December 19, 2023 • 57 mins
In honor of Hip Hop’s 50th birthday, Sara and Jim are joined by music industry veteran and leading voice in Black music and culture, Naima Cochrane. Naima, Sara and Jim discuss the recent headline-making developments in two unsolved murder cases that have shaken the Hip Hop world for decades: Tupac Shakur and Jam Master Jay. As always, the hosts present an insider’s look at some of the evidence that may be considered, and the unreliability of anticipated eyewitness testimony regarding events that happened many years in the past. Along the way, they also break down the origins of the East Coast vs. West Coast rap feud of the 90s, the impact of MTV, and the state of Hip Hop music in 2023. The Presumption will return in January 2024, have a safe and happy holiday season!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:22):
Welcome back to the Presumption. I'mSarah Zorry, joined by my brothers from
other mothers. Jimmy, Hi,Matt, Hey there, Sarah's Matt what's
up? Sis? And today we'rejoined by Naima Cochrane. Nama, Welcome
to the show. Thank you forhaving me. Naima is the expert on
(00:46):
all things hip hop, and I'mgoing to get to her intro in a
minute, but I you know,this was the fiftieth anniversary of hip Hop
twenty twenty three. I think itwas August eleventh, right, Naima,
yep. And there's so much happenin that world with unsolved murders from decades
ago that are finally coming to beforecourts and being investigated, and I thought
(01:08):
it'd be interesting to talk to anexpert like her about some of the background
information and just what might be behindall of this and fun fact, I
host a docu series for Investigation Discoverycalled Death by Famous, going into season
(01:29):
two starting January twenty second. Andso I asked the producer we had done
an episode on jam Master J andI said, who is the best of
the best on all things hip hop? And he of course recommended you name
us, So we're really we're excitedto have you here. Nayma Cochrane is
a music industry veteran, storyteller andleading voice in Black music and culture,
(01:53):
specializing and putting black culture in context. She spent more than twenty years in
the entertainment industry, first on thelabel side as a marketer and on the
artist management side. Her viral storytellingseries, Hashtag Music Sermon prompted a move
into music journalism and commentary because ofher unique experiences both an industry insider and
a journalist, She's a sought afterresearcher, speaker, and moderator known for
(02:15):
deep dives and highlighting connections between pastand present. Naima is currently a visiting
arts professor at the Clive Davis Instituteof Recorded Music at at the Tisch School
of the Artist at NYU. Soagain, welcome and happy fiftieth or slightly
belated to pop a genre that's beena big part of all of our lives
(02:38):
in different generations. It's funny becauseJim and I were talking about today and
Jim was like, I don't reallyknow true not always hip hop artists,
and Jim is, yeah, Jimknows everything. About everything. I was
eleven years old when I was bornand I didn't even know, so,
(02:59):
yeah, what mark the birthday?Well, the reason we use the day
August eleventh is because there was aback to school party in the Bronx,
which is largely considered the home ofhip hop by DJ called Cool Herk and
the techniques that he used with theturntables, et cetera. It's kind of
considered a culmination point of a bunchof cultural touchpoints that had already been in
(03:23):
existence to kind of form what weconsidered the culture of hip hop from that
moment. And for those who aren'tfamiliar with the Bronx in the nineteen seventies,
late late sixties, going into theseventies, it was, you know,
a very rough place, even inNew York. It kind of stands
(03:44):
separately from the rest of New YorkCity, largely abandoned, burned out buildings,
largely ruled by gang culture and danceparties. Hip hop parties were actually
considered like a neutral territory for warand gangs to be able to go into
different factions, just break it allapart for a minute, just to enjoy
the music, which is one ofthe reasons that hip hop is about extended
(04:09):
break beats. They wanted to keeppeople on the floor as long as possible,
to keep them away from the ideaof violence. Interesting. Yeah,
you know, I'm a big fanof old hip hop, Q Tip Drive
called Quest and of course Tuk andice Cube, and about the way Jim
says he doesn't know. One ofthe things, you know, the sayings
(04:31):
amongst us is you better check yourselfbefore you wreck yourself. That is ice
Cube, Jim so popularized its Exactlywhat I'm saying is that even if you're
not listening to hip hop all thetime, it just permeates. You know,
(04:53):
it's such a permeated part of ourhistory and culture, so you know,
it's a celebration of life on thestreets all around. And then at
some point it transitioned into I guesswhat we used to call gangster rap,
but you said up something else.Tell us about that transition. What happened?
So as hip hop grew, LikeI said, the origin point is
(05:15):
largely considered to be in the Bronx, not that there weren't sonic moments happening
in other areas that kind of ledinto regional sounds for hip hop. But
again remembering for those of us whocan remember pre digital era, regional sounds
were very specific at that time.So as hip hop culture grew to different
regions, the second biggest market atone point was LA in terms of early
(05:39):
hip hop, and again, hiphop was storytelling of voiceless people, often
marginalized people, about street life,street culture. And in New York,
even though it was born in prioricgang culture, they were talking about fun
stuff at first, right, whereasin LA they were reflecting the reality of
(06:02):
gang culture in LA. So thisterm gangster rap comes about, which was
never a terminology hip hop gave itself. It was. It was terminology put
upon that sound, mostly by mediaas a descriptor of who the artists were,
because in all in all frankness,a lot of hip hop going into
(06:24):
the early nineties, these are formergang members, drug dealers, street people.
This this was the way out right, So as we have the rise
of what we call gangster hip gangsterrap, which also exists in New York,
but we usually don't call it that. We call it like reality rappers,
like the jay Z's the Biggiest,you know. There was also like
(06:45):
this increasing tension between the regions inpart just based on when need to claim
some kind of ownership of something.And you know, to this day there
is some resentment towards New York hiphop because it's like y'all, y'all don't
own it, like you can't claimit. You're not the only people is
and that comes from other regions,but there was an increased tension between East
and West with it. So Jim, I'm gonna toss it to you,
(07:10):
uh first, sure, you know, lately it seems like there are a
lot of old hip hop artists who'vebeen murdered and now they're you know that
they're they're solving those crimes, orat least they're prosecuting people for those like
Tupac. And I've got jam MasterJay here that Sarah had written down.
(07:32):
I got no idea what a jammaster is thin. But Jim, you
have heard of run DMC though,right? I have run run DMC for
sure was their DJ. Wait asecond, Jim, Jim, what is
do you know run DMC because ofthe song with Aerosmith or you know run
DMC just because of run DMC minglesong. Well, you know, I
(07:58):
just know the name, that's right, it's a you know, it's Christmas
time they have they got a bigChristmas as well. That's yes, you're
hearing that around the times of yearas well. Yeah, my favorite popped
the cap and Sona when he camedown the chimney. That's my favorite.
I'm making that up, folks.But but seriously, what what what's the
(08:22):
resurgence and or what do you thinkit's behind, you know, solving the
previously unsolved murders of these hip hopartists. You know, I it's interesting
to even all of us that thesethings seem to be happening, you know,
coinciding with each other in terms oftiming after twenty years of dormancy.
(08:43):
I think that I think that reallypart of it is kind of luck.
I don't think there's any extra where, you know, no one, no
offense to law enforcement. I don'tthink all of a sudden people opened the
cold case files and started digging deepand putting forth extra effort. I do
believe that as time passes, peoplewere more willing to talk about things that
(09:05):
they weren't willing to speak on inrole time. We have also had research
this surge of I was about tosay researchers, but it's not the surge
of podcast hosts who very much liketo gold people into telling incriminating stories,
and for some reason people tell them. And also as some of the more
(09:28):
threatening players have been removed from theboard. Like I said, hip hop
is an art form and a culturethat is intrinsically linked to street culture,
and that included some financiers, somebackers as well as well as artists.
So as some of the more dangerousplayers have been removed from the board,
threats have been taken out a play, I think, and with just age,
(09:50):
I think there are some people whoare more willing to talk about things
they saw, things they know thanthey were twenty plus years ago. So
we're fascinated by the two big headlinecases that Jim's referring to. So I
want to start with Tupac Shakur's investigationthat is taken off in Vegas because that's
(10:13):
where he was shot and killed,and then get your thoughts on some of
that. And I am gonna callon Jim, even though he's usually not
in the hot seat, but Iwant his legal acumen to help us out
here. So twenty seven years ago, September seventh, nineteen ninety six,
(10:33):
Tupac is killed in a drive byshooting. And then finally this year,
in early October, a Nevada grandjury indicts a guy named Dwayne. Is
it kefe d or keif d orsomething? Davis, We'll just call him
Davis in Shakra's charging him with Shakira'sa murder, using a deadly weapon in
(10:56):
the killing. And all this timeno arrests had been made. And according
to Vegas PD, they've been workingday in and day out for twenty seven
years. I'm not too sure aboutthat. But prior to his shooting death
November nineteen ninety four, I believeNama, correct me if I'm wrong,
he was robbed and shot several timesat a New York hotel. And then
(11:16):
two years prior to that, inninety two, he was wounded in a
shooting during a robbery. Or isthat the same incident. It's the same
incident. It was actually nineteen ninetyfour, and Pack was robbed and shot
actually in the lobby of a TimesSquare recording studio. Quite okay. At
(11:37):
the time, he was actually onhis way to visit a recording session that
big and that Biggie Am Puffy werein, which is why he assumed that
he was set up by somebody whowas upstairs because they knew he was on
the way and Poc it was aturning moment for Tupac. He became he
was very angry after that, andyou know, he was very public and
(12:01):
insisting that Bad Boy members were behindthe shooting, that they set him up,
that it was entapment whatever bad Boyis UH Diddy's recording label, that
that Biggie Smalls was also part ofright, so he was insisted that they
set him up. Uh and wouldsay it publicly and it and it it
(12:24):
really kind of was the the ignitionpoint of the East Coast West Coast feud.
Like it was rappers in the feud, but it wasn't really about the
music. It was about this andand and ironically, Poc is from the
East Coast. Pack is from NewYork about and grew up in Baltimore,
So it's like, but he becamea but he moved out west and he
(12:48):
became known as the artist affiliated withUH Oakland and then LA Baseball with Death
Row Records. So the whole thingis really kind of so convoluted at it's
route. But I think some interestingbackground there is that Tupac was also going
through personal transformation after he played thischaracter in Juice called Bishop. This was
(13:11):
a in the movie Juice, whichwas like a hip hop movie. This
was a character who kind of wentrogue, turned a little psychopathic and maniacle,
turned against his friends, was tryingto kill his friends like and Pop
embraced a level of method acting wherehe never broke character even after the film
(13:31):
was done, and you know,people around him found him a little more
erratic, more angry, more violent, and started become more of like this
street figure, which he wasn't reallythat person before, but he was starting
to embody this other nature. Andbefore this there was a friendly camaraderie between
(13:54):
him and Baby. And once thisshooting happens in quiet studios, like people
who will talk about it now,we'll say, like they even think.
At some point Pop knew it wasn'tBiggie and Puffy, but he needed to
fuel his anger because it was fuelinghis art. So he just held on
to that premise and wouldn't let itgo. So life imitates art, as
they said, So can I jumpin with a question on this as well,
(14:18):
which is you know, is MTVresponsible for sort of elevating this sort
of East Coast West Coast feud.I can understand the nature of that question.
