Some believe that the murder was apart of a bitter rap rivalry, and others believe it was a drug deal gone wrong. However, friends and family close to Jay are certainly outraged by any mention of the previous, and they remain optimistic about finding his killer.
Jam Master Jay, along with Joe "Run" Simmons and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, was apart of the rap group Run DMC for nearly twenty years. This disc jockey made music that the world adored. "His scratching and mixing exhibitions on songs such as Jam Master Jay, Sucker MCs and Peter Piper (which Missy Elliott uses a portion of on her latest single, Work It) were as influential on future disk jockeys as Run and DMC's raps were on the MCs who followed in their footsteps" (Reid, MTV 1). The lost of this man is tragic because he helped begin the hip-hop art form, when it was merely a few guys rhyming captivating words in the early nineteen eighties in Queens, New York. Rap artist Ice Cube says, "They"re pioneers. Run-DMC made rap emerge out of hip-hop to be the signature art." Fellow hip-hop legend Big Daddy Kane concurred, "Run-DMC definitely made me feel rap was here to stay" (Reid, MTV 1). Once known as a simple form of music, which many spectators believed was only a trend; hip-hop has developed into a five billion dollar industry. This form of music has crossed all color barriers and can be heard in almost every country around the world. Some would argue that hip-hop, in some form or fashion, has impacted the lives of every American under the age of thirty-five. For these reasons, the senseless death of a pioneer has sent shock waves through the hip-hop culture.
Murder in Hip-Hop.
With the murder of another hip-hop legend, many have begun to compare the tragic lost of Jam Master Jay to that of Tupac "Makaveli" Shakur and Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace. These murders stemmed from the media's insistency to provide oxygen to the flame of violence within the hip-hop nation.
