Jerry Heller, the controversial music industry veteran who first brought N.W.A.to fame, has died.
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Heller later had a falling out with band members, and as of past year, had filed a defamation suit against Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, among others, over the release of the film, “Straight Outta Compton”. Jerry Heller has died at the age of 75 on Friday.
In the ’80s, he became an important and colorful personality in the emerging West Coast rap scene, helping launch the influential Ruthless Records with rapper Erik “Eazy-E” Wright of N.W.A.in 1987. He managed its artists, including N.W.A. and Bone-Thugs-n-Harmony, to great success.
Former manager of the hip-hop group N.W.A. He was accused of outright stealing from them by Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. Eazy-E also felt he was being taken advantage of and fired Heller in 1994, a year before his 1995 death from AIDS. Though a federal judge ruled in March that the lawsuit could proceed, most of the case was dismissed in June and likely will end entirely with Heller’s death. He sought $110 million and alleged the film’s producers did not ask permission to use his name or likeness and lifted plot points from his 2006 biography Ruthless. He objected to the way he was portrayed in that film and filed a defamation suit against the film’s producers, part of which is still pending. “I should’ve let him kill him”, Heller opined.
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Heller stayed involved in the music business, founding a record label called Hit A Lick that focused on homegrown Latino rap and hip-hop acts.