I don't think MTV is so muchresponsible for elevating the feud as it
is that MTV was the largest vehiclethat was just spreading hip hop period at
(14:43):
that time. Because this feud isalso going on during like hip hop's commercial
rise, right like, as hiphop is starting to take over everything TV,
movies, branding, fashion, andmake its way more into Middle America,
fly over states, et cetera.This is happening at the same time
that we're seeing this feud. SoI can't so much say that MTV is
responsible for that so much as itwas platforming the entire genre, which also
(15:09):
meant that that was part of whatwas being reported on MTV News, et
cetera, but no more sold thanany other media that was a ring hip
hop. You know. So,I think Naima answered your next question,
Jim, so I can jump intomy Oh yeah, yeah, but tell
me so, I mean the Eastcoast West coast thing. I mean,
(15:31):
you think the Tupac shooting was wasthis genesis of that? It feels like
it because honestly, the core ofit really was it became an East coast
west coast thing, but it wasreally a pop versus Biggie and Puff thing.
And because Tupac was signed to deathRow Records, and because Shuge Night
(15:52):
was such an imposing figure and sugdidn't really need a lot of reason to
be threatening and to recavic and touh to be a menace, I think
it gave him a reason right,And honestly, I don't know if it
would have gone as far as itas it did if if Pot hadn't become
(16:15):
a death Row signe and if andif Sugar hadn't been involved. I think
he went a long way towards perpetuatingin and making it this very big thing
where it really needed to be coastversus coasts. For example, the ninety
four ninety four Source for Wars ninetyfive Source Awards, which is most famously
known as the moment Outcast one BestNew Artist, and Andre the Thousand said
the South got something to say,which is kind of like considered the marking
(16:37):
point of Southern hip hop really makingits mark. Sugar stands on stage and
it's like, if you don't wantyour producer. All in the video dancing
come to death Row or Snoop getsbooed and says the East Coast ain't got
no love for Snoop Dogg. Letyou know that there's this whole tension happening
in that moment. But again,it was really fostered by Death Row versus
(17:00):
bad Boy, not really like allthe artists on the East versus all the
artists on the West. But itcame very easy to just separate it into
those two parties and make it thatI see, yeah, got it?
So so do you break that?That's what I want to know. You
(17:22):
know, I'm sure, I'm surethere's footage of me circa nineteen ninety seven,
the year my bar Mitzvah, probablyyou know, cutting a rug to
some of these very tracks, forsure. Just I mean, you break
down depends on what record label you'dgo to, right, I mean,
well, see, I'm born andraised in La so I definitely heard that
(17:42):
more you know, West Coast sound. And again I mentioned the MTV connection
because that's really where I kind ofmusic. Yeah, exactly, But I
think because I lived in LA Iwas totally brainwashed into that culture of West
versus East, and I remember tellingfriends like, oh, you know,
these these rappers are so much better. And now you now, with you
(18:03):
know, fifty years or forty yearsin between, you go back and listen
to all the things that everyone's sayingon both sides, and all the music
is like so great. The factthat it is that it all just gets
lost in this terrible violence is sosad because everyone was producing incredible art right
right it was. It was ahigh point for the genre and the culture,
(18:23):
you know specifically, but it wasa really stressful time for the business
of it because I mean, theseWest Coast Battle was probably kind of great
for fans that formed alliances and ithad people kind of buy into one side
or the other really heavily. AndI guess you could say it served as
a marketing tool of sorts for certainaspects, but it was it really did
(18:45):
impact the business. It was astressful time and the businesses people were scared.
So getting into getting into his shootingdeath, his murder a little bit.
Davis is the guy that's indicted forwere Uh Pack's shooting death. He
was in Pack was in a blackBMW that was being driven by death Row
(19:08):
Records founder Shook. I almost representedShug, but he was going through a
lot of lawyers and didn't have anymoney and was a pretty problematic client as
it turned out. But anyway,I was one of many people who sat
down with them at the jail,and he was They were heading to a
nightclub after watching Mike Tyson knockout BruceSelden in a championship fight at the MGM
(19:32):
Grand in Las Vegas. Following thematch, Pack and Shug and some associates
get into a fight near the elevator, and that group included Davis and his
nephew Orlando Baby Lane Anderson, withwhom Pac had like clashed before. The
surveillance there's surveillance video that shows Pockand Shook kicking and punching Anderson near the
(19:55):
elevators. Davis and Anderson are membersof the south Side Compton Cripps, a
Southern California based gang that very wellknown here that were rivals of Knight's Blood
affiliated gang called Mop Pieriu. Iguess that same night, they're driving down
the Vegas Strip in a white Cadillacwith four guys in the car and they
(20:17):
pull alongside the BMW that pops inat a red light. One person opens
the door and opens fire from thepassenger side of Shook's car. Seated in
the passenger seat as Pak, whoshot four times, at least twice in
the chest. Shook was grazed bybullet fragments, et cetera. Pox rushed
to the hospital and days later hadhis lung removed and dies at the age
(20:41):
of twenty five. According to anews presser on September twenty ninth of this
year, police say that Davis wassitting in the Cadillac's passenger seat and handed
a gun that he had on himto one of the men in the back
as retaliation for that earlier fight inthe casino at the MGM. So when
an eyewitness disappears, this is reallyfor Jim, you know, and is
(21:06):
killed in an investigation that not onlyopens up another investigation into that murder,
but raises a number of concerns aboutwhether they knew too much this happens,
and we don't know how much.Apparently there was. On November tenth of
ninety six, there was a witnessin this case, Yaki Kadafi, who's
(21:30):
shot to death. So that's theguy that was the witness that gets killed.
So obviously we have an investigation intohis death. We don't know exactly
what happened and who was involved.But how does that look to prosecutors and
to the court gem when the keyeyewitness is gone. I'm you know,
(21:52):
it's it's a problem for everybody,and it's a problem for the investigators,
and then you start investigating who killedthe witness, and then you try to
link it back to the underlying murderthat the witness witness. So you know,
it's doesn't happen much. Frankly,people think it happens more often than
it does. But it happens ina lot of movies. I can think
(22:12):
of one case where I had awitness didn't make it a trial. But
other than that, yeah, metoo. You weren't here, Jim,
when we interviewed Mac Jenkins, thechief of criminal here in LA. But
he and I met on a whitesupremacist case and I had long story,
(22:33):
had a passport fraud element of it, and then he ended up with four
years. During that time, Macprosecuted him for civil rights violations for murder
in Vegas. Ironically, and whenthey went to trial, the star witness
disappeared and had been killed in acar accident. The government was absolutely certain
that that was a murder, itwas a setup, it had to do
(22:53):
with my client, et cetera.They fully investigated it and there was actually
no connection. But it was prettyironic that the that, you know,
the witness disappeared in that In thatcase, Notorious Big was killed in la
on March nine, nineteen ninety seven. Naima. Do you know if there's
a connection just within the community,not from a legal perspective, that that
(23:17):
murder was connected somehow to the hiphop community or PA's murder. It was.
It was wildly considered that it wasmost likely retaliation for POC's murder because
ironically, even though everyone knew Tupacwas courting violence with the Crypts, like
he was taunting them, and hewas not a gang affiliated or gang well
(23:41):
gang affiliated, but not a gangprotected person, not a gang member himself,
so it was kind of out ofline. I think it was something
like he was actually dealing with likeone of the highest members of that particular
group of of cryps. So,but even that known, there was just
(24:02):
an assumption that that Big death wasn'tsomehow retaliation for what happened to Tupac,
whether symbolically or in actuality. AndBiggie had actually been spending a lot of
time in LA at the time,and people were telling him, like,
you're moving to freely out here.It's dangerous. He probably shouldn't be spending
that much time, but that wasa very big award. So weekend the
(24:26):
weekend that he got shot, buthe was trying to actually spend more time
out there to fuse all of thatthat was going on and move past it.
And Jim, what about the youknow this Davis guy that's now indicted
in Vegas did not read or sawsome show that that you know that that
(24:49):
he you know, he got chargedbecause he ran his mouth and pretty much
admitted to being involved in it orconfusing hip hop. No, we're gonna
get to that. We don't knowexactly what he said. But my question
is the fight the day of theshooting death at the MGM by the elevators
that he was involved in, hisnephew was involved in nephew's dead Now can't
(25:14):
the prosecution use that as sort ofmotive in addition to the East coast West
coast stuff? Oh, without adoubt. I mean, I think that's
easier to prove. Yeah, youknow, you had altercation earlier in the
evening and then a couple of hourslater, you know, shoot and kill
the guy. I mean, that'syou don't have to be East coast,
West coast for that crime to happen. That that's every day of the week
(25:37):
crime name it was. Do weknow if there was any history between Davis,
Anderson and Pac or no other thanthat day that one. I don't
know. I feel I think fromwhat I've heard he was he was a
lieutenant, a lieutenant or a streetsergeant, basically following orders. As far
(26:03):
as I know, I could bewrong, but I feel like that's what
that's what the case was. Well. In a twenty eighteen BT interview,
Davis admits to being in the frontseat maybe this is what you're talking about,
Joe of packs shooters vehicle and theCadillac, and implicates his nephew Anderson.
(26:25):
You know, he sort of picked, which happens with our clients.
Sometimes they pick and choose what partof the story they tell. They don't
tell the whole story. So basicallyhe says, I my nephew was one
of the two people in the backseat but he doesn't quite put the gun
in his nephew's hand, in Anderson'shand. He said that the shots were
fired from the back of the car, but doesn't identify the shooter, saying
(26:47):
he had to abide by the codeof the streets. So Naima, what
is the code of the streets we'retalking about twenty eighteen and does that code
still exist today? I'm assuming.I mean, there's a couple of different
things that that could be referring to. Right, So if we're talking about
the code of the streets says itwould have existed in the nineteen nineties,
(27:07):
that could have been not to sayanything, not to speak to law enforcement,
not to repeat what you heard,or that could have also been you
know about what I said, likeyou're following orders based on the group that
you're a part of, that youaffiliated yourself with, and how protocol works
within said organization, because these areyou know, gangs or organizations, like
(27:30):
they have rules and procedures or protocol. But I think the real thing that
people feel like is different now versusyou know, thirty years ago. When
we talk about a street code,is the idea of maintaining silence versus telling
stories and that that's what I imagineis most relevant to what he said.
