Irving Domingo Lorenzo, Jr. also known as Irv Gotti, is an American music producer, businessman and TV producer. He became famous after he founded Murder Inc. Records. He is also credited with creating the hit show 'Tales'. He has worked with and produced songs for popular musicians such as Ja Rule, Vanessa Carlton and Jay Z. At his career peak, Gotti’s company Murder Inc was one of the most sought after labels amongst many famous hip-hop and rap artists.
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PERSONAL LIFE:
Gotti was born on June 26th, 1970 in Queens, NY in a family with eight siblings. He is the youngest in his family. He has a mixed ancestry of Dominican and African-American ethnicities. Growing up in Queens exposed Gotti to a lot of Hip Hop since his childhood days. He founded the music production company Murder Inc with his sibling Chris. The company’s name had to be changed owing to legal issues soon after it commenced. When the brothers initially started out looking for investors for their production company, they sought help from Kenneth McGriff , a notorious druglord in the downtown area of NewYork.
In 2003, Murder Inc got into a lot of legal trouble when its connection with the druglord was confirmed by the FBI. This incident paved the way for its doom. As far as Irv’s personal life is concerned, Gotti was married to his long term girlfriend Debbie Lorenzo. The couple has three children- JJ, Angie and Sonny. As on 2017, the couple has separated on mutual terms. Gotti has an estimated net worth of 60 million US dollars. He is very active on social media and has around 160 K followers on his Instagram handle.
CAREER:
Gotti had a great interest in music right from his childhood owing to his neighborhood which was the epicenter of Hip-Hop and street dancing during the nineties. When Gotti and his brother Chris ventured out to start Murder Inc, they sought investment from Kenneth McGriffith who was a very elusive and dangerous drug lord at that point in time. It was estimated that he roughly made 20000 USD per day by selling drugs.
The first track which was produced by the company was from Mic Geronimo in 1994. The artist which propelled Murder Inc’s success was Ja Rule. His song Venni Vetti Vecci was released under the Murder Inc label. The album was a raging hit and sold over 2 million copies. This led Murder Inc’s popularity to rise and they began promoting other artists. The company signed singer Ashanti to sell her album under their label. The album became a phenomenal success and sold over 500,000 copies during the first week itself. It also earned the feat of becoming the fastest selling album performed by a female musician ever.
In 2002, Murder Inc’s success skyrocketed as they sold over 7 million copies in a single year. All this made Murder Inc as one of the newest and hottest production companies. They also added other famous artists such as Cadillac Tah, Chink Santana, etc under their label. However, the company soon spiralled down when allegations linking Murder Inc with the drug lord Kenneth McGriffith were proven to be true.
Last Modified: Mar 7, 2020
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