Irv Gotti, music executive who create Murder Inc. Records, dies at 54 Irv Gotti, a music mogul who founded Murder Inc. Records and was behind major hip-hop and R&B artists such as Ashanti and Ja Rule, has died.
The bad press around the investigation led to Gotti dropping the word “Murder” from the title of the label to change its name to The Inc. “All of these big records, and people would still come back and focus on the negative word ‘murder,'” he said when he announced the change.
The label, which got its name after Gotti watched a documentary on the original Murder, Inc. crew of mob hitmen, once came under investigation for allegedly laundering drug money for a notorious crack kingpin, leading to criminal charges against Gotti.
Gotti, whose real name is Irving Lorenzo, founded Murder Inc. with his brother in the late 1990s, with the label gaining worldwide prominence through platinum-selling artists Ashanti and Ja Rule.
Def Jam Recordings, which was the parent company of Murder Inc., announced Gotti's death in a statement late Wednesday night.
