Ja Rule Still Gets Emotional Over Losing Irv Gotti: ‘It Was All About Our Journey’

Ja Rule is still profoundly torn by losing his longtime friend and collaborator, Irv Gotti. 

The hip-hop titan, best known as the co-founder of Murder Inc. Records, died at the age of 54 on Feb. 5. This was a monumental loss for the genre, especially for those who were so close to helping build the music label that had quite the run during the late ’90s and early 2000s.

Gotti was a force to be reckoned with in his heyday. The New York native was even the mastermind behind the hip-hop super group that would’ve consisted of Jay Z, Ja Rule and DMX. The album, however, was never released. Instead, a new label behind Ja Rule’s “Always On Time,” Ashanti’s “Baby” and a host of hits from the 2000s emerged.

Reflecting on the empire they built together with Murder Inc.

“I get emotional when I start thinking about it because the journey is everything in anybody’s success story,” Ja Rule told Blavity in an interview at the 2025 Jazz in the Gardens music festival. “The journey is the thing you never [forget]. You’ll forget some of the awards you win. You might, you know, forget what the f**k you won them for, but you never forget those days and nights in the studio.”

“Me and Irv sitting in his MPV, plotting on the world, and how we’re gonna, you know, do what we did basically. It’s the most amazing thing in the world, but it was all about our journey.”

Now that Gotti has passed on, Ja Rule keeps his legacy alive through actions like taking the stage at Jazz in the Gardens during DJ Cassidy’s Pass the Mic Live! set, performing hits like “Put It on Me,” “Mesmerize” and “Livin’ It Up,” and even being joined by Fat Joe to perform “New York.”

Making business moves outside of music

Moreover, he is continuing to expand his reach far beyond hip-hop, stressing the importance of having multiple streams of income as an artist, like his new honey botanical whiskey brand, Amber & Opal. 

“You gotta have more than one stream of income. I learned that the hard way. You just can’t put all your eggs in one basket,” Ja Rule said. “So if one’s not pulling at the time, another one’s pulling, and hopefully when they’re all pulling together, you’re getting a good run. That’s what it’s about. Having businesses to be able to hold other ones down when they’re going through their struggle periods or their transitional periods, or even when you have to pivot and do something different. Investing is a very important thing.”