(27:53):
So Jim to you, do youwant to talk a little bit about what
they were covered from his wife's housewhen they went in with a search warrant
and whether we have enough I mean, we have enough obviously probable cause,
But what do we know so far? Well as I understand that they took
you know, computers, cell phone, hard drive, Vibe magazine that featured
Tupac forty caliber bullets, two tubscontaining photographs, and a copy of a
(28:18):
Compton Street legend memoir. Of course, all those happened in twenty twenty three,
and the murder happened in nineteen ninetysix. I mean, you know,
without digging into it and knowing exactlywhat's in there, I mean,
it's it would be pretty hard tolink the two. Although it does sound
like Davis, you know, heyou know, he had previously admitted to
(28:41):
being in the front seat of thecar, and and you know he's present
at the scene of the murders obviously, So I mean, that's obviously not
enough to get you beyond reasonable thatright, right, being present is not
enough, basically, yeah, yeah, So I mean Irew with Jim's analysis,
obviously, but there's an old trope. You know, you can indict
(29:02):
a ham sandwich because all it takesis probable cause, and pretty much if
you have a pulse, there's probablecause. If you're breathing, there's probable
cause. So it's real easy toindict, but to get a conviction as
a whole another story. You know, he said when the police appranded him
(29:22):
and cuffed him, immediately he turnedaround and said, or I think what
did he say? They asked him, do you know what we got you
for? And he says, thebiggest case in Las Vegas history. Now,
you know, I think our listenerswant to know whether that's bad or
good. To me, that's nota confession. I mean, look,
(29:45):
we always prefer that our clients justshut up, you know, period.
But that's not the worst thing thatI've heard said. I mean, it's
known that the Tubac investigation was goingon for a while. Might be very
true that it is the biggest inVegas history. But you know, I
mean, I do you agree,Jim? I mean, I I don't
think. I mean, that doesnot bother me a bit. Yeah,
(30:07):
me too, me too. Theyknew they searched his wife's house too.
So and then while they're you know, officers are always really nice. They
want you to trust them and starttalking to them and stuff, and they've
talked to him before anyway. Butyou know, he then says to them,
I'm I'm not worried about, youknow, uh, the arrest.
(30:30):
And he said, I ain't didship. And he asks, uh,
I think he asked why the mediawasn't present. This is a guy who
really likes the economy and the attentionaround this case. Obviously the book was
another thing he did. And hesays, so, why y'all didn't bring
the media? They had my wholehouse lit up, referring to the execution
(30:55):
of the warrant. So, Jim, I still don't think that these states
has hurt him either. I mean, no, I ain't did ship.
I was in an interview with aDEA agent and my client today and my
client says, I ain't dead ship. So pretty much what they say,
right exactly. And you know whyin the media there, you know,
(31:18):
that's sort of taunting. If youthink you have such a good case,
why didn't you when you bring themedia here to I mean, that's how
I would view it right, andhe could always say I was not involved
in this. I like the mediaattention. I wrote a book on it.
I sort of banked on the economyof it's actually you know, as
lawyers, we could spend it inhis favor. Uh so public enemy wrapper
(31:45):
flavor. Flavor says it was downto happen one day, referring to Davis's
arrest if he didn't turn himself inbecause he told on himself. I heard
or something like that. He wrotea book on it. I felt the
streets would turn him in one oneday. What the streets of tournament.
(32:06):
I mean, the streets didn't haveto he was he was talking funnily to
to Flay's point. But like Flaves, if you didn't tell himself, I
mean, I don't know, becausehere's the thing. It depends on who
he told the story to and whatthey may have felt they had to gain
or not gain. So if hisnephew was the actual trigger person, allegedly
(32:28):
his nephew's dead, right, Yeah, But you know, we lay people
don't necessarily think like law enforcement,so we don't necessarily think accessory to you
know, you know, like likeall of that type of thing. Where
like there are actual charges to bebrought against the person because they actually helped
facilitate the crime, or they werein the presence of the crime, or
(32:49):
they didn't stop the crime from happening. So for us, if the actual
person who executes the crime and commitsthe crime is not is not the person
we're talking to or hearing about.Yeah, what are what are we reporting?
You know, so you don't necessarilythink of of of those other elements,
cards and elements exactly. Yeah,all right, Well, we'll follow
this case closely. It's fascinating,I mean to me, you know,
(33:12):
it's such an old case. Iwant to know what they have and now
reliable it is because as time goesby, you look, murder doesn't have
a statute of limitations, but it'scertainly you know, it's much harder to
prosecute a cold case. Memories fade, people die, evidence is not obtainable.
So we will follow this as itdevelops in court. The next case,
(33:34):
we just want to kind of brieflytouch on with you name as the
j MJ jam Master J. Jim'sfavorite band run DMC uh. You know,
Jace is his name is legal nameis Jason Masell and he's the DJ
of Run DMC. Run DMC wasyou know, they consisted of a group
(33:54):
of guys now walk this way.I think you said that's that's Van Halen.
That's not Run DMC. It wasarrow and then narrow. H my
god, that's a whole other genrethat you don't know. I don't know.
You're right, well, listen aboutthe four tops I can tell you
(34:21):
about. Okay, yeah, Imean, but but Jim sometimes, I
mean, to his credit, hehas he has asked me about certain artists.
I'm like, who is that?And then he'll send the song.
I'm like, I think I've heardthe song. So there's a lot he
does know. But like exactly somyself starts DJing at the age of thirteen.
(34:47):
He's super gifted and he's from thesame neighborhood as the rest of these
guys on Run DMC, and it'ssort of like the neighborhood guys who became
the biggest thing in hip hop music. So they bring him in and before
they knew it, he became thefocal point of the band, like even
though he was the DJ, andyou would think of him as like the
little bow on the gift or whatever. He became what the DJ was the
(35:13):
most important part of it. Hewas like he became like he was the
people. He was the person inthe band that the audience like really related
to and you know, would reachout to touch his hand, you know,
in shows and stuff like that.Jim just just imagine that there were
only three tops and then when thefourth top joined the band that now you
know who they are. So whowas he though eighteen years ago, well
(35:42):
into his career. I mean,look, he had the career, he
had the big you know, andthen at some point that we called it
something different than gangster rap. Butwhen that transition happened and run DMC was
not as big, who did JMJbecome? Well, let me first clarify,
Run DYOM never gangster rappers. Theydidn't wrap about violence, they didn't
rap about crime, they didn't rapabout that. They were never that,
(36:06):
if any team, they were antithat, which is one of the reasons
that they were one of the earliest, uh commercially successful groups in hip hop
and just established no first rap videoplayed on MTV, first rap brand deal
with Adidas, et cetera, andjam Master J is considered one of the
foundational DJs of hip hop, andthe DJ is one of the most essential
(36:30):
components of hip hop. They putthe music together, right, So that
said, what did happen though,was like the transition to these different kinds
of hip hop, conscious hip hoplike you mentioned Tribe and stuff like that,
and or work kind of like analternative hip hop, and then edgier
(36:51):
like the kind of gangster rap hiphop. Then coming into the era of
the super producer Run DMC. Kindof even though their careers actually weren't that
old compared to what we look atas a Caris band today, they were
kind of considered, you know,the old guard, right, and they
weren't necessarily on the pulse of whatwas happening right now. So the group
(37:15):
had not technically split up, butkinda split up unofficially. They had done
one last album on Arista Records,which wasn't super commercially successful. They weren't
really touring together, and it wasn'tlike, right now, a DJ from
a really impactful group like Run DMCcould just make a really healthy living as
(37:36):
a DJ. We have all thesecelebrity DJs. That was not the case
yet then. So JMJ had actuallyformed his own label, JMJ Records,
and he had discovered a few artistswho had some success, but none that
were sustaining. And he also hadthis recording studio, which is where he
was murdered. But he was tryingto navigate this place between being like this
(38:00):
legacy figure and kind of you know, you know, icon in this genre
and in his personal life. Peoplecame to found out, came to find
out after his murder. He wasstruggling financially. His overhead was huge,
he was supporting a lot of people. He was in some tax debt,
(38:21):
and he had done a couple ofbad deals that were possibly drug related in
an attempt to get some cash.And I'm sorry, go ahead, no,
no, go ahead, go ahead. I was going to say,
this was a side of his lifethat even people who knew him weren't aware
of. Some people were hinting toit like something was wrong. He'd been
(38:42):
paranoid, he was carrying a gun, he was talking about leaving the city.
But it was in such stark contrastto who people knew him to be
in character. I think that ledto the delay and solving his death,
because all of these suspects have beenthere since the beginning. I just think
that people didn't want to believe thereality of the motive. That's interesting.
(39:05):
We're going to get to that ina second. I want to just briefly
go to Jim about this case.In August twenty twenty, so this is
the thick of the pandemic, Jim, when all the courts are closed and
you and me are sitting here going, how are we going to pay the
bills? The courts are closed.We can't bail our clients. The US
Attorney's Office for the Eastern District ofBrooklyn indicted Carl Jordan Junior and Ronald Washington
(39:29):
for the murder of jmj over adrug DESCPRCT. Now, typically murders are
prosecuted by local prosecutorial agencies like theDistrict Attorney's office the Attorney General's office.
But here you have these other componentsthat you know, we're brought into federal
jurisdiction. And so in May ofthis year, almost three years after that
(39:52):
initial indictment, a third defendant namedJay Bryant, is added to the indictment.
It's a ten count indictment, unless, of course I'm missing a super
eating indictment charging them with murder duringthe course of narcotic traffickings that brings in
a big federal element with a gunenhancement that adds significant time. Uh,
(40:12):
this is what we call a veryvery very very bad federal indictment because there
is a lot of very hefty,hefty mandatory minimum and time you know,
enhancements that are present here. SoJim, I know, you know,
we're not like doing a guideline calculation. What was it like, for example,
(40:32):
the gun do to these charges?Like how what does that do to
the exposure the ATF was involved?You know, what what are these guys
realistically? I mean they have mandatoryminimums of twenty years in maxim life life
life. So that's not good,right, you know, I'd have to
analyze the indictment. But I cantell you guns and drugs, starting in
(40:57):
the eighties or been a focus offederal pross cocuters and state prosecutors and the
federal sentencing guidelines. The guidelines havea lot of enhancements for guns and if
you use you know, if youpossess a weapon in connection with the offense
and you don't have to use theweapon, if you just put well,
then actually the guidelines say if if, if, if a weapon was present
(41:21):
during the course of any transaction,then then you get enhancements in the guidelines.
Just pure sentencing guidelines, there area lot of reductions in the guidelines
you just are disqualified from if youhave the Gunya was the gun? Like
here? Recently in the US sensingguidelines as of November one, twenty twenty
three, they passed a two pointreduction if you are a zero point offender,
(41:46):
meaning you have no prior criminal historyand so you've led a pretty at
least you haven't been caught, right, I haven't been convicted. But if
you if your offense involves a gun, you don't get that zero point of
reduction criminal history point reduction. Andyou know, if you have a gun
(42:06):
in your possession is part of youroffense and it shows up in your presensive
guidelines. There's a really significant programin the Bureau of Prisons of intensive drug
treatment program and when you get ayear knocked off your sentence if you participate
successfully in it, it's I mean, it's a very worthwhile program and it
(42:28):
knocks a lot of time off.But guess what, if you have a
gun, you don't get you youcan go through the program, but you
don't get the year knocked off called. And then you know, uh,
there's specific gun charges. So there'ssomething called nine twenty four C, which
is you use a gun in possessionwith a violent offense or a drug offense.
