Jimmy Iovine

 ( 1953 Births ) 

Iovine attended a Catholic school in Brooklyn, graduating from the since-closed Bishop Ford Central Catholic High School and went on to attend New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. At age 19, he dropped out of college. He was introduced to music production after he met a songwriter who helped him find a job as a recording studio cleaner, and he soon began working as an engineer.

Iovine served as sound engineer for the Voyager Golden Records, a pair of phonograph records that were launched aboard the Voyager program in 1977. His father's death and love for Christmas inspired Iovine to record and oversee A Very Special Christmas in 1985. The compilation was not released until 1987 under Interscope's future sister label A&M Records. Iovine chose to not profit off the album and instead used the money from album sales to help fund Special Olympics programs. Following the release of the first album, ten more were produced. The initiative has raised over $145 million and helped more than 110 local Special Olympics programs. He was responsible for supervising the music used in the 1984 romance film Sixteen Candles, Streets of Fire and the 1988 comedy film Scrooged.

In September 1995, after internal conflict with Atlantic Records over controversy concerning the label's support of gangsta rap, the label and its former parent company at the time, Time Warner made the decision to sell off its share in Interscope to Iovine and Field. In January 1996, Doug Morris, chairman and CEO of the music division of MCA Inc., convinced Iovine and Field to bring Interscope to the company in exchange for acquiring 50% of the label's shares for $200 million. As a result, Interscope was placed in the same company portfolio of labels alongside future sister label Geffen Records, MCA Records, Universal Records and DreamWorks Records. By then, MCA was sold off by Matsushita Electric (also a parent company of Panasonic) to Canadian distillery and mass media conglomerate Seagram. With Interscope now under the MCA and Seagram shade, the label managed to gain more success with Tupac Shakur's double album All Eyez on Me, which opened at number one on the Billboard 200 with 566,000 copies sold in its first week. The album became another success for the rap division of the label and Death Row Records, where artist Dr. Dre felt uncomfortable due to founder and former CEO Suge Knight's consistent spending, violent behavior and gang affiliation. As a result, Dr. Dre departed from Death Row and re-signed with Interscope through a new label deal, creating his own imprint called Aftermath Entertainment. The label's foundation proved to be challenging, when on November 26, 1996, upon release, the compilation , was given a lukewarm response as was The Firm's The Album, despite the latter, released on October 21, 1997, almost a year after Dr. Dre Presents: The Aftermath, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200. Iovine, as stated on the 2017 HBO documentary, The Defiant Ones, was pressured by Doug Morris to either give Dr. Dre time to control his music and artists or drop him from his label. Iovine responded, "We could that, but then, you would save my salary as well because I'm going with him." Interscope had further success with Tupac Shakur's posthumous record as well as Snoop Dogg's Tha Doggfather and Bush's Razorblade Suitcase.

Iovine offered to sign hip hop entrepreneur Master P and his imprint, No Limit Records, but he rejected the offer. Iovine allegedly threatened him and his management team that if they would not consider the Interscope deal, they would never "find another deal in the industry nor in this town". In December 1996, MCA Music Entertainment was renamed Universal Music Group with Interscope and various other labels now being a part of the newly rebranded UMG.

Following Death Row founder Suge Knight's probation violation and prison sentence in 1997, Iovine and Interscope ended their business relationship with Death Row; the final album released under the Death Row/Interscope deal was the soundtrack to the Tupac Shakur action film, Gridlock'd, which managed to reach the Billboard 200's number one position.

In March 1998, Iovine invited Dr. Dre to his house to listen to the Slim Shady EP, released in 1997 by an underground rapper, who was participating a tournament of rap battles at the time, by the name of Eminem. The tape eventually landed in the hands of Interscope A&Rs Dean Geistlinger and D.J. Mormile, who later turned it in to label co-founder Ted Field, who also sent it to Iovine for review. Upon suggestion from Iovine, he urged Dr. Dre to find Eminem and have him join the Interscope family through Dre's label, Aftermath. Eminem has found success with both labels despite controversy involving his lyrical themes. On February 23, 1999, Eminem released his debut studio album, The Slim Shady LP, to critical acclaim. The album made its way to number two on the Billboard 200, helping to improve both Interscope and Aftermath after years of low sales.

On December 10, 1998, Seagram acquired PolyGram, and it merged with the Universal Music Group. After the PolyGram and MCA merger of Universal Music Group, Interscope became sister labels to new entries A&M Records, Def Jam Recordings, Island Records, Mercury Records and Motown. In 1998, Interscope, Geffen and A&M were put together under the umbrella label as Interscope Geffen A&M Records (IGA). Within IGA, Iovine and Field were hired to become the unit's co-chairmen and oversee operations of Interscope and Geffen.

In February 2001, Ted Field parted ways with