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The Life Of Irv Gotti · Gil I Am

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  Speaker 1: This is the Life of IRV Gotti born June twenty sixth,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy. IRV Gotti or DJ IRV was an American
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  Speaker 1: record producer. He co founded the record label Murder Ink
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  Speaker 1: Records in nineteen ninety eight, which was an imprint of
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  Speaker 1: def Jam Recordings. IRV is credited with having helped discover
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  Speaker 1: or sign wrappers Jay Z, DMX and Jay Rule, as
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  Speaker 1: well as singers Ashanti and Lloyd. He executively produced the
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  Speaker 1: debut albums for DMX's It's Dark and Hell Is Hot,
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  Speaker 1: Ja Rules, Benivetti, Vecci, Ashantis self titled, and Lloyd's south Side.
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  Speaker 1: IRV received production credits for most of the recordings by
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  Speaker 1: artists signed to the label, including Ja Rule, The Ink, Ashanti,
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  Speaker 1: and Lloyd, as well as singles for other artists such
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  Speaker 1: as Jennifer Lopez, Ain't It Funny, Fat, Joe Eve, and
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  Speaker 1: Kanye West, among others. Gotti was also the creator of
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  Speaker 1: the twenty seventeen to twenty twenty two be Et series Tales.
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  Speaker 1: Rolling Stone magazine described IRV as one of the architects
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  Speaker 1: of hip hop and RB fusion of the late nineteen
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  Speaker 1: nineties and er early two thousands. IRV Gotti was born
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  Speaker 1: in the Hollis neighborhood of Queens, New York City, on
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  Speaker 1: June twenty sixth, nineteen seventy. Gotty was of Filipino descent
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  Speaker 1: from his paternal grandfather and of African American descent. His father, Irving,
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  Speaker 1: was a taxi cab driver and dispatcher. He was the
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  Speaker 1: youngest of eight siblings, including two sisters and an older
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  Speaker 1: brother named Christopher known as Chris Gotti. IRV Gotti's career
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  Speaker 1: started as a teenager when his sister Christina bought him
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  Speaker 1: turntables for his sixteenth birthday. He would make mixtapes in
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  Speaker 1: the family basement and sell them for ten dollars at
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  Speaker 1: local barbershops. RV would go to dja at parties at
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  Speaker 1: local parks and nightclubs in Queens, where he discovered rapper
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  Speaker 1: Mick Geronimo. Rappers Revrun and LLL COOLJ would visit the
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  Speaker 1: home as word spread. IRV then became a talent scout
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  Speaker 1: in the ar department for TVT Records. During his time
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  Speaker 1: at TVT, he signed Mick Geronimo and Queen's based rap
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  Speaker 1: group Cash Money Click, of which rapper Jay Rule was
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  Speaker 1: a member. IRV Gotti, under the moniker DJ IRV produced
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  Speaker 1: and independently distributed the nineteen ninety four single Shits It's
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  Speaker 1: Reel by Mike Geronimo that helped IRV place a job
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  Speaker 1: as an ar at Deaf Jam. He made another stride
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  Speaker 1: toward the big time in nineteen ninety six, when still
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  Speaker 1: using the moniker DJ IRV, he produced can I Live,
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  Speaker 1: a track on Jay Z's heralded debut studio album Reasonable Doubt.