(42:49):
I mean that tax five years consecutiveon whatever sentence you get. So
it's some it's a big problem.The messages guns and drugs don't mix and
that. But you know, whetherit's whether it's gotten you know ingrained on
the street. I don't think so. And I've had when I was prosecuting
defending, I've had I've had clientssay if I'd known this, I would
(43:12):
have used the gun when they cameafter me. You know. So name,
I think you answered this question prettymuch about uh how JMJ. At
the time that he was murdered,I mean, nobody knew, but as
(43:32):
it turned out later, I mean, it sounds to me like he'd become
a drug dealer, right. Ithink what was happening was he was he
was more like a middleman. Hewas he was facilitating uh relations broker,
Yes, he was a broker.He himself was not actually trafficking to was
(43:53):
facilitating uh, connections, relationships,whatever you want to say. So,
yeah, like a little man ora broker. But if I'm not mistaken
either, he had involved these twobecause one of them was the lookout.
One of the look Washington I think, was standing outside the studio. This
(44:14):
is the studios in Queens. Yeah, in a walk up in a building
into Washington's outside to get buzzed in. One of these guys, uh and
father or something. What Yeah,the two the other two suspects, I
think her father's son. Okay,but one of these guys cousin or something
(44:35):
was the receptionist who would be lookingand letting people in. And what's interesting
is she claims Jim that, uh, she let she let she let this
person in, like her relative,right into the studio. But then she
doesn't really know where the guy wentbecause something she dropped something on the floor,
so she had to like look awayto pick it up. Literally,
(44:55):
this is what she said. Soshe missed where he went after she let
him in. The next thing shehears is gunshot. So that's like her
way of not identifying or saying thatshe's not a witness. The guy that
was on the lookout that name istalking about was outside or conveniently places himself
outside and says he never went inside. Yeah, so you know, but
(45:19):
you do have eyewitnesses, and somy question for Jim is, like,
you know, if we know thateyewitness testimony is one of the most unreliable
pieces of evidence. I mean,here we're talking about like eighteen years ago.
I mean, you have DNA atthe scene, Jim, you have
(45:42):
the third defendant that just got addedhis shirt was at the scene. You've
got ballistics, and I think NAMAwe have camera footage as well. I
think there's camera footage, but thefolks were masked, which was part of
the challenge and not to cut inon. But we do have the one
thing to know is that there's eyewitness testimony. But there's been consistent testimony
(46:06):
and interviews over all this time.So even so even Washington, like he
has testified, he has talked toreporters, he has you know, been
part of stories on this and actuallylike thrown under people under throw other people
under the bus, Like, oh, I went to the store and when
I came back, I held thisperson running down the street. So to
find out that he was actually thelookout just kind of makes it even more
(46:28):
egregious. You know, well,if he was the lookout, Jim,
what's the sculpability? I mean thatyou know, the law is, you've
heard this hand of one is thehand of all, and so you know
it's equal couple of built you know, a couple more if he participated in
it. And so you know thatyou can get the same type of sentence
(46:52):
that the person who pulled the trigger. He sure qualifies for it. I
mean, so he gets convicted andget to the murder if you know,
conspiracy to commit murder and and youknow, or or murder. Frankly,
if if he's a lookout for amurder, the would he get the same
sentence? I mean that's that's whereyou start weighing a couple of bilbility.
(47:15):
And you know those people get lesstime than the murderer. But you know,
there have been cases where the lookoutgot the death penal the end of
the trigger guy you know, cooperatedand didn't. I mean, there have
been those cases totally the opposite ofwhat you would expect. Yeah, Belie,
(47:37):
So I got a question. Sohip hop seems to you know,
I mean, I guess you wouldsay this was hip hop. You may
correct me. The I mean,there's a Super Bowl a lot of hip
hop artists last year, and andyou know, I can't turn on the
TV with you know, watching theshow without seeing Snoop advertising for Corona Beer.
(47:58):
And it seemed just mainstream now.And I don't is the violence out
of hip hop more East coast Westcoast? Well, no, that the
East coast, West Coast definitely wasdead it quite some time ago. I
think that as a culture. Theone thing that the deaths of Tupac and
Biggie, as tragic as they were, because I mean we're talking about twenty
(48:21):
five year old men, which issane when you really think about it.
As as tragic as they were,one thing I think they did serve to
do was was give everybody a momentto be like, Okay, this has
to stop. This has to stopbecause we are losing you know, it's
one thing to it's one thing tolose people who are still kind of in
the life to that life. Butwhen you become a sssess, when you've
(48:45):
put a when you've started to makea mark on culture in the world at
large, and to lose people atsuch a young age, it's so tragic,
right, And it really kind ofI think, shook up the business
and fellow artists executives to say,Okay, we gotta we gotta have a
turning point because it was impacting everybody. It was impacting you if you worked
(49:06):
in an office, it was impactingyou if you're a recording artists, et
cetera. And it also even thoughit also did open up a lane for
other regions to come and participate alittle bit more in hip hop. But
that said, to answer your question, Jim, I think people, you
know, people got older, theculture got older. It's kind of like
how once upon a time, youknow, rock and roll was considered dangerous
for kids to listen to and you'regonna get all kinds of crazy ideas and
(49:29):
you're gonna, you know, smokedope and you're gonna do whatever. And
now rock is mostly like an ageyou know, more like you know,
mellow middle age exactly. You knowme too. Actually, So we're talking
about like the evolution of a culture. Now, what I actually will say
is that there is an element ofstreet violence that is finding its way back
into hip hop with drill rap,which is becoming a huge problem. But
(49:53):
the thing the point that people seemto kind of be going in circles on
is the chicken and egg of itall? Like, is hip hop actually
like perpetuating violence or is it justthat there are people who are already involved
in violent lifestyles who then become hiphop artists right? Like? Is it
the culture's fault or is it justa matter of people who come into the
(50:15):
cultural come from this background. Itis not as prevalent as it was in
the nineties because there are plenty ofhip hop artists who you know, do
not come from poverty or lower incomehousing or the projects or jail or whatever.
The people come from two family,middle class suburban homes who or who
(50:36):
are part of this now. Soit's just changed, just broadness, and
it's changed. I wouldn't say it'scompletely gone, but it's also again,
it's not so much about hip hopitself, it's about the people who become
hip hop artists. Go ahead,let me jump in the you know what
little hip hop I do see andlisten to. You know, they're there's
(51:00):
a lot of uh, you know, I don't want to say degrading,
but very sexual. It's very youknow, the disrespectful to women. If
if, if I may say,and are there any women hip hop artists?
There are many, they're not asmany. Yeah, well there's Megan
(51:21):
A. Stallion, There's Cardi B. There's Nicki Mini. Yeah there is
now, I mean there there's Imean there are look is still arounds.
There actually is a bigger class ofwhat we might call like a new class
a female recording artist. And there'sbeen possibly ever, at least in the
last twenty years. There was adearth for a minute where it didn't seem
(51:44):
to be women who could break intomainstream hip hop. They were kind of
relegated to underground and niche. Butwe are having like there have been more
women on the charts, more womenrappers on the charts in the last couple
of years than we've seen in quitesome time. So that part seems to
be growing and at least becoming alittle bit more healthy. But it's not
(52:05):
the same representation as as men byany means. But there's also not in
any musical genre the same representation ofwomen is there. That's true, but
it is the conversation about misogyny andsexism and hip hop is as old as
the genre itself, and It's somethingthat we are still grappling with, especially
(52:27):
in the met too movement. Rightthere is a you know better, you
do better mindset. But again,hip hop is a very you know,
at fifty years old, we havea lot of different things to contend with
and a lot of unlearning to doand changes, you know, to make.
Still, and I think it alittle what what are you What were
you referring to? For example,who me? Yeah, oh, I
(52:50):
can't repeat it disrespectful. Well,I mean it's pretty general. People like
what like which, Oh you're justsaying generally. Yeah, some of the
media that I've heard, you know, I've just turned the channel and icy
because I was going to say that, like because I love Little Kimp,
but I remember Nama. I can'tremember who the the male artist was,
(53:15):
but there was a song back inthe day. They essentially responded to each
other in these two songs, andit was wanchy And I'm sorry, you
can't say that the guy was amisogynist because she was asking for it.
I mean, it was it wasdirty, but but I mean, but
that's been some of them. Sothat's one of the conflicts in this conversation
(53:39):
is that there are a group offemale artists who have flipped it and actually
decided to own and empower their sectualityand also like embody the same like hip
hop is a is a genre ofof of of bredagio and and boasting and
(54:00):
and and kind of like I'm betterthan you investing women. There are some
women who have just kind of beenlike, I'm going to embody the same
energy that the men do and flipit a little bit. And who was
the guy that do you know whatsong I'm talking about? Like? I
feel like they're talking about Kim andbig I think so too. I was
(54:22):
gonna say it might be Biggie becauseit was almost like she was topping him.
You know, he was like,I'm gonna throw you on the ground
blah blah blah blah whatever, andshe was like, Oh no, bitch,
I'm gonna do that. You're probablytalking about. I feel like you're
probably talking about Kim and Biggie AndI mean, it's but it's also something
that ironically even male rappers, malerappers who themselves can be very explicit in
(54:46):
their rhymes or like clutching their pearlslike our women are talking about all it's
like, come on man like it. It's turned about it's fair play,
and there is some of it isjust about like, rather them being objectified,
we are going to of it andtake control of it, which there
(55:08):
is still some shame for. Soagain there's levels to it. But the
thing about the genre now is thatit's wide enough so that the argument that
like, oh, we don't haveany women who are not sexualizing themselves,
or we don't have any rappers whoare only talking about sex and drugs and
the street and stuff like that isnot true. You just you may have
(55:30):
to find it, but it existsright there. There are artists of all
kinds who have all kinds of topicalmatter, all kinds of presentation and representation.
At this point, I think it'sit's it's broader and wider than ever.
It's just that what makes his wayto radio is sometimes formulaic, but
(55:51):
that's always been the case with radio. Well you we learned so much about
hip hop and what's going on fromyou, so I really appreciate it.
But I actually had I was underthe I guess it's misinformation or myth or
whatever it was in my head thatpeople weren't talking about JMJ. And I
(56:12):
knew there were a lot of witnessesbecause I did that episode with you on
Death by Fame. But I waslike, well, maybe now you know
the government waited this long to indictand to move forward with the case because
these witnesses had just come forward.But I learned from you that know,
these people have been talking all ofthis time. So for Jim and I
think what that makes for an interestingquestion like what was the hold up?
(56:35):
Like why wait eighteen years to bringthis case to court. We'll see.
But I thank you so much forjoining us, Naima. It was it
was a great pleasure to have youhere. Thank you, thank you,
thank you very much. Yeah,just to reiteration, as it was mentioned
before, coming up in January,we have the entire second season of Death
(56:58):
by Fame and Sarah's the lead goalanchor on that show, so she's in
all the episodes, but there isan episode dedicated to jam Master Jay.
