JERRY HELLER,
1940-2016

Jerry Heller, the longtime music executive whose association with N.W.A and Ruthless Records brought him fame and notoriety, died Friday at a hospital in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 75.

He had a heart attack while driving and was involved in a car crash, his cousin Gary Ballen told the Associated Press.

After earning a business degree at USC, Heller worked as a booking agent and tour manager starting in the 1960s. He handled Pink Floyd and Elton John on their first U.S. tours, and later worked with The Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Marvin Gaye, Van Morrison and others. His greatest claim to fame, though, was when he started working in the mid-1980s with Eazy-E, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, co-founding Ruthless Records with Eazy-E, and birthing gangsta rap.

Ruthless opened its doors in 1987 and became home to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, the D.O.C., Michel'le, Jimmy Z and others in addition to N.W.A.

Heller managed N.W.A for four years, and after their split in 1991, would continue to work with Eazy-E until he died in 1995.

Ice Cube and Dre fervently criticized Heller in songs: Cube’s 1991 track “No Vaseline” urged his killing with “You let a Jew break up my crew. . . Get rid of that devil real simple, put a bullet in his temple.”

Actor Paul Giamatti portrayed Heller in the 2015 N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, which led to Heller suing the producers for defamation. Most of the lawsuit has been dismissed.

In 2000, Heller started releasing music on his short-lived Hit a Lick Records, which closed after a handful of releases.

Heller told his story in 2006’s Ruthless: A Memoir. “I was always squarely in the camp of the little guy, the underdog, the artist,” he wrote. “And the artist is always half royalty, half sacrificial lamb to record executives, promotion people, media—even to fans.

“I’ve found myself demonized, dissed and dismissed…. Dissed by the best. Jerry Heller, urban legend and all-purpose straw dog of the hip-hop world.”