37]), foreshadowing later complexity.

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The Underbelly: Jay’s Secret Side Hustle & the Code of Silence

• Drug Trade Involvement:
  Despite proclamations of innocence, Jay ultimately was a cocaine middleman, motivated by the need to provide for dependents and settle debts: "Jay had been working a side hustle for years in which he was a middleman who helped shift a lot of cocaine" ([21:43]).
• Code of Silence:
  "No one wanted to believe that Jay was involved in the drug trade...some of it was legit, but some of it was a put on because Jay had people watching his back" ([22:45]).
• Witnesses Lying from Fear:
  Both Lydia High and Tony Rincon, present at the murder, denied to police they knew the shooters—"They kept quiet to protect themselves because they were afraid" ([24:41]).

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Betrayals and Fatal Decisions ([28:48])

• The "Uncle" Connection:
  In 2002, "Uncle" (later revealed as Terry Flannery of the Black Mafia Family) entrusts Jay to move 10 kilos of cocaine ([28:50]).
• Deal Falls Apart:
  Jay cuts out Ronald (“Tenard”) Washington and Jay’s godson, Carl "Little D" Jordan, from the deal after tensions arise with the buyer, Yakim ([31:10]). This triggers deadly resentment: "As soon as he made that decision, Jam Master J’s days were numbered" ([32:22]).

Notable Quote

• "Jay fucked with trust. And right now, in a car headed from D.C. to Baltimore, Jay trusted the guy sitting next to him" ([29:30]).
• "The easy solution, in Jay’s eyes, was to cut Tenard and thus also cut his godson...out of the deal. Allegedly, this is what happened. And as soon as it did...Jay’s days were numbered" ([32:18]).

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False Leads, Years of Secrecy, and a Breakthrough

• Suspects Multiplied:
  The investigation was long hampered by silence or misdirection—from Jay’s friends to rival drug dealers and even possible mob connections. At different points, suspicion fell on:
  • Randy Allen (business partner, rumored to pocket Jay’s life insurance; [34:54])
  • Kenneth “Supreme” Griff (drug lord),
  • Curtis Scoon (Queens figure rumored over a bad debt),
  • And various street figures and "snitches."
• The “Uncle” Revelation:
  In 2016, authorities discovered that “Uncle,” Jay’s supplier, was Terry Flannery of the Black Mafia Family, suggesting Jay was a pawn in a much larger drug money-laundering scheme ([38:20]).
• Witness Steps Forward:
  After 14 years, Tony Rincon comes forward with the real identities of the killers: Jay's godson, “Little D,” and his old friend, “Tenard” ([39:10]).

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Justice and Aftermath ([41:05])

• In 2020, Washington (“Tenard”) and Carl “Little D” Jordan are charged.
• In 2024, a Brooklyn jury convicts both for Jay’s murder ([41:46]).
• Both men await sentencing, facing 20 years to life.

Notable Quote

• "So why did Tony Rincon wait 14 years to tell the truth? ... When asked, Rincon gave a reason for keeping quiet in just three short words: I was scared. Just as Jam Master J was scared on the night he died, his .38 by his side, knowing that someone was coming, even if he didn’t know who or why" ([42:05]).

• "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" ([42:22]).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "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" ([05:05]).
• "Jay had your back, you had Jay’s. Still, one couldn’t be too safe" ([09:14]).
• “Jay wasn’t about to break a sweat finding another seller. Yakim was this guy. The easy solution, in Jay’s eyes, was to cut Tenard... As soon as it did, Jay’s days were numbered” ([32:18]).
• “Jay was killed instantly... one of hip hop’s true pioneers, lay dead on his studio floor” ([13:29]).
• “People close to Jay were concerned about destroying his reputation, or, as in Rincon’s case, concerned about their own safety” ([41:55]).
• “I was scared.” – Tony Rincon ([42:05])

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Notable Timestamps

• 03:05 – Context: Why part 2 is being made, recent trial verdicts
• 06:20 – Run-DMC’s waning influence, Jay’s under-recognized role
• 10:45 – Play-by-play of Jay’s murder
• 17:30 – Jay’s adolescence, Hollis Crew
• 21:43 – The drug side hustle; revelations about Jay’s second life
• 28:50 – Drug connection: “Uncle”; the Baltimore deal
• 38:20 – Authorities discover “Uncle” is part of the Black Mafia Family
• 39:10 – Key witness Tony Rincon reveals killers
• 41:46 – Jury finds “Tenard” Washington and Carl “Little D” Jordan guilty
• 42:22 – Host’s closing reflection on betrayal

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Tone & Style

• Dark, Reverent, Conversational:
  Brennan’s narration is vivid—gritty but empathetic, mixing hard truths about hip hop, money, and street codes with storytelling that’s accessible and dramatic.

• Respect for the Subject:
  The show balances exposing harsh realities with admiration for Jay and Run-DMC’s legacy: "We do so with reverence for the artists—and an understanding of the extreme highs, lows, and personal costs that come with fame" ([Show intro]).

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Listeners’ Takeaways

• Jam Master Jay wasn’t just collateral in a random act of violence, but the tragic nexus of loyalty, betrayal, desperate hustling, and the dirty business side of hip hop history.
• The importance of loyalty, trust, and the dangers these values can carry in worlds shaped by poverty, crime, and shifting fame.
• Justice—no matter how delayed—can come, but rarely without its own heartbreaks.