Naima is the expert in that episode. So if you enjoyed this conversation,
you should absolutely check out that show. Hey, just watch it in general
because Sarah is awesome, And ifyou like our show you've never heard it
before. We're called the Presumption.Please subscribe. We're on all the platforms
(57:20):
including YouTube, all the social handlesat the Presumption and again just on behalf
of all of us. Happy holidays. This is going to be our last
episode before we sign off for Christmas. We'll be back in the new year,
but we love all of our fansand new ones come join. We
love having you here too, andSarah, Jim, you guys ready to
wrap it up. I've got walkedthis way in my head from Aerosmith and
(57:45):
so I'll say we rest
Welcome back to the Presumption. I'mSarah Zorry, joined by my brothers from
other mothers. Jimmy, Hi,Matt, Hey there, Sarah's Matt what's
up? Sis? And today we'rejoined by Naima Cochrane. Nama, Welcome
to the show. Thank you forhaving me. Naima is the expert on
(00:46):
all things hip hop, and I'mgoing to get to her intro in a
minute, but I you know,this was the fiftieth anniversary of hip Hop
twenty twenty three. I think itwas August eleventh, right, Naima,
yep. And there's so much happenin that world with unsolved murders from decades
ago that are finally coming to beforecourts and being investigated, and I thought
(01:08):
it'd be interesting to talk to anexpert like her about some of the background
information and just what might be behindall of this and fun fact, I
host a docu series for Investigation Discoverycalled Death by Famous, going into season
(01:29):
two starting January twenty second. Andso I asked the producer we had done
an episode on jam Master J andI said, who is the best of
the best on all things hip hop? And he of course recommended you name
us, So we're really we're excitedto have you here. Nayma Cochrane is
a music industry veteran, storyteller andleading voice in Black music and culture,
(01:53):
specializing and putting black culture in context. She spent more than twenty years in
the entertainment industry, first on thelabel side as a marketer and on the
artist management side. Her viral storytellingseries, Hashtag Music Sermon prompted a move
into music journalism and commentary because ofher unique experiences both an industry insider and
a journalist, She's a sought afterresearcher, speaker, and moderator known for
(02:15):
deep dives and highlighting connections between pastand present. Naima is currently a visiting
arts professor at the Clive Davis Instituteof Recorded Music at at the Tisch School
of the Artist at NYU. Soagain, welcome and happy fiftieth or slightly
belated to pop a genre that's beena big part of all of our lives
(02:38):
in different generations. It's funny becauseJim and I were talking about today and
Jim was like, I don't reallyknow true not always hip hop artists,
and Jim is, yeah, Jimknows everything. About everything. I was
eleven years old when I was bornand I didn't even know, so,
(02:59):
yeah, what mark the birthday?Well, the reason we use the day
August eleventh is because there was aback to school party in the Bronx,
which is largely considered the home ofhip hop by DJ called Cool Herk and
the techniques that he used with theturntables, et cetera. It's kind of
considered a culmination point of a bunchof cultural touchpoints that had already been in
(03:23):
existence to kind of form what weconsidered the culture of hip hop from that
moment. And for those who aren'tfamiliar with the Bronx in the nineteen seventies,
late late sixties, going into theseventies, it was, you know,
a very rough place, even inNew York. It kind of stands
(03:44):
separately from the rest of New YorkCity, largely abandoned, burned out buildings,
largely ruled by gang culture and danceparties. Hip hop parties were actually
considered like a neutral territory for warand gangs to be able to go into
different factions, just break it allapart for a minute, just to enjoy
the music, which is one ofthe reasons that hip hop is about extended
(04:09):
break beats. They wanted to keeppeople on the floor as long as possible,
to keep them away from the ideaof violence. Interesting. Yeah,
you know, I'm a big fanof old hip hop, Q Tip Drive
called Quest and of course Tuk andice Cube, and about the way Jim
says he doesn't know. One ofthe things, you know, the sayings
(04:31):
amongst us is you better check yourselfbefore you wreck yourself. That is ice
Cube, Jim so popularized its Exactlywhat I'm saying is that even if you're
not listening to hip hop all thetime, it just permeates. You know,
(04:53):
it's such a permeated part of ourhistory and culture, so you know,
it's a celebration of life on thestreets all around. And then at
some point it transitioned into I guesswhat we used to call gangster rap,
but you said up something else.Tell us about that transition. What happened?
So as hip hop grew, LikeI said, the origin point is
(05:15):
largely considered to be in the Bronx, not that there weren't sonic moments happening
in other areas that kind of ledinto regional sounds for hip hop. But
again remembering for those of us whocan remember pre digital era, regional sounds
were very specific at that time.So as hip hop culture grew to different
regions, the second biggest market atone point was LA in terms of early
(05:39):
hip hop, and again, hiphop was storytelling of voiceless people, often
marginalized people, about street life,street culture. And in New York,
even though it was born in prioricgang culture, they were talking about fun
stuff at first, right, whereasin LA they were reflecting the reality of
(06:02):
gang culture in LA. So thisterm gangster rap comes about, which was
never a terminology hip hop gave itself. It was. It was terminology put
upon that sound, mostly by mediaas a descriptor of who the artists were,
because in all in all frankness,a lot of hip hop going into
(06:24):
the early nineties, these are formergang members, drug dealers, street people.
This this was the way out right, So as we have the rise
of what we call gangster hip gangsterrap, which also exists in New York,
but we usually don't call it that. We call it like reality rappers,
like the jay Z's the Biggiest,you know. There was also like
(06:45):
this increasing tension between the regions inpart just based on when need to claim
some kind of ownership of something.And you know, to this day there
is some resentment towards New York hiphop because it's like y'all, y'all don't
own it, like you can't claimit. You're not the only people is
and that comes from other regions,but there was an increased tension between East
and West with it. So Jim, I'm gonna toss it to you,
(07:10):
uh first, sure, you know, lately it seems like there are a
lot of old hip hop artists who'vebeen murdered and now they're you know that
they're they're solving those crimes, orat least they're prosecuting people for those like
Tupac. And I've got jam MasterJay here that Sarah had written down.
(07:32):
I got no idea what a jammaster is thin. But Jim, you
have heard of run DMC though,right? I have run run DMC for
sure was their DJ. Wait asecond, Jim, Jim, what is
do you know run DMC because ofthe song with Aerosmith or you know run
DMC just because of run DMC minglesong. Well, you know, I
(07:58):
just know the name, that's right, it's a you know, it's Christmas
time they have they got a bigChristmas as well. That's yes, you're
hearing that around the times of yearas well. Yeah, my favorite popped
the cap and Sona when he camedown the chimney. That's my favorite.
I'm making that up, folks.But but seriously, what what what's the
(08:22):
resurgence and or what do you thinkit's behind, you know, solving the
previously unsolved murders of these hip hopartists. You know, I it's interesting
to even all of us that thesethings seem to be happening, you know,
coinciding with each other in terms oftiming after twenty years of dormancy.
(08:43):
I think that I think that reallypart of it is kind of luck.
I don't think there's any extra where, you know, no one, no
offense to law enforcement. I don'tthink all of a sudden people opened the
cold case files and started digging deepand putting forth extra effort. I do
believe that as time passes, peoplewere more willing to talk about things that
(09:05):
they weren't willing to speak on inrole time. We have also had research
this surge of I was about tosay researchers, but it's not the surge
of podcast hosts who very much liketo gold people into telling incriminating stories,
and for some reason people tell them. And also as some of the more
(09:28):
threatening players have been removed from theboard. Like I said, hip hop
is an art form and a culturethat is intrinsically linked to street culture,
and that included some financiers, somebackers as well as well as artists.
So as some of the more dangerousplayers have been removed from the board,
threats have been taken out a play, I think, and with just age,
(09:50):
I think there are some people whoare more willing to talk about things
they saw, things they know thanthey were twenty plus years ago. So
we're fascinated by the two big headlinecases that Jim's referring to. So I
want to start with Tupac Shakur's investigationthat is taken off in Vegas because that's
(10:13):
where he was shot and killed,and then get your thoughts on some of
that. And I am gonna callon Jim, even though he's usually not
in the hot seat, but Iwant his legal acumen to help us out
here. So twenty seven years ago, September seventh, nineteen ninety six,
(10:33):
Tupac is killed in a drive byshooting. And then finally this year,
in early October, a Nevada grandjury indicts a guy named Dwayne. Is
it kefe d or keif d orsomething? Davis, We'll just call him
Davis in Shakra's charging him with Shakira'sa murder, using a deadly weapon in
(10:56):
the killing. And all this timeno arrests had been made. And according
to Vegas PD, they've been workingday in and day out for twenty seven
years. I'm not too sure aboutthat. But prior to his shooting death
November nineteen ninety four, I believeNama, correct me if I'm wrong,
he was robbed and shot several timesat a New York hotel. And then
(11:16):
two years prior to that, inninety two, he was wounded in a
shooting during a robbery. Or isthat the same incident. It's the same
incident. It was actually nineteen ninetyfour, and Pack was robbed and shot
actually in the lobby of a TimesSquare recording studio. Quite okay. At
(11:37):
the time, he was actually onhis way to visit a recording session that
big and that Biggie Am Puffy werein, which is why he assumed that
he was set up by somebody whowas upstairs because they knew he was on
the way and Poc it was aturning moment for Tupac. He became he
was very angry after that, andyou know, he was very public and
(12:01):
insisting that Bad Boy members were behindthe shooting, that they set him up,
that it was entapment whatever bad Boyis UH Diddy's recording label, that
that Biggie Smalls was also part ofright, so he was insisted that they
set him up. Uh and wouldsay it publicly and it and it it
(12:24):
really kind of was the the ignitionpoint of the East Coast West Coast feud.
Like it was rappers in the feud, but it wasn't really about the
music. It was about this andand and ironically, Poc is from the
East Coast. Pack is from NewYork about and grew up in Baltimore,
So it's like, but he becamea but he moved out west and he
(12:48):
became known as the artist affiliated withUH Oakland and then LA Baseball with Death
Row Records. So the whole thingis really kind of so convoluted at it's
route. But I think some interestingbackground there is that Tupac was also going
through personal transformation after he played thischaracter in Juice called Bishop. This was
(13:11):
a in the movie Juice, whichwas like a hip hop movie. This
was a character who kind of wentrogue, turned a little psychopathic and maniacle,
turned against his friends, was tryingto kill his friends like and Pop
embraced a level of method acting wherehe never broke character even after the film
(13:31):
was done, and you know,people around him found him a little more
erratic, more angry, more violent, and started become more of like this
street figure, which he wasn't reallythat person before, but he was starting
to embody this other nature. Andbefore this there was a friendly camaraderie between
(13:54):
him and Baby. And once thisshooting happens in quiet studios, like people
who will talk about it now,we'll say, like they even think.
At some point Pop knew it wasn'tBiggie and Puffy, but he needed to
fuel his anger because it was fuelinghis art. So he just held on
to that premise and wouldn't let itgo. So life imitates art, as
they said, So can I jumpin with a question on this as well,
(14:18):
which is you know, is MTVresponsible for sort of elevating this sort
of East Coast West Coast feud.I can understand the nature of that question.
