Not really music news, but we've name checked drug gang leader Kenneth 'Supreme' McGriff so often in our coverage of the various (ultimately unproven) scandals that surrounded hip hop label Murder Inc that it doesn't feel too out of our remit to report that he's just been sentenced to life imprisonment. And especially as, in the end, it was a conviction over the murder of rapper Eric 'E-Moneybags' Smith that got him sent down.
McGriff paid fifty grand to have Smith and another man, Troy Singleton, killed back in 2001. Smith was killed for his role in the previous killing of one of McGriff's associates. Singleton was killed because of fears he would retaliate on Smith's behalf if the rapper was murdered. McGriff sent a friend a text message reading "You missed the party" shortly after Smith was killed.
He was convicted last week and sentenced on Friday. Prosecutors were pushing for the death penalty, but in the end the jury refused the option of lethal injection, citing deals that had been done between the prosecution and others involved in the murder, including the actual killers, plus the fact that McGriff was in fear for his own life at the time of the killings, as mitigating factors in deciding on a sentence. Commenting on the jury's decision, one of McGriff's laywers told reporters: "The client feels relieved and we feel relieved to have gotten to death's door and not have it open".
As much previously reported, McGriff is a friend of Murder Inc founder Irv Gotti, and the label boss and his brother were accused of using the label to launder a million dollars in drugs money on behalf of the gang leader. However, The Inc brothers were indicted of those charges when the case went to court in 2005.
The Gotti brothers weren't McGriff's only associates in the hip hop world, and the drug lord has been linked by some to other violent moments of the genre's history, in particular the murder of Jam Master Jay and gun attacks on 50 Cent.