From Doo-Wop to Hip-Hop, Gangsters Are All Over Music.

In the hip-hop community, there is a narrative of a night in the early 1990s when rap entrepreneur Suge Knight brought musician Vanilla Ice to a hotel balcony on the 15th floor and hung him by his ankles. If Vanilla refused to hand up his rights to the popular song “Ice Ice Baby” royalties, he threatened to cause Ice to crash to the ground below.

Suge’s tactics of intimidation persuaded Mr. Ice to give up 25% of the record’s rights even though he claimed that his legs had never been forced to do anything. Suge and his Death Row Records company made him more like Jimmy Conway (Goodfellas) than Jimmy Iovine through the use of extortion, brutality, and terror.

Nevertheless, the 300-pound, 6-foot-4-inch native of Compton, California wasn’t the first mobster to dabble in the music business.

Doo-Wop and Rock & Roll had already revolutionized music by the late 1950s, and the mafia saw the opportunity for financial gain. Gangsters started concentrating on management and the record industry after gaining a strong footing in the music business through extortion in the jukebox business and connections to well-known performers.

When the group chose to change management, the Jersey Boys were “leaned on by a mafia element from Brooklyn,” according to Bob Gaudio of the Four Seasons, who demanded compensation.

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The management dispute between the two parties was resolved by Angelo “Gyp” DeCarlo, the capo of the New Jersey DeCavalcante Family (famously pardoned by President Nixon in 1972). He then continued to have an impact on the group’s advancement and the music business up until his passing 10 months after receiving his presidential pardon.

The famed girl group The Crystals as well as the legendary comedians’ Don Rickles and Totie Fields were all handled and marketed by Joe Scandore, a member of the Genovese family. Joe didn’t like the way Phil Spector, the producer, was treating the women in 1961.

Delores “La La” Brooks, the band’s lead vocalist, recalls Scandore calling Phil to “try to remind him that The Crystals needed to have a record out.” After Phil refused his requests, Scandore quickly sent a friend from New York to Los Angeles who “ran Phil around the fucking desk” and warned Spector he would “murder his mother and break his arms” if he didn’t provide a record.

In addition to exhausting Phil, mobsters were known to control record labels. The Columbo Crime Family’s underboss Sonny Franzese had a significant role as a silent partner in Buddah Records, which published a series of singles by the Lemon Pipers, the Shangri-Las, and the Isley Brothers.

Buddah founder Art Kass and manager Neil Bogart (who subsequently founded Casablanca Records) turned to Franzese for assistance when Roulette Records owner Morris Levy sought to intimidate the company for royalties to the Shangri-Las’ smash song “Walking in the Sand.”

Levy was taken out of the label’s sights by Franzese, giving Morris more time to consider how he might profit more illegally from his Genovese business partners. Bosses Tommy Eboli and Vincent “The Chin” Gigante were among them.

Levy, who was regarded as the “Godfather of the music business,” even had the trademark for the term “Rock and Roll,” and he had no qualms about using his hands to beat up a cop so severely that the officer lost an eye. Levy also almost beat John Lennon in court.

Levy claimed John violated the copyright on Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me” (the publishing rights to which Levy was the owner) in the Beatles’ song “Come Together” in yet another one of his “threaten-and-settle schemes.” On his planned Rock & Roll album, Lennon agreed to record three of Levy’s copy-rights as part of an out-of-court settlement.

Levy published a rough mix of the tracks from the unapproved Roots CD in typical con-man fashion. The incensed Beatle filed a countersuit, testified, and in August 1976 received a judgment for more than $400,000 in damages.

That was a small retaliation for a charlatan who routinely inserted his name into his musicians’ composition credits and underpaid them for payments. Levy tried to assassinate Herman Santiago after Herman enquired about his royalties 20 years after barely paying $1,000 to the five-boy group The Teenagers for their 1956 hit, “Why do Fools Fall in Love” (which sold more than three million copies).

In his book, Me, the Mafia and the Music, Tommy James alleges that three dishonest LAPD officers intentionally injured musician Jimmie Rodgers’ skull after he repeatedly pressed Levy for a just royalty payment.

Yet like any “goodfella,” Levy’s scams and mafia connections were finally made public when he was charged with extortion alongside the Genovese and DeCavalcante families. He passed away from cancer in 1990, two months before starting his ten-year jail term.

Levy, however, evolved into Sugar Hill Records’ primary financial supporter at the height of Roulette Records. The label issued the iconic rap track “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979. Ten years later, Suge Knight established his own music publishing business with the same goals as Levy to profit from the now-global genre.

Suge threatened famed gangsta rapper Eazy-E and music manager Jerry Heller with lead pipes and baseball bats after the Vanilla Ice incident in an effort to get Dr. Dre, The D.O.C., and Michel’le’s contracts terminated. Suge’s gangster strategies were successful, and in 1991, he established Death Row Records alongside Dr. Dre and The D.O.C.

He controlled the label in a John Gotti-like manner throughout the course of the following five years with the aid of his MOB Piru/Blood allies, viciously eliminating anyone who got in his way.

Suge’s “mafioso” methods made him a feared figure in the business, from stripping and pistol-whipping rappers George and Lynwood Stanley after they used a studio telephone without authorization to making a Bad Boy Records employee drink urine for withholding information on P. Diddy.

Suge’s gangster methods, like those of Levy, finally caught up with him. Death Row Records disintegrated along with the final mobster (to our knowledge) to control the music business after several court cases, jail attempts, and acts of violence linked to his label.