I don't think MTV is so muchresponsible for elevating the feud as it
is that MTV was the largest vehiclethat was just spreading hip hop period at
(14:43):
that time. Because this feud isalso going on during like hip hop's commercial
rise, right like, as hiphop is starting to take over everything TV,
movies, branding, fashion, andmake its way more into Middle America,
fly over states, et cetera.This is happening at the same time
that we're seeing this feud. SoI can't so much say that MTV is
responsible for that so much as itwas platforming the entire genre, which also
(15:09):
meant that that was part of whatwas being reported on MTV News, et
cetera, but no more sold thanany other media that was a ring hip
hop. You know. So,I think Naima answered your next question,
Jim, so I can jump intomy Oh yeah, yeah, but tell
me so, I mean the Eastcoast West coast thing. I mean,
(15:31):
you think the Tupac shooting was wasthis genesis of that? It feels like
it because honestly, the core ofit really was it became an East coast
west coast thing, but it wasreally a pop versus Biggie and Puff thing.
And because Tupac was signed to deathRow Records, and because Shuge Night
(15:52):
was such an imposing figure and sugdidn't really need a lot of reason to
be threatening and to recavic and touh to be a menace, I think
it gave him a reason right,And honestly, I don't know if it
would have gone as far as itas it did if if Pot hadn't become
(16:15):
a death Row signe and if andif Sugar hadn't been involved. I think
he went a long way towards perpetuatingin and making it this very big thing
where it really needed to be coastversus coasts. For example, the ninety
four ninety four Source for Wars ninetyfive Source Awards, which is most famously
known as the moment Outcast one BestNew Artist, and Andre the Thousand said
the South got something to say,which is kind of like considered the marking
(16:37):
point of Southern hip hop really makingits mark. Sugar stands on stage and
it's like, if you don't wantyour producer. All in the video dancing
come to death Row or Snoop getsbooed and says the East Coast ain't got
no love for Snoop Dogg. Letyou know that there's this whole tension happening
in that moment. But again,it was really fostered by Death Row versus
(17:00):
bad Boy, not really like allthe artists on the East versus all the
artists on the West. But itcame very easy to just separate it into
those two parties and make it thatI see, yeah, got it?
So so do you break that?That's what I want to know. You
(17:22):
know, I'm sure, I'm surethere's footage of me circa nineteen ninety seven,
the year my bar Mitzvah, probablyyou know, cutting a rug to
some of these very tracks, forsure. Just I mean, you break
down depends on what record label you'dgo to, right, I mean,
well, see, I'm born andraised in La so I definitely heard that
(17:42):
more you know, West Coast sound. And again I mentioned the MTV connection
because that's really where I kind ofmusic. Yeah, exactly, But I
think because I lived in LA Iwas totally brainwashed into that culture of West
versus East, and I remember tellingfriends like, oh, you know,
these these rappers are so much better. And now you now, with you
(18:03):
know, fifty years or forty yearsin between, you go back and listen
to all the things that everyone's sayingon both sides, and all the music
is like so great. The factthat it is that it all just gets
lost in this terrible violence is sosad because everyone was producing incredible art right
right it was. It was ahigh point for the genre and the culture,
(18:23):
you know specifically, but it wasa really stressful time for the business
of it because I mean, theseWest Coast Battle was probably kind of great
for fans that formed alliances and ithad people kind of buy into one side
or the other really heavily. AndI guess you could say it served as
a marketing tool of sorts for certainaspects, but it was it really did
(18:45):
impact the business. It was astressful time and the businesses people were scared.
So getting into getting into his shootingdeath, his murder a little bit.
Davis is the guy that's indicted forwere Uh Pack's shooting death. He
was in Pack was in a blackBMW that was being driven by death Row
(19:08):
Records founder Shook. I almost representedShug, but he was going through a
lot of lawyers and didn't have anymoney and was a pretty problematic client as
it turned out. But anyway,I was one of many people who sat
down with them at the jail,and he was They were heading to a
nightclub after watching Mike Tyson knockout BruceSelden in a championship fight at the MGM
(19:32):
Grand in Las Vegas. Following thematch, Pack and Shug and some associates
get into a fight near the elevator, and that group included Davis and his
nephew Orlando Baby Lane Anderson, withwhom Pac had like clashed before. The
surveillance there's surveillance video that shows Pockand Shook kicking and punching Anderson near the
(19:55):
elevators. Davis and Anderson are membersof the south Side Compton Cripps, a
Southern California based gang that very wellknown here that were rivals of Knight's Blood
affiliated gang called Mop Pieriu. Iguess that same night, they're driving down
the Vegas Strip in a white Cadillacwith four guys in the car and they
(20:17):
pull alongside the BMW that pops inat a red light. One person opens
the door and opens fire from thepassenger side of Shook's car. Seated in
the passenger seat as Pak, whoshot four times, at least twice in
the chest. Shook was grazed bybullet fragments, et cetera. Pox rushed
to the hospital and days later hadhis lung removed and dies at the age
(20:41):
of twenty five. According to anews presser on September twenty ninth of this
year, police say that Davis wassitting in the Cadillac's passenger seat and handed
a gun that he had on himto one of the men in the back
as retaliation for that earlier fight inthe casino at the MGM. So when
an eyewitness disappears, this is reallyfor Jim, you know, and is
(21:06):
killed in an investigation that not onlyopens up another investigation into that murder,
but raises a number of concerns aboutwhether they knew too much this happens,
and we don't know how much.Apparently there was. On November tenth of
ninety six, there was a witnessin this case, Yaki Kadafi, who's
(21:30):
shot to death. So that's theguy that was the witness that gets killed.
So obviously we have an investigation intohis death. We don't know exactly
what happened and who was involved.But how does that look to prosecutors and
to the court gem when the keyeyewitness is gone. I'm you know,
(21:52):
it's it's a problem for everybody,and it's a problem for the investigators,
and then you start investigating who killedthe witness, and then you try to
link it back to the underlying murderthat the witness witness. So you know,
it's doesn't happen much. Frankly,people think it happens more often than
it does. But it happens ina lot of movies. I can think
(22:12):
of one case where I had awitness didn't make it a trial. But
other than that, yeah, metoo. You weren't here, Jim,
when we interviewed Mac Jenkins, thechief of criminal here in LA. But
he and I met on a whitesupremacist case and I had long story,
(22:33):
had a passport fraud element of it, and then he ended up with four
years. During that time, Macprosecuted him for civil rights violations for murder
in Vegas. Ironically, and whenthey went to trial, the star witness
disappeared and had been killed in acar accident. The government was absolutely certain
that that was a murder, itwas a setup, it had to do
(22:53):
with my client, et cetera.They fully investigated it and there was actually
no connection. But it was prettyironic that the that, you know,
the witness disappeared in that In thatcase, Notorious Big was killed in la
on March nine, nineteen ninety seven. Naima. Do you know if there's
a connection just within the community,not from a legal perspective, that that
(23:17):
murder was connected somehow to the hiphop community or PA's murder. It was.
It was wildly considered that it wasmost likely retaliation for POC's murder because
ironically, even though everyone knew Tupacwas courting violence with the Crypts, like
he was taunting them, and hewas not a gang affiliated or gang well
(23:41):
gang affiliated, but not a gangprotected person, not a gang member himself,
so it was kind of out ofline. I think it was something
like he was actually dealing with likeone of the highest members of that particular
group of of cryps. So,but even that known, there was just
(24:02):
an assumption that that Big death wasn'tsomehow retaliation for what happened to Tupac,
whether symbolically or in actuality. AndBiggie had actually been spending a lot of
time in LA at the time,and people were telling him, like,
you're moving to freely out here.It's dangerous. He probably shouldn't be spending
that much time, but that wasa very big award. So weekend the
(24:26):
weekend that he got shot, buthe was trying to actually spend more time
out there to fuse all of thatthat was going on and move past it.
And Jim, what about the youknow this Davis guy that's now indicted
in Vegas did not read or sawsome show that that you know that that
(24:49):
he you know, he got chargedbecause he ran his mouth and pretty much
admitted to being involved in it orconfusing hip hop. No, we're gonna
get to that. We don't knowexactly what he said. But my question
is the fight the day of theshooting death at the MGM by the elevators
that he was involved in, hisnephew was involved in nephew's dead Now can't
(25:14):
the prosecution use that as sort ofmotive in addition to the East coast West
coast stuff? Oh, without adoubt. I mean, I think that's
easier to prove. Yeah, youknow, you had altercation earlier in the
evening and then a couple of hourslater, you know, shoot and kill
the guy. I mean, that'syou don't have to be East coast,
West coast for that crime to happen. That that's every day of the week
(25:37):
crime name it was. Do weknow if there was any history between Davis,
Anderson and Pac or no other thanthat day that one. I don't
know. I feel I think fromwhat I've heard he was he was a
lieutenant, a lieutenant or a streetsergeant, basically following orders. As far
(26:03):
as I know, I could bewrong, but I feel like that's what
that's what the case was. Well. In a twenty eighteen BT interview,
Davis admits to being in the frontseat maybe this is what you're talking about,
Joe of packs shooters vehicle and theCadillac, and implicates his nephew Anderson.
(26:25):
You know, he sort of picked, which happens with our clients.
Sometimes they pick and choose what partof the story they tell. They don't
tell the whole story. So basicallyhe says, I my nephew was one
of the two people in the backseat but he doesn't quite put the gun
in his nephew's hand, in Anderson'shand. He said that the shots were
fired from the back of the car, but doesn't identify the shooter, saying
(26:47):
he had to abide by the codeof the streets. So Naima, what
is the code of the streets we'retalking about twenty eighteen and does that code
still exist today? I'm assuming.I mean, there's a couple of different
things that that could be referring to. Right, So if we're talking about
the code of the streets says itwould have existed in the nineteen nineties,
(27:07):
that could have been not to sayanything, not to speak to law enforcement,
not to repeat what you heard,or that could have also been you
know about what I said, likeyou're following orders based on the group that
you're a part of, that youaffiliated yourself with, and how protocol works
within said organization, because these areyou know, gangs or organizations, like
(27:30):
they have rules and procedures or protocol. But I think the real thing that
people feel like is different now versusyou know, thirty years ago. When
we talk about a street code,is the idea of maintaining silence versus telling
stories and that that's what I imagineis most relevant to what he said.
(27:53):
So Jim to you, do youwant to talk a little bit about what
they were covered from his wife's housewhen they went in with a search warrant
and whether we have enough I mean, we have enough obviously probable cause,
But what do we know so far? Well as I understand that they took
you know, computers, cell phone, hard drive, Vibe magazine that featured
Tupac forty caliber bullets, two tubscontaining photographs, and a copy of a
(28:18):
Compton Street legend memoir. Of course, all those happened in twenty twenty three,
and the murder happened in nineteen ninetysix. I mean, you know,
without digging into it and knowing exactlywhat's in there, I mean,
it's it would be pretty hard tolink the two. Although it does sound
like Davis, you know, heyou know, he had previously admitted to
(28:41):
being in the front seat of thecar, and and you know he's present
at the scene of the murders obviously, So I mean, that's obviously not
enough to get you beyond reasonable thatright, right, being present is not
enough, basically, yeah, yeah, So I mean Irew with Jim's analysis,
obviously, but there's an old trope. You know, you can indict
(29:02):
a ham sandwich because all it takesis probable cause, and pretty much if
you have a pulse, there's probablecause. If you're breathing, there's probable
cause. So it's real easy toindict, but to get a conviction as
a whole another story. You know, he said when the police appranded him
(29:22):
and cuffed him, immediately he turnedaround and said, or I think what
did he say? They asked him, do you know what we got you
for? And he says, thebiggest case in Las Vegas history. Now,
you know, I think our listenerswant to know whether that's bad or
good. To me, that's nota confession. I mean, look,
(29:45):
we always prefer that our clients justshut up, you know, period.