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  Speaker 1: Around that time, jay Z labeled him the Dawn of
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  Speaker 1: hip hop and suggested that he re christen himself after
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  Speaker 1: the mob kingpin known as the Dapper Down. At the time,
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  Speaker 1: he was also a DJ for jay Z during the
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  Speaker 1: initial rise of his career. He produced the song can
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  Speaker 1: I Live on jay Z's June nineteen ninety six debut
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  Speaker 1: album Reasonable Doubt. The big career break came with jay
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  Speaker 1: Z claiming him to be the Down of hip hop,
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  Speaker 1: giving IRV the moniker IRV Gotti. Inspired by mobster John Gotti,
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  Speaker 1: IRV helped service Ain't No Play at a Radio, was
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  Speaker 1: jay Z's tour DJ and helped create the joint venture
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  Speaker 1: between Rockefeller Records and Death Jam. In nineteen ninety Sive
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  Speaker 1: Devan through erv def Jam signed Rough Riders artist DMX. Initially,
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  Speaker 1: there was a dispute over signing DMX, and IRV had
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  Speaker 1: threatened to leave the company if they did not follow
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  Speaker 1: through with signing him. Gotti as executive producer oversaw DMX's
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  Speaker 1: first studio album, It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, released
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  Speaker 1: on May twelfth, nineteen ninety eight. The album debuted and
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  Speaker 1: peaked atop to Billboard two hundred and sold over two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand copies in its first week. The
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  Speaker 1: album went on to sell four million copies in the
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  Speaker 1: United States, being certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA, and
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  Speaker 1: sold five million copies worldwide. After helping def Jam with
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  Speaker 1: the success of DMX and jay Z, the label had
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  Speaker 1: grown over one hundred million dollars in value. Lee Or
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  Speaker 1: Cohen gave IRV his own label under def Jam, which
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  Speaker 1: he co founded with his brother Chris. While watching Biography
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  Speaker 1: on AE during Gangster Week, a murder Ink logo appeared
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  Speaker 1: on the screen and IRV decided to use the name
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  Speaker 1: for his label because murder Ink put out him for
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  Speaker 1: Murder and IRV wanted to put out Hit Records. The
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  Speaker 1: label was given three million dollars to start up with.
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  Speaker 1: The first album released under Murder Inc. Was Ja Rule's
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  Speaker 1: debut album, Venni Vetti Vecchi. Gotti was the album's executive
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  Speaker 1: producer and oversaw the development of all of the album.
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  Speaker 1: Gotty also executive produced Jay Rule's second studio album, Rule
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  Speaker 1: three thirty six. Gotty was a producer and director known
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  Speaker 1: for Rush Hour nineteen ninety eight, Romeo Must Die two thousand,
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  Speaker 1: and The Fast and the Furious two thousand and one.
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  Speaker 1: IRV Ja Rule and the label Murder Inc. Were all
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  Speaker 1: involved in a well publicized feud from nineteen ninety nine
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  Speaker 1: to two thousand and three with g Unit Records, Aftermath Records,
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  Speaker 1: and Shady Records over history between fifty cent and jaw Rule.
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  Speaker 1: Gotty produced Ain't It Funny for Jennifer Lopez, But it
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  Speaker 1: was no laughing matter back in two thousand and two
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  Speaker 1: when their friendship and working relationship was ruined after Gotty
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  Speaker 1: called the singer a bitch, implied she lied and said
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  Speaker 1: her voice wasn't as strong as some of pop queen contemporaries.
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  Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, IRV Gotti released IRV Gotti
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  Speaker 1: Presents The Ink featuring the Murder Ink roster. IRV co
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  Speaker 1: produced all of the album's tracks, including the album's hit
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  Speaker 1: single down for You. The same year, IRV received a
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  Speaker 1: Guinness World Record for having produced a Billboard Hot one
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  Speaker 1: hundred single that had the number one position for nineteen
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  Speaker 1: weeks consecutively. Whether pushing snarling rap like DMX's get at
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  Speaker 1: Me Doug or more mainstream rbfair, mister Gotti sought to
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  Speaker 1: preserve a ghetto feistiness in his work. People get confused
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  Speaker 1: because it sells like pop music, he said in a
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and two interview with The Guardian. But we
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  Speaker 1: make black music first and foremost, and all our records
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  Speaker 1: is hood first. On January third, two thousand and three,
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  Speaker 1: federal agents and New York Police Department investigators rated the
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  Speaker 1: headquarters of Murder Ink Records, located at one Worldwide Plaza
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  Speaker 1: in Midtown Manhattan. The raid was a part of a
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  Speaker 1: year long investigation into the connection between the Gotti brothers
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  Speaker 1: and American drug lord Kenneth Supreme McGriff. Investigators believed that
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  Speaker 1: the Goddess used drug money supplied by McGriff to launch
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  Speaker 1: Murder Inc. As a way to launder the illegal funds.
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  Speaker 1: Investigators also believed the brothers helped McGriff launder drug money
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  Speaker 1: through the making of the two thousand and three film
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  Speaker 1: Crime Partners. Although computers and documents were seized, no charges
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  Speaker 1: were immediately filed and no arrests were immediately made. The
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  Speaker 1: raid was dramatized in the music video for jar Rul's
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  Speaker 1: Murder Rains. Chris and Irv Gotti's history with McGriff dated
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  Speaker 1: back to the mid nineteen nineties, when McGriff, newly paroled
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  Speaker 1: from prison, met Chris and Irv through a mutual friend.
