The 19th anniversary of Jam Master Jay’s murder at his Jamaica, Queens recording studio on October 30, 2002 sheds new light with BMF ties says journalist.
According to an article by journalist Frank Owen, Jam Master Jay had connections to Black Mafia Family.
To long time hip hop fans and also historians of the genre, Jam Master Jay was once apart of the biggest rap group in the business with Run-DMC. Their accolades were groundbreaking for its time as they were the first Hip Hop group to go multi-platinum, grace the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and first Grammy Award nomination.
Those glory days included their peak of 1986 and years later DMC would end up having to create his own record label called JMJ Records. Eventually the hip hop icon would hit get by the Internal Revenue Service with a massive tax bill that he accrued over his hey day with Run-DMC. He started to delve into drug dealing to help pay off his debt.
“Jay was scrounging for money even after he paid off the IRS,” friend Eric “Shake” James said. “Jay had a lot of overheads. He took care of his mom who moved to North Carolina, he took care of his cousins going to college, he took care of his wife and his kids, he was paying for his sister and her house. That was Jay’s biggest problem. He couldn’t say no.”
Once Jam Master Jay met a “mysterious” man named Uncle, his drug-dealing side hustle elevated to a whole other level. Although Jay never revealed Uncle’s real name, he did let it slip he was part of the Black Mafia Family, the notorious drug laundering and money trafficking organization founded by Detroit brothers Big Meech and Southwest T in 1989.
A typical drug transaction would go something like this: “Jay made a call to Uncle and then Jay called me with a phone number,” a source said. “I went to meet some dudes at a house in St. Louis. Some guy asked me how much I thought I could move. I said 20 keys. They said ‘How are you going to get it back?’ I said I was going to drive it.
“They gave me a phone number and said ‘Call this number when you get back so we know you made it.’ I walked out with twenty keys of coke just on Jay’s name. That’s how crazy it was.”
As soon as Jam Master Jay sold the cocaine, he reportedly either drove back to St. Louis to pay for the consignment or BMF members would pick up the money.
“They charged $18,000 a key, but if I brought the money within 30 days, it would be $17,000 a key,” the source added. “If I brought the money in 50s and 100s, it would be $16,000 a key. They didn’t want no 10s or 20s because they said their biggest problem was moving the money from A to B.”
When asked why JMJ would risk his career, the source explained, “You gotta understand, the one thing a street guy wants is a connection to the cartels, a connection to someone who can give him all the cocaine he wants. That’s like a unicorn in the drug world. When you find a unicorn, you’re not going to walk away from it. Uncle was a unicorn.”
The secret relationship between Jam Master Jay and the Black Mafia Family: “Jay would get $3,000 a key. If I did a deal for 10 keys, that’s $30,000. Jay didn’t have to do shit except make a phone call.”#BMF #JMJ #RunDMC https://t.co/ya4HYg7wv3
— Frank Owen (@frankxowen) October 22, 2021
But Jam Master Jay ran into a snag during a trip to Washington D.C. where Uncle gave JMJ a “large amount” of cocaine on consignment. The secondary purpose of the trip was to introduce Uncle to former Hollis Crew associate Yakim who’d moved to Baltimore and told JMJ the drug trade there was thriving.
JMJ brought Ronald “Tinard” Washington along with him due to his experience selling drugs in the Maryland metropolis. Things went south when Yakim realized Washington was the same person who broke into his house years earlier and stole some of his valuables. Consequently, JMJ cut Washington out of the deal and that’s when he allegedly began to plot JMJ’s murder.
The case stalled for 18 years until August 2020 when the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York charged two suspects with JMJ’s murder: Washington and alleged fellow dealer Karl “Little D” Jordan, both members of JMJ’s inner circle. While there’s yet to be a conviction, the government is seeking the death penalty for both Jordan and Washington.