But that's not the worst thing thatI've heard said. I mean, it's
known that the Tubac investigation was goingon for a while. Might be very
true that it is the biggest inVegas history. But you know, I
mean, I do you agree,Jim? I mean, I I don't
think. I mean, that doesnot bother me a bit. Yeah,
(30:07):
me too, me too. Theyknew they searched his wife's house too.
So and then while they're you know, officers are always really nice. They
want you to trust them and starttalking to them and stuff, and they've
talked to him before anyway. Butyou know, he then says to them,
I'm I'm not worried about, youknow, uh, the arrest.
(30:30):
And he said, I ain't didship. And he asks, uh,
I think he asked why the mediawasn't present. This is a guy who
really likes the economy and the attentionaround this case. Obviously the book was
another thing he did. And hesays, so, why y'all didn't bring
the media? They had my wholehouse lit up, referring to the execution
(30:55):
of the warrant. So, Jim, I still don't think that these states
has hurt him either. I mean, no, I ain't did ship.
I was in an interview with aDEA agent and my client today and my
client says, I ain't dead ship. So pretty much what they say,
right exactly. And you know whyin the media there, you know,
(31:18):
that's sort of taunting. If youthink you have such a good case,
why didn't you when you bring themedia here to I mean, that's how
I would view it right, andhe could always say I was not involved
in this. I like the mediaattention. I wrote a book on it.
I sort of banked on the economyof it's actually you know, as
lawyers, we could spend it inhis favor. Uh so public enemy wrapper
(31:45):
flavor. Flavor says it was downto happen one day, referring to Davis's
arrest if he didn't turn himself inbecause he told on himself. I heard
or something like that. He wrotea book on it. I felt the
streets would turn him in one oneday. What the streets of tournament.
(32:06):
I mean, the streets didn't haveto he was he was talking funnily to
to Flay's point. But like Flaves, if you didn't tell himself, I
mean, I don't know, becausehere's the thing. It depends on who
he told the story to and whatthey may have felt they had to gain
or not gain. So if hisnephew was the actual trigger person, allegedly
(32:28):
his nephew's dead, right, Yeah, But you know, we lay people
don't necessarily think like law enforcement,so we don't necessarily think accessory to you
know, you know, like likeall of that type of thing. Where
like there are actual charges to bebrought against the person because they actually helped
facilitate the crime, or they werein the presence of the crime, or
(32:49):
they didn't stop the crime from happening. So for us, if the actual
person who executes the crime and commitsthe crime is not is not the person
we're talking to or hearing about.Yeah, what are what are we reporting?
You know, so you don't necessarilythink of of of those other elements,
cards and elements exactly. Yeah,all right, Well, we'll follow
this case closely. It's fascinating,I mean to me, you know,
(33:12):
it's such an old case. Iwant to know what they have and now
reliable it is because as time goesby, you look, murder doesn't have
a statute of limitations, but it'scertainly you know, it's much harder to
prosecute a cold case. Memories fade, people die, evidence is not obtainable.
So we will follow this as itdevelops in court. The next case,
(33:34):
we just want to kind of brieflytouch on with you name as the
j MJ jam Master J. Jim'sfavorite band run DMC uh. You know,
Jace is his name is legal nameis Jason Masell and he's the DJ
of Run DMC. Run DMC wasyou know, they consisted of a group
(33:54):
of guys now walk this way.I think you said that's that's Van Halen.
That's not Run DMC. It wasarrow and then narrow. H my
god, that's a whole other genrethat you don't know. I don't know.
You're right, well, listen aboutthe four tops I can tell you
(34:21):
about. Okay, yeah, Imean, but but Jim sometimes, I
mean, to his credit, hehas he has asked me about certain artists.
I'm like, who is that?And then he'll send the song.
I'm like, I think I've heardthe song. So there's a lot he
does know. But like exactly somyself starts DJing at the age of thirteen.
(34:47):
He's super gifted and he's from thesame neighborhood as the rest of these
guys on Run DMC, and it'ssort of like the neighborhood guys who became
the biggest thing in hip hop music. So they bring him in and before
they knew it, he became thefocal point of the band, like even
though he was the DJ, andyou would think of him as like the
little bow on the gift or whatever. He became what the DJ was the
(35:13):
most important part of it. Hewas like he became like he was the
people. He was the person inthe band that the audience like really related
to and you know, would reachout to touch his hand, you know,
in shows and stuff like that.Jim just just imagine that there were
only three tops and then when thefourth top joined the band that now you
know who they are. So whowas he though eighteen years ago, well
(35:42):
into his career. I mean,look, he had the career, he
had the big you know, andthen at some point that we called it
something different than gangster rap. Butwhen that transition happened and run DMC was
not as big, who did JMJbecome? Well, let me first clarify,
Run DYOM never gangster rappers. Theydidn't wrap about violence, they didn't
rap about crime, they didn't rapabout that. They were never that,
(36:06):
if any team, they were antithat, which is one of the reasons
that they were one of the earliest, uh commercially successful groups in hip hop
and just established no first rap videoplayed on MTV, first rap brand deal
with Adidas, et cetera, andjam Master J is considered one of the
foundational DJs of hip hop, andthe DJ is one of the most essential
(36:30):
components of hip hop. They putthe music together, right, So that
said, what did happen though,was like the transition to these different kinds
of hip hop, conscious hip hoplike you mentioned Tribe and stuff like that,
and or work kind of like analternative hip hop, and then edgier
(36:51):
like the kind of gangster rap hiphop. Then coming into the era of
the super producer Run DMC. Kindof even though their careers actually weren't that
old compared to what we look atas a Caris band today, they were
kind of considered, you know,the old guard, right, and they
weren't necessarily on the pulse of whatwas happening right now. So the group
(37:15):
had not technically split up, butkinda split up unofficially. They had done
one last album on Arista Records,which wasn't super commercially successful. They weren't
really touring together, and it wasn'tlike, right now, a DJ from
a really impactful group like Run DMCcould just make a really healthy living as
(37:36):
a DJ. We have all thesecelebrity DJs. That was not the case
yet then. So JMJ had actuallyformed his own label, JMJ Records,
and he had discovered a few artistswho had some success, but none that
were sustaining. And he also hadthis recording studio, which is where he
was murdered. But he was tryingto navigate this place between being like this
(38:00):
legacy figure and kind of you know, you know, icon in this genre
and in his personal life. Peoplecame to found out, came to find
out after his murder. He wasstruggling financially. His overhead was huge,
he was supporting a lot of people. He was in some tax debt,
(38:21):
and he had done a couple ofbad deals that were possibly drug related in
an attempt to get some cash.And I'm sorry, go ahead, no,
no, go ahead, go ahead. I was going to say,
this was a side of his lifethat even people who knew him weren't aware
of. Some people were hinting toit like something was wrong. He'd been
(38:42):
paranoid, he was carrying a gun, he was talking about leaving the city.
But it was in such stark contrastto who people knew him to be
in character. I think that ledto the delay and solving his death,
because all of these suspects have beenthere since the beginning. I just think
that people didn't want to believe thereality of the motive. That's interesting.
(39:05):
We're going to get to that ina second. I want to just briefly
go to Jim about this case.In August twenty twenty, so this is
the thick of the pandemic, Jim, when all the courts are closed and
you and me are sitting here going, how are we going to pay the
bills? The courts are closed.We can't bail our clients. The US
Attorney's Office for the Eastern District ofBrooklyn indicted Carl Jordan Junior and Ronald Washington
(39:29):
for the murder of jmj over adrug DESCPRCT. Now, typically murders are
prosecuted by local prosecutorial agencies like theDistrict Attorney's office the Attorney General's office.
But here you have these other componentsthat you know, we're brought into federal
jurisdiction. And so in May ofthis year, almost three years after that
(39:52):
initial indictment, a third defendant namedJay Bryant, is added to the indictment.
It's a ten count indictment, unless, of course I'm missing a super
eating indictment charging them with murder duringthe course of narcotic traffickings that brings in
a big federal element with a gunenhancement that adds significant time. Uh,
(40:12):
this is what we call a veryvery very very bad federal indictment because there
is a lot of very hefty,hefty mandatory minimum and time you know,
enhancements that are present here. SoJim, I know, you know,
we're not like doing a guideline calculation. What was it like, for example,
(40:32):
the gun do to these charges?Like how what does that do to
the exposure the ATF was involved?You know, what what are these guys
realistically? I mean they have mandatoryminimums of twenty years in maxim life life
life. So that's not good,right, you know, I'd have to
analyze the indictment. But I cantell you guns and drugs, starting in
(40:57):
the eighties or been a focus offederal pross cocuters and state prosecutors and the
federal sentencing guidelines. The guidelines havea lot of enhancements for guns and if
you use you know, if youpossess a weapon in connection with the offense
and you don't have to use theweapon, if you just put well,
then actually the guidelines say if if, if, if a weapon was present
(41:21):
during the course of any transaction,then then you get enhancements in the guidelines.
Just pure sentencing guidelines, there area lot of reductions in the guidelines
you just are disqualified from if youhave the Gunya was the gun? Like
here? Recently in the US sensingguidelines as of November one, twenty twenty
three, they passed a two pointreduction if you are a zero point offender,
(41:46):
meaning you have no prior criminal historyand so you've led a pretty at
least you haven't been caught, right, I haven't been convicted. But if
you if your offense involves a gun, you don't get that zero point of
reduction criminal history point reduction. Andyou know, if you have a gun
(42:06):
in your possession is part of youroffense and it shows up in your presensive
guidelines. There's a really significant programin the Bureau of Prisons of intensive drug
treatment program and when you get ayear knocked off your sentence if you participate
successfully in it, it's I mean, it's a very worthwhile program and it
(42:28):
knocks a lot of time off.But guess what, if you have a
gun, you don't get you youcan go through the program, but you
don't get the year knocked off called. And then you know, uh,
there's specific gun charges. So there'ssomething called nine twenty four C, which
is you use a gun in possessionwith a violent offense or a drug offense.
(42:49):
I mean that tax five years consecutiveon whatever sentence you get. So
it's some it's a big problem.The messages guns and drugs don't mix and
that. But you know, whetherit's whether it's gotten you know ingrained on
the street. I don't think so. And I've had when I was prosecuting
defending, I've had I've had clientssay if I'd known this, I would
(43:12):
have used the gun when they cameafter me. You know. So name,
I think you answered this question prettymuch about uh how JMJ. At
the time that he was murdered,I mean, nobody knew, but as
(43:32):
it turned out later, I mean, it sounds to me like he'd become
a drug dealer, right. Ithink what was happening was he was he
was more like a middleman. Hewas he was facilitating uh relations broker,
Yes, he was a broker.He himself was not actually trafficking to was
(43:53):
facilitating uh, connections, relationships,whatever you want to say. So,
yeah, like a little man ora broker. But if I'm not mistaken
either, he had involved these twobecause one of them was the lookout.