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  Speaker 1: McGriff wanted to go into film production and sought help
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  Speaker 1: from Chris and IRV Gotty to produce and direct a
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  Speaker 1: film based on Donald Goyns's novel Crime Partners, he had
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  Speaker 1: read while in jail. The Goddess. From then on maintained
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  Speaker 1: a friendship with McGriff, helping finance the dream film project
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  Speaker 1: Crime Partners. The film had McGriff credited as producer and
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  Speaker 1: co writer and had appeared by Jay Rule, Snoop Dogg,
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  Speaker 1: and Iced Tea. After this, in December two thousand three,
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  Speaker 1: Murder Ink changed their name to The Ink. In the
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  Speaker 1: first five years of inception from nineteen ninety nine two
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  Speaker 1: thousand four, the label earned fifty million dollars in profit annually.
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  Speaker 1: The label was grossing over one hundred million dollars during
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  Speaker 1: this period. On January twenty fifth, two thousand and five,
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  Speaker 1: The Goddess surrendered to authorities in New York City and
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  Speaker 1: were officially charged with money laundering and conspiracy to launder money.
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  Speaker 1: During the trial, IRV Gotti was represented by Gerald B.
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  Speaker 1: Lefcourt and Chris Gotty was represented by Gerald Chargyll. The
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  Speaker 1: Goddess were acquitted in December two thousand and five, but
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  Speaker 1: the damage was done. They had everybody who loved me
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  Speaker 1: in corporate America who felt I was a good guy,
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  Speaker 1: distanced themselves from me. Gotty told The Times, all while
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  Speaker 1: I was saying I didn't do this, I didn't do this,
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  Speaker 1: and they was like, okay, we'll wait and see. Afterward,
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  Speaker 1: the label struggled to reclaim its previous success despite continuing
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  Speaker 1: to release album by several acts. Among those acts was Ashanti,
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  Speaker 1: who eventually departed in two thousand and nine. Under the
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  Speaker 1: Ink banner, Gotty moved the label to Universal Motown and
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  Speaker 1: signed Vanessa Carlton co producing her third album, Heroes and Thieves,
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  Speaker 1: which was released October ninth, two thousand and seven. With
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  Speaker 1: Channel seven. Rick Rubin and Stephen Jenkins IRV starred in
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  Speaker 1: a television reality series produced by VH one called Gotti's
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  Speaker 1: Way from two thousand seven two thousand and nine. In
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  Speaker 1: September twenty thirteen, Murder Inc. Was re launched as an
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  Speaker 1: umbrella label under Gotty's new label Visionary. Gotty began to
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  Speaker 1: branch out from music. He turned toward television as the
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  Speaker 1: creator of Tales, a hip hop anthology series for the
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  Speaker 1: BET Network, which ran for three seasons starting in twenty seventeen.
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  Speaker 1: During an August twenty twenty two appearance on Drink Champs,
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  Speaker 1: Gotti shared that after he and Ashanti finished recording the
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  Speaker 1: song Happy, they had sex and continued having a romantic relationship.
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  Speaker 1: He even admitted that when he first saw Shanti together
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  Speaker 1: with Nelly on TV in two thousand and five, it
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  Speaker 1: frustrated him. In a twenty twenty two video interview with
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  Speaker 1: the podcast Earn Your Leisure, Gotti recalled an epiphany that
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  Speaker 1: inspired him to start his own label. He was earning
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  Speaker 1: a salary of sixty thousand dollars. He said while the
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  Speaker 1: acts he worked with were earning hundreds of million dollars
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  Speaker 1: for their labels. It was dumb, he recalled thinking, but
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  Speaker 1: I ain't going to be dumb too long. Gotty had
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  Speaker 1: suffered a minor stroke in early twenty twenty four as
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  Speaker 1: a result of his diabetes, which caused him to change
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  Speaker 1: his dietary habits. In July twenty twenty four, a lawsuit
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  Speaker 1: was filed against Gotti alleging that he sexually assaulted and
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  Speaker 1: abused a woman over a two year period between twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty and twenty twenty two. On February fifth, twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 1: Gotti died in New York City at the age of
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  Speaker 1: fifty four, following another stroke.