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For aficionados of true crime, hip hop history, and the dark complexities behind beloved music icons, this is essential listening—a portrait not just of a murder, but of an era, an artist, and the very human flaws at the heart of legend.

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Transcript

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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 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 a 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 rumor surrounding the case, we just didn't feel like it was right to get into all that until we had more information than 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 2 episode on Run DMC, all about the secrets and lies that kept the murder of Jason Meisel, AKA Jam Master J, unsolved for over two decades. 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. 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 in 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. 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 for my melotron 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 30, 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, and one of the most heartbreaking murders in hip hop history. Jam Master J from Run dmc. I'm Jake Brennan and this is disgrace. 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. The sound of Dr. Dre's the chronic made run DMC's 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 Meisel, 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 much in royalties or songwriting credits and 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 COVID 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 two or three hundred dollars out of the four or five 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 Meisel, AKA Jam Master J, 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 half million dollars that he owed the US government. So he opened a recording studio called 247 and started a record label, JMJ Records, 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 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 DM 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 Rincon 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. Rincon's cell phone 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 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. Gunpowder burned J's shirt. The bullet hit him in the head and Jay was killed instantly. The gunman then fired again, this time hitting Rincoan in the leg. Rincoan screamed in pain and fell to the ground, grabbing his blood 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. 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.

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22 years earlier in 1980, 15 year old Jason Meisel was still two years away from becoming his hip hop alter ego, Jam Master J. 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 or 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 shell toe 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, where just months earlier you all watched Slackjaw and cops raided a heroin factory operating out of the school's basement, those 5 percenter dudes are making a beeline to your crew, looking to beef about what you don't know. Somebody said some shit or looked at a guy the wrong way or. 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 5 percenters pulls out a piece, then 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 will 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 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. 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. 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 Meisel'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 2006 too, 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 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, 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 3 gram 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, looking to protect his good name from being tarnished by the revelation of some truly shady shit. But given the circumstances, truly necessary shit for 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. 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 Raccone, the assistant who was shot in the leg by the killer, and not Lydia 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 would happen to them.

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Word, word, word. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's Stock up Savings time now through March 31st spring in for store wide deals that earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Lindor, Chips Ahoy, Gatorade, Host, Ziploc and Zoa. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery restrictions apply. See website for full terms and conditions.

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[Jake 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 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. 10 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 and 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 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 runs 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, whom 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 Tenard 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. 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 Tenard was acting strange, and Tenard's gait was slowing down, not in a mellow kind of way, but a skeptical one. Thenard was now locking eyes with the seller, who was returning the same intense stare. The fuck is he doing here? Thenard asked, referring to the seller, who Thenard was only now realizing was Ralph Mulgrave, a guy everyone called Yakim. Jay and Thenard had known Yakim since way back in high school in Queens. But over the years, Yakim and Tanard's relationship had soured. Jay was only now seeing in real time just how much it had soured. Yakim 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. Tenard wasn't down to work with Yakima. Yakim felt the same. In fact, Yakim was gonna go get his gun. What do you need that for? Jay asked. To shoot Tannard. Hold up, hold up, hold up. Jay was saying. Let's. Let's let cooler heads prevail. Or rather, Jay's cool head. If Joachim 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. Yakim was this guy. The easy solution, in Jay's eyes, was to cut Thenard and thus also cut his godson, Carl Little D. Jordan, out of the deal. Allegedly, this is what happened. And as soon as it did, as soon as he made that decision, Jam Master J'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 had been close friends for decades. What Tenard said next was shocking. He told the cops that on the night of October 30, he was walking toward Jay's studio in the rain with a pocket full of bullets. He had procured the bullets for Jay, who is 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 and his son, Jay's godson, Carl 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, 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 from 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 Queens figure, Curtis Scone, whom the police face favored as their guy early on. Scoon, 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 Scoon was adamant that Jay had ultimately made it Good. And there was no bad blood between them. And besides, why the hell would scoon murder Jay over some missing money from seven years ago? It just didn't make any sense. And all 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 Flannery, 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, 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 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. The one who forced Lydia to the floor and covered for Lil 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 rock 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 Meisel, AKA jam master J, by the U. S. Attorney for the eastern district of New York. According to the government, Tenard and Little D conspired to kill Jay as retaliation for getting cut out of that Baltimore drug deal, leaving them with without their financial windfall. The reluctant testimony of Ralph Mulgrave, AKA Yakim, the seller Tenard had refused to work with, helped prove the government's argument, and on February 27, 2024, 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 a 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, or, as in Rincon's case, concerned about their own safety. When asked, Rincon gave a reason for keeping quiet in just three short words. I was scared. Just as Jam Master 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. Alright, thanks for rolling with me to through this Run DMC episode on the great Jam Master J 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. 617906-6638 Send me a voicemail. Send me a text right here. Hear your voice or an answer to your question on the upcoming afterparty episode. You can also email me Disgracelandpodgmail.com or hit me up on the socials at Disgraceland pod. Guys, I gotta 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 [e-mail] if you're listening. As a Disgraceland Authority 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 disgraceland pop.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, Tick Tock, Twitter and Facebook @Disgracelandpod and on YouTube at YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's Stock up Savings time now through March 31st. Spring in for storewide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Lind, Chips Ahoy, Gatorade, Host, Ziploc and Zoa. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go, pick up or delivery restrictions apply. See website for full terms and conditions.

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[Capella University Narrator]

There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still. Not a chance You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you keep going further. Capella University. What can't you do? Visit Capella Edu to learn more.