Lyor Cohen’s all professional life is about music. As soon as he graduated with major in business, he contracted with a band to perform in his club. Rap music has started to surface but yet has not gained the mainstream popularity. The band was Run D.M.C and Lyor Cohen soon decided in the favor of the call of destiny. He left the club business and joined Run D.M.C as their Manager. Meanwhile he started collaborating with Russell Simmons of Rush Productions.
Rush Associated Labels was all Cohen’s idea and as it became associated with Def Jam, it created a win win scenario for both and here lays Cohen’s biggest achievement. He turned Def Jam into Universal’s biggest cash cow. However at Island Def Jam Cohen had to face many law suits, as in the case of money laundering allegations. The problem started when he helped IrV Gotti. IrV Gotti was the head of Murder Inc. Police caught him on the charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. Lyor Cohen had given Gotti $ 2 Million to start up the venture Murder Inc. Records, Cohen found himself in investigations also. The matter was resolved when Gotti was acquitted of the charges.
TVT records filed a suit against Cohen and his parent company Universal in 2002. Cohen and Universal had to pay some $126,000 to get the matter settled.
The court room trouble and charges made Cohen to change his mind. He joined Warner Music group, soon to be raised to the position of C.E.O. Though Cohen has not forgotten his friends from past and brought many of them onboard at Warner, Cohen has not been able to convince Gotti.
Lyor Cohen
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