Following the Oct. 30 fatal shooting of their DJ, Jam Master Jay, in his Queens, New York, recording studio, the remaining members of the groundbreaking, two-decade-old rap trio Run-DMC announced Wednesday that they would not continue to record, tour or even film a planned Dr. Pepper commercial with LL Cool J.
"We can't perform anymore -- nobody wants to see Run and D," said Joseph "Run" Simmons as he stood before a wall-size poster of Jam Master Jay (real name: Jason Mizell) during a news conference in a midtown Manhattan hotel, The New York Times reports.
The group's third member is Darryl McDaniels, known as DMC.
"Run-DMC is retired," said Simmons. "Does anybody have a job out there?"
As The Times notes, Simmons only moonlights as a musician. By day he works as a minister under the name Reverend Run.
Some of the biggest names in rap, including Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs, the Beastie Boys and Foxy Brown, were on hand at the press gathering to announce a fund that will provide housing and college tuition for Jam Master Jay's wife, Terri Corley-Mizell, and his three sons.
The fund also set aside a $50,000 reward for tips leading to the arrest and conviction of his killer. Members of the Hip-Hop Action Network plan to blanket New York with 100,000 fliers advertising a telephone tip line.
"This financial problem that we have, as a hip-hop nation, as a hip-hop community, we should be able to solve this in a couple of days," Combs, 33, told The Times. "Run-DMC, especially Jam Master Jay, they're the fathers of the whole gang."
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