Thousands Mourn Slain NY Rapper Jam Master Jay
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Thousands of people, some wearing unlaced Adidas sneakers and booming the music of Run-DMC, poured into a Queens neighborhood on Tuesday to pay their last respects to DJ Jam Master Jay, whose point-blank gunshot murder last week stunned the hip hop world.
Hip hop stars Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Queen Latifah joined members of Jam Master Jay’s group, the groundbreaking Run-DMC, family and neighbors at the funeral in Allen AME Cathedral to mourn the slain DJ.
Fans were shocked at the violent death of the 37-year-old Jam Master Jay, whose real name was Jason Mizell and who was known for being a friendly family man, a devoted neighborhood citizen and for preaching a positive message in contrast to the more violent aspects of hip-hip culture.
But with the shooting in his Queens studio by unknown assailants last Wednesday, Mizell joined other hip-hop stars such as Tupac Shakur, gunned down in September 1996 in Las Vegas, and The Notorious BIG (Christoper Wallace), shot and killed in Los Angeles in March 1997.
Providing the beats and scratches behind the rappers Run (Joseph Simmons), and DMC (Darryl McDaniels), Mizell and the group helped propel hip hop to a mainstream and global phenomenon from its roots within inner city New York.
Run-DMC was the first rap group to score gold and platinum albums, the first to have a video on MTV and the first to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
“It’s a sad day,” said Barry Tillery, a 30-year-old transport worker who lives in the Jamaica section of the borough of Queens, near where Mizell grew up, lived and had his studio.
“He was such a nice guy. Rappers today have to walk around with bodyguards or some entourage. He would walk around the neighborhood like he wasn’t even famous,” he said, remembering talking with Mizell and his three sons at a nearby bus stop a year ago.
Other friends recalled Mizell’s big smile, how he would be willing to chat while eating fish in fast food joints in the neighborhood and how he would say “peace” twice before hanging up the phone.
About 2,000 people squeezed into the cathedral for the funeral service, some waiting up to several hours on the chilly fall morning. A few hundred fans and neighbors stood in front of the cathedral during the service to catch a glimpse of the procession.
Some wore the unlaced Adidas sneakers with three stripes in the style that Run-DMC turned into a trademark of hip-hop wear.
One fan held a boombox up high and kept repeating the first verse from the title song of Run-DMC’s second album “King of Rock,” (1985) the first platinum hip-hop album: “I’m the King of Rock, there is none higher … I won’t stop rockin’ ’till I retire.”
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