Jam Master Jay, DJ for the pioneering hip-hop trio Run-DMC, is shot and killed in his recording studio in Queens, New York, on October 30, 2002. Jay's murder, which shocked the hip-hop community, went unsolved for nearly two decades before prosecutors tied it to a drug deal gone wrong.

Jam Master Jay was born Jason Mizell in 1965 in Brooklyn, New York. Musically gifted , Jay played bass, drums and guitar before discovering the new art of turntables and scratching at age 13. His family moved to the middle-class neighborhood of Hollis, Queens, where Jay made friends with Joseph Simmons and Darryl McDaniels, two teenage rappers who would become known as Run and DMC.

Backed by Jay’s skilled scratching and a punchy 808 drum machine, Run-DMC created the signature sound of early 1980s hip-hop. The group’s first record, 1984’s self-titled “Run-DMC,” was the first hip-hop album to go gold, followed by “King of Rock” in 1985, the first hip-hop album to go platinum.…