One of the look Washington I think, was standing outside the studio. This
(44:14):
is the studios in Queens. Yeah, in a walk up in a building
into Washington's outside to get buzzed in. One of these guys, uh and
father or something. What Yeah,the two the other two suspects, I
think her father's son. Okay,but one of these guys cousin or something
(44:35):
was the receptionist who would be lookingand letting people in. And what's interesting
is she claims Jim that, uh, she let she let she let this
person in, like her relative,right into the studio. But then she
doesn't really know where the guy wentbecause something she dropped something on the floor,
so she had to like look awayto pick it up. Literally,
(44:55):
this is what she said. Soshe missed where he went after she let
him in. The next thing shehears is gunshot. So that's like her
way of not identifying or saying thatshe's not a witness. The guy that
was on the lookout that name istalking about was outside or conveniently places himself
outside and says he never went inside. Yeah, so you know, but
(45:19):
you do have eyewitnesses, and somy question for Jim is, like,
you know, if we know thateyewitness testimony is one of the most unreliable
pieces of evidence. I mean,here we're talking about like eighteen years ago.
I mean, you have DNA atthe scene, Jim, you have
(45:42):
the third defendant that just got addedhis shirt was at the scene. You've
got ballistics, and I think NAMAwe have camera footage as well. I
think there's camera footage, but thefolks were masked, which was part of
the challenge and not to cut inon. But we do have the one
thing to know is that there's eyewitness testimony. But there's been consistent testimony
(46:06):
and interviews over all this time.So even so even Washington, like he
has testified, he has talked toreporters, he has you know, been
part of stories on this and actuallylike thrown under people under throw other people
under the bus, Like, oh, I went to the store and when
I came back, I held thisperson running down the street. So to
find out that he was actually thelookout just kind of makes it even more
(46:28):
egregious. You know, well,if he was the lookout, Jim,
what's the sculpability? I mean thatyou know, the law is, you've
heard this hand of one is thehand of all, and so you know
it's equal couple of built you know, a couple more if he participated in
it. And so you know thatyou can get the same type of sentence
(46:52):
that the person who pulled the trigger. He sure qualifies for it. I
mean, so he gets convicted andget to the murder if you know,
conspiracy to commit murder and and youknow, or or murder. Frankly,
if if he's a lookout for amurder, the would he get the same
sentence? I mean that's that's whereyou start weighing a couple of bilbility.
(47:15):
And you know those people get lesstime than the murderer. But you know,
there have been cases where the lookoutgot the death penal the end of
the trigger guy you know, cooperatedand didn't. I mean, there have
been those cases totally the opposite ofwhat you would expect. Yeah, Belie,
(47:37):
So I got a question. Sohip hop seems to you know,
I mean, I guess you wouldsay this was hip hop. You may
correct me. The I mean,there's a Super Bowl a lot of hip
hop artists last year, and andyou know, I can't turn on the
TV with you know, watching theshow without seeing Snoop advertising for Corona Beer.
(47:58):
And it seemed just mainstream now.And I don't is the violence out
of hip hop more East coast Westcoast? Well, no, that the
East coast, West Coast definitely wasdead it quite some time ago. I
think that as a culture. Theone thing that the deaths of Tupac and
Biggie, as tragic as they were, because I mean we're talking about twenty
(48:21):
five year old men, which issane when you really think about it.
As as tragic as they were,one thing I think they did serve to
do was was give everybody a momentto be like, Okay, this has
to stop. This has to stopbecause we are losing you know, it's
one thing to it's one thing tolose people who are still kind of in
the life to that life. Butwhen you become a sssess, when you've
(48:45):
put a when you've started to makea mark on culture in the world at
large, and to lose people atsuch a young age, it's so tragic,
right, And it really kind ofI think, shook up the business
and fellow artists executives to say,Okay, we gotta we gotta have a
turning point because it was impacting everybody. It was impacting you if you worked
(49:06):
in an office, it was impactingyou if you're a recording artists, et
cetera. And it also even thoughit also did open up a lane for
other regions to come and participate alittle bit more in hip hop. But
that said, to answer your question, Jim, I think people, you
know, people got older, theculture got older. It's kind of like
how once upon a time, youknow, rock and roll was considered dangerous
for kids to listen to and you'regonna get all kinds of crazy ideas and
(49:29):
you're gonna, you know, smokedope and you're gonna do whatever. And
now rock is mostly like an ageyou know, more like you know,
mellow middle age exactly. You knowme too. Actually, So we're talking
about like the evolution of a culture. Now, what I actually will say
is that there is an element ofstreet violence that is finding its way back
into hip hop with drill rap,which is becoming a huge problem. But
(49:53):
the thing the point that people seemto kind of be going in circles on
is the chicken and egg of itall? Like, is hip hop actually
like perpetuating violence or is it justthat there are people who are already involved
in violent lifestyles who then become hiphop artists right? Like? Is it
the culture's fault or is it justa matter of people who come into the
(50:15):
cultural come from this background. Itis not as prevalent as it was in
the nineties because there are plenty ofhip hop artists who you know, do
not come from poverty or lower incomehousing or the projects or jail or whatever.
The people come from two family,middle class suburban homes who or who
(50:36):
are part of this now. Soit's just changed, just broadness, and
it's changed. I wouldn't say it'scompletely gone, but it's also again,
it's not so much about hip hopitself, it's about the people who become
hip hop artists. Go ahead,let me jump in the you know what
little hip hop I do see andlisten to. You know, they're there's
(51:00):
a lot of uh, you know, I don't want to say degrading,
but very sexual. It's very youknow, the disrespectful to women. If
if, if I may say,and are there any women hip hop artists?
There are many, they're not asmany. Yeah, well there's Megan
(51:21):
A. Stallion, There's Cardi B. There's Nicki Mini. Yeah there is
now, I mean there there's Imean there are look is still arounds.
There actually is a bigger class ofwhat we might call like a new class
a female recording artist. And there'sbeen possibly ever, at least in the
last twenty years. There was adearth for a minute where it didn't seem
(51:44):
to be women who could break intomainstream hip hop. They were kind of
relegated to underground and niche. Butwe are having like there have been more
women on the charts, more womenrappers on the charts in the last couple
of years than we've seen in quitesome time. So that part seems to
be growing and at least becoming alittle bit more healthy. But it's not
(52:05):
the same representation as as men byany means. But there's also not in
any musical genre the same representation ofwomen is there. That's true, but
it is the conversation about misogyny andsexism and hip hop is as old as
the genre itself, and It's somethingthat we are still grappling with, especially
(52:27):
in the met too movement. Rightthere is a you know better, you
do better mindset. But again,hip hop is a very you know,
at fifty years old, we havea lot of different things to contend with
and a lot of unlearning to doand changes, you know, to make.
Still, and I think it alittle what what are you What were
you referring to? For example,who me? Yeah, oh, I
(52:50):
can't repeat it disrespectful. Well,I mean it's pretty general. People like
what like which, Oh you're justsaying generally. Yeah, some of the
media that I've heard, you know, I've just turned the channel and icy
because I was going to say that, like because I love Little Kimp,
but I remember Nama. I can'tremember who the the male artist was,
(53:15):
but there was a song back inthe day. They essentially responded to each
other in these two songs, andit was wanchy And I'm sorry, you
can't say that the guy was amisogynist because she was asking for it.
I mean, it was it wasdirty, but but I mean, but
that's been some of them. Sothat's one of the conflicts in this conversation
(53:39):
is that there are a group offemale artists who have flipped it and actually
decided to own and empower their sectualityand also like embody the same like hip
hop is a is a genre ofof of of bredagio and and boasting and
(54:00):
and and kind of like I'm betterthan you investing women. There are some
women who have just kind of beenlike, I'm going to embody the same
energy that the men do and flipit a little bit. And who was
the guy that do you know whatsong I'm talking about? Like? I
feel like they're talking about Kim andbig I think so too. I was
(54:22):
gonna say it might be Biggie becauseit was almost like she was topping him.
You know, he was like,I'm gonna throw you on the ground
blah blah blah blah whatever, andshe was like, Oh no, bitch,
I'm gonna do that. You're probablytalking about. I feel like you're
probably talking about Kim and Biggie AndI mean, it's but it's also something
that ironically even male rappers, malerappers who themselves can be very explicit in
(54:46):
their rhymes or like clutching their pearlslike our women are talking about all it's
like, come on man like it. It's turned about it's fair play,
and there is some of it isjust about like, rather them being objectified,
we are going to of it andtake control of it, which there
(55:08):
is still some shame for. Soagain there's levels to it. But the
thing about the genre now is thatit's wide enough so that the argument that
like, oh, we don't haveany women who are not sexualizing themselves,
or we don't have any rappers whoare only talking about sex and drugs and
the street and stuff like that isnot true. You just you may have
(55:30):
to find it, but it existsright there. There are artists of all
kinds who have all kinds of topicalmatter, all kinds of presentation and representation.
At this point, I think it'sit's it's broader and wider than ever.
It's just that what makes his wayto radio is sometimes formulaic, but
(55:51):
that's always been the case with radio. Well you we learned so much about
hip hop and what's going on fromyou, so I really appreciate it.
But I actually had I was underthe I guess it's misinformation or myth or
whatever it was in my head thatpeople weren't talking about JMJ. And I
(56:12):
knew there were a lot of witnessesbecause I did that episode with you on
Death by Fame. But I waslike, well, maybe now you know
the government waited this long to indictand to move forward with the case because
these witnesses had just come forward.But I learned from you that know,
these people have been talking all ofthis time. So for Jim and I
think what that makes for an interestingquestion like what was the hold up?
(56:35):
Like why wait eighteen years to bringthis case to court. We'll see.
But I thank you so much forjoining us, Naima. It was it
was a great pleasure to have youhere. Thank you, thank you,
thank you very much. Yeah,just to reiteration, as it was mentioned
before, coming up in January,we have the entire second season of Death
(56:58):
by Fame and Sarah's the lead goalanchor on that show, so she's in
all the episodes, but there isan episode dedicated to jam Master Jay.
Naima is the expert in that episode. So if you enjoyed this conversation,
you should absolutely check out that show. Hey, just watch it in general
because Sarah is awesome, And ifyou like our show you've never heard it
before. We're called the Presumption.Please subscribe. We're on all the platforms
(57:20):
including YouTube, all the social handlesat the Presumption and again just on behalf
of all of us. Happy holidays. This is going to be our last
episode before we sign off for Christmas. We'll be back in the new year,
but we love all of our fansand new ones come join. We
love having you here too, andSarah, Jim, you guys ready to
wrap it up. I've got walkedthis way in my head from Aerosmith and
(57:45):
so I'll say we rest
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