In the music industry, musicians serve the role of a pawn, analogous to the hierarchical construct of a chessboard. The artists produce notoriety for their label, showcasing flamboyance and extravagance to solicit fans, yet the direction of their careers is very rarely dictated by themselves. Just as pawns, rooks, knights, bishops, and queens serve at the behest of the king, the talents of artists within the music industry are determined by the shadow figures of entertainment: the discreet, rarely publicized puppet masters who manage the trajectory of their clients career behind closed doors, acquiring a mass fortune and entrepreneurial opportunities outside the realm of the music industry.
Dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, when entertainment mediums such as film and music began to expand into a flourishing business model, criminal enterprises simultaneously began rooting their organizations into the entertainment industry. Notable gangsters of Hollywood’s golden era, such as Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Jack Dragna, and Johnny Roselli, began racketeering Los Angeles labor unions in the film industry, thereby extorting money from production companies in fear of labor strikes. In the Sixties, Frank Sinatra was notably associated with the Mafia, befriending Sam Giancana, the boss of the Mafia’s Chicago outfit, frequenting Mafia-owned casinos in Las Vegas heyday, and performing at the infamous Havana conference, where Lucky Luciano assembled the leaders of the Five Families in order to outsource their criminal business to invest in Cuban casinos. By the early 2000’s, Hip-Hop artists Young Jeezy, Fabolous, and Jay-Z were acquainted with Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory, the co-founder of the Black Mafia Family (BMF), a multi-million-dollar cocaine empire that dominated the underworld drug distribution throughout the United States. In summarization, entertainment and corruption are not separate entities, rather they feed off one another.
Furthermore, various executives of the Hip-Hop industry have maintained a tight grasp on the music business at large, such as Death Row’s Suge Knight, Murder Inc’s Irv Gotti, and Def Jam’s Lyor Cohen, symbolizing the corruption, exploitation of musicians, and participation in illegal activities of the all-powerful figure behind closed doors. However, none rank in comparison to James “J” Prince, the founder of Rap-A-Lot records, who has steadily controlled Hip-Hop for the past thirty years and has evoked terror in the hearts of his colleagues and rivals. James “J” Prince has become a popular character in Hip-Hop folklore, as an overwhelming presence of power and fear, akin to The Godfather’s Michael Corleone. Although soft-spoken, standing at an average height of 5 foot 9 inches, and rarely publicized, J. Prince has become the boogeyman of Hip-Hop: the epitome of “real gangsters move in silence,” a mythic figure that lurks in the shadows, always plotting and calculating, unrelenting in his business schemes, and haunting the minds of the biggest names in Hip Hop.
Starting his career in the music industry near the end of the 1980’s, J. Prince, a Houston native, had accumulated a network of high-profile contacts by selling used cars to gangsters and athletes. However, in 1987, J. Prince’s business aspirations shifted towards music, where the natural businessmen noticed the talented collection of Texas-based rappers had long gone unnoticed, reasoning that the Dirty South had an open-market in the rap game that had been monopolized by New York, since the genres birth in 1973. In turn, Rap-A-Lot records was founded by J. Prince, where the soon-to-be music mogul signed the local rap group, Geto Boys, consisting of rappers Scarface, Willie D, Bushwick Bill, and Prince’s brother, Sir-Raps-A-Lot. The Geto Boy’s emergence on the Hip-Hop scene was unprecedented, inflicting the Hip-Hop community with depictions of vivid storytelling and horrifying lyricism, and ultimately, garnering critical acclaim, releasing a string of highly regarded albums. Rap-A-Lot continued to flourish throughout the 1990’s, targeting the up-and-coming talent of the local Texas scene, signing acts such as UGK, Devin the Dude, and Z-Ro. Entering the 2000’s, J. Prince dabbled in management outside of music, enlisting boxers Floyd Mayweather, Diego Corrales, and Andre Ward to his staple of talent, and was introduced to the music of Canadian-born rapper Aubrey “Drake” Graham in 2006, when Prince’s son, Jas, persuaded his father to take interest in Drake, after Jas had become a fan of Drake’s myspace page. Since their arrangement in 2006, Prince has been the driving force behind the numerous career milestones of Drake’s career, including the decision, on Drake's behalf, to not respond to the crushing blow of Pusha-T’s notorious diss track, “The Story of Adidon,” where Push stirred an internet frenzy by exposing the existence of Drake’s illegitimate son.
