Jam Master Jay:
Fans Remember Queens Rap Pioneer
And Legend Killed In Jamaica

By Shams Tarek

A blue glow from the lighted cross of the Tabernacle of Prayer Church illuminated a chilly Merrick Boulevard on the evening of Oct. 30 as a mix of fans, neighbors from Hollis and hip hop dignitaries expressed their grief and shock over the murder of legendary Run-DMC DJ Jason Mizzell, known around the world as Jam Master Jay.

For those standing on the street in front of the recording studio where Mizell was shot in the hours after the murder there was one big question on their minds:

“Why?”

Mizzell was shot once in the head while in a second-floor recording studio at 90-10 Merrick Blvd. by one of two men who were buzzed into the studio at 7:30 p.m., police said.

Dozens of rappers and hip hop fans gathered outside of the studio where Jam Master Jay was shot and killed. PRESS Photo By Ira Cohen

Mizzell, who grew up in Hollis with the other two members of Run-DMC, died at the scene.

He was 37 years old. 

At presstime police were searching for two men in connection with the shootings.

Another man inside the studio, 25-year-old Urieco Rincon, was shot once in the leg and was sent to Mary Immaculate Hospital, where, the hospital said, he was treated and released the next morning.

The suspects remain at large, police said.

Outside the studio, a shifting crowd of about 100 people gathered to be close to the scene of Mizzell’s last moments. 

They stood in pairs and in small groups, many crying, many staring into space looking dazed.  Hugs were exchanged with almost every greeting.

“Jam Master Jay is dead?” asked an older man in a suit while driving by slowly in a large Mercedes.

“Yeah,” someone in the crowd of mourners replied.

“Damn,” the driver exclaimed as he drove away.

Chuck D, a rapper with the seminal Long Island group Public Enemy who stood outside the studio in the hours following the shootings, said that Mizzell was “the reason I did hip hop,” while fighting back tears.

Run-DMC’s work was antithetical to an industry that is now “perpetuating a climate of violence, ” Chuck D said. “It’s not good, hopefully there can be a turning point.”

Joseph Simmons (a.k.a. Run), Darryl McDaniels (a.k.a. DMC) and Mizzell were known as Run-DMC – pioneers of the rap music genre. Photo Courtesy of Arista Records

Dr. Dre, a DJ on Power 105.1, said outside the studio that “This has gotta end. We’ve gotta start taking responsibility.”

“They broke down the doors,” Dre said of Mizzell’s group. “I’ve known Jay and Run and D a long time.  This is one of the nicest people.”

Bugsy, a 47-year-old Kiss 98.7 DJ from Hollis, said he “watched Jay come up,” and explained Mizzell was a big supporter of local acts who gave back to the community.

“My heart just broke,” Bugsy said.  “It’s family.  He gave a lot of people something to hope for.  Jay was notorious for trying to help anybody who wanted to do this business.”

While standing at the crime scene, Hollis native and Dre’s partner on 105.1, Ed Lover, said he knew Mizzell as a neighbor.

A police officer stands guard in front of Jamaica studio where the shooting occured. PRESS Photo By Ira Cohen

“I felt sick to my stomach,” Lover said about hearing the news of Mizzell’s murder.  “I’ve known Jay my whole life.  This is the worst thing that could’ve happened to our neighborhood.  Jay didn’t have to come back into this neighborhood.  He shouldn’t have to be repaid by the neighborhood like this.  Why would anybody want to hurt Jay?”

Donna Chambers, a Hollis woman in her 30s, said she knew Mizzell for 20 years, and used to see the DJ at block parties all the time.

“You never heard about him having problems with anybody,” she said.  “It’s a shame.  You’re not supposed to take anybody’s life.  That’s God’s job.”

A 33-year-old Hollis woman named Londa who said she used to go to house parties with Mizzell and his partners Joseph “Run” Simmons and Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, cried profusely as she looked at the studio from across the street, and talked about Mizzell’s death as if it was the death of the entire group.

“I grew up with these people,” she said.  “This was a good man.  He took care of his family.  I don’t care how old they get—they’re family.  It wasn’t meant for him.”

Charles Fisher, LL Cool J’s former manager and the founder of the Jamaica-based Hip Hop Summit Youth Council, an organization that aims to hold the hip hop industry accountable for the violence and negativity he said it often breeds, said that anyone in the industry, no matter how far from “gangster rap,” is in danger.

“If you’re in hip hop, it’s impossible for you not to work with acts like that,” Fisher said of rappers who embrace violence.  “This isn’t about being a gangster rapper anymore.  There’s so much violence everywhere, we’re numb.  I don’t know how many hip hop artists need to die before we realize we’ve gotta turn hip hop back to what it was.”

Two men in a van parked next to the studio, rolled down their windows and played Run-DMC songs, many of which are self-referential and include lyrics about Mizzell.  Lover, before leaving the scene, told the driver to “come back to Queens more often” and wandered off while rapping along to the lyrics coming from the van.

“He’s Jam Master Jay, the big beat blasta,” Lover rapped along.  “He gets better ‘cause he knows he hasta.”

The names Run-DMC and Jam Master Jay are synonymous with rap music.

All of the group’s members up in Hollis.

“The first time I got onstage with [Run] was at some teenage club on the corner in Hollis,” McDaniels said in a published interview. “He just handed me the mic and said, ‘Rhyme for an hour.’ I ran out [of rhymes] pretty soon, but I got better.”

The two continued to talk to each other while both studied mortuary science in college – Simmons attended LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City and McDaniels went to St. John’s University in Jamaica.

In 1983, the duo asked their friend Mizell, who knew how to play bass guitar and drums, to back them up as their DJ.

That same year they released their first single, “It’s Like That.”

The group went on to unheralded acclaim and experienced crossover success by recording a remake of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” a song that became the first rap single to enter the top 10.

In an issue of Rolling Stone Magazine – the first to have a rap group appear on the magazine’s cover — Simmons said  “Our image is clean, man. Kids beat each other’s heads every day. They are fighting because they were fighting before I was born … we’re role models.”

The group immortalized their hometown in the lyrics of their holiday song “Christmas in Hollis,” in the late-1980s.

In the years that followed, the group’s career cooled.

A comeback album that was released last year failed to earn the success of previous years.

Simmons became an ordained minister and has contributed as a writer to the PRESS of Southeast Queens.

McDaniels and Mizell were scheduled to perform at a Washington Wizards basketball game in Washington D.C. on Oct. 31 – the same day crowds gathered near the scene of the shooting and set up an impromptu memorial of written tributes to the slain rapper

At presstime information about funeral arrangements was unavailable.

— Stephen McGuire contributed to this story