Unfortunately for Hip-Hop fans worldwide, the Jay Z, DMX and Ja Rule supergroup/album known as Murder Inc. never came to be. In 1998, Irv Gotti was coming off producing Jay Z’s breakout single, “Can I Get A…” which features his business partner Ja Rule and was orchestrating a project that would also incorporate DMX into the picture.
Again, the year was 1998 and DMX had two No. 1 albums in the same year and Jay Z would go on to sell five million copies of his third album Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life. That success even predated Ja Rule’s eventual platinum future and the goal of trying to merge the superstars proved to be a lofty one for Gotti.
Following his nostalgic performance at Def Jam’s 30th Anniversary concert, MTV caught up with the rap icon to ask him what really went down behind the scenes within the failed supergroup and he obliged.
“I mean, We tried to deliver that album,” Rule recalls to Rob Markman. “It was a situation where egos all just played a part in its demise. We couldn’t get X and Jay in the same room. [They were competitive] from long ago; their storied battle on the pool table, guns out and all of that…and that carried over into our careers and we was all trying to do our thing separately and it carried over,” he continued. “It was hard to get all of us into a room to do what we needed to do.”
The three superstar rappers toyed with the emotions of fans by appearing on the front (and back) covers of the June 1999 issue of XXL and Rule honestly admitted that he wished the Murder Inc. album “would have come into fruition.” When asked if they were any records that public hadn’t heard, he heartily laughed as if his memory began to serve him well.
“There might be ONE…or two joints that’s still out there; lingering about,” he said with a smirk. “Gotti got ’em!,” he added.
In today’s Internet record-leaking age, don’t be surprised if Hip-Hop Wired is posting a Soundcloud link with those aforementioned forgotten records in the near future.
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Photo: MTV