On the surface, J. Prince deserves praise for playing a tremendous role in Hip-Hop culture, and rightfully so. As a presence in the music industry, J. Prince inspired the trend of Hip-Hop in the South, introduced the Hip-Hop community to a wide assortment of influential artists, and has served as a mentor to one of the biggest Hip-Hop personalities in the 21st century. However, the respect J. Prince has garnered to supplant his legacy in the history of Hip-Hop stems from a cloud of fear that J. Prince has built around his persona, as a man willing to go to ends-length to protect his clients, well-connected in the criminal underworld, and always in the background of some of Hip-Hop’s most notorious urban legends. Prince initially entered the Hip Hop industry with an identifiable persona, due in large to his friendship with the acting leader and founder of the Gangster Disciples, Larry Hoover. Hoover, a notorious drug kingpin in Chicago, built one of the most lucrative drug empires throughout the Seventies and Eighties, until 1997, when Hoover was sentenced to a life sentence on charges of extortion and drug conspiracy. Obtaining the support of Hoover and Gangster Disciples morphed J. Prince’s image throughout the Hip-Hop community as a man not to be reckoned with, while also delivering Prince a high-approval rating in the inner-city neighborhoods of Chicago. Prince’s credibility and respect grew throughout the industry, as rumors began to spread of Prince’s unrelenting control of Hip-Hop culture. Throughout the Nineties, the legend of Prince grew with speculation of J. Prince allegedly hiring Rap-A-Lot employees to jump Geto Boy’s member Bushwick Bill, after a previous contract dispute and Prince imploring the Christopher Wallace, A.K.A. the Notorious B.I.G., to cancel his upcoming tour in the California, due to the potential retaliation for the slain Tupac Shakur. Perhaps the most infamous moment J. Prince was involved in during the Nineties was directing Master P to release UGK member, Pimp C, from an undisclosed location, after Master P kidnapped and pistol-whipped Pimp-C for slandering his name in the media. However, although Master P was fully intent on killing Pimp-C, the rapper-turned-entrepreneur disclosed the situation to J. Prince, who ordered an immediate stop to the foolishness exhibited by both rappers.
Stories of J. Prince followed into the new millennium. In 2000, J. Prince and Rap-A-Lot records were part of a twelve-year federal probe, under the guidance of DEA agent Ernest Howard, who were being investigated for their potential role in drug distribution and conspiracy. However, rumor has it that the acting attorney general, Janet Reno, called off the investigation, due to the lingering issues of safety and concern expressed by both DEA and Rap-A-Lot records employees. Further speculation insists that Prince was able to persuade political higher-ups to dissolve the investigation, following a $200,000 donation to the Democratic Presidential nominee Al Gore, yet those rumors have never been proven. In 2003, Floyd Mayweather, who was client under J. Prince, engaged in a contractual dispute with Prince, resulting in Mayweather to find different representation. The dispute between Mayweather and Prince continued to escalate, until September 11th, 2013, when a group of men attacked and hospitalized Mayweather’s right-hand man, Leonard Ellerbe, and Thomas Summers at the Top Rank Boxing Gym in Las Vegas. Eventually, Prince was offered $610,000 to settle, including a 20% portion of the $3 million contract Floyd Mayweather had signed for his upcoming fight against Phillip Ndou. Floyd Mayweather was noticeably discouraged by the situation, responding that “James don’t take no letter of credit” after Bob Arum’s insistence to pursue a deal consisting of monthly payments. Later, in 2012, Prince was straying away from the music industry, yet retaining a high-level of respect. At which point, Prince came to the defense of Drake through one of his famous “courtesy calls,” a calm before the storm warning targeted at Diddy, Birdman, and Cash Money records. For starters, Prince was upset with Birdman and Cash Money records mishandling of Drakes royalty fees for the albums he made under the Cash Money label and the failed payments owed to his son, Jas. Diddy was involved in the call due to an incident at club at the Club Liv in Miami, where scuffle ensued, and Diddy punched Drake. During the courtesy call, Prince delivers a mortifying statement, suggesting that since “Puffy feeling life he can put his hands on my family, open the doors his family to be touched. You reap what you sow.”
However, all that said, J. Prince is also accredited for his numerous philanthropic endeavors, including the revitalization of impoverished neighborhoods in Houston and the construction of a community center in the neighborhood he had grown up in. On January 30th, 2007, J. Prince was honored by Houston Mayor Bill White and the Houston City Council for the twenty years of service, commitment, and dedication Prince had put towards the city of Houston, resulting in Prince receiving the privilege of having the actual day dedicated to himself, forever known as “James Prince Day in Houston.” Yet, the impact of Prince behind closed doors is substantial in the history of Hip-Hop. Although Prince has not been the most highly publicized executive in Hip-Hop, he is certainly credited as a man who stands by his word, demanding respect from his peers, and unafraid to resort to intimidation and fear. Coincidentally, I had not heard of J. Prince until his name surfaced as the man who directed Drake to not retaliate at Pusha-T. Stands to reason that J. Prince controls a considerable amount of power in the Hip-Hop community, altering the course of the Hip-Hop chessboard, moving in silence while the pawns do all the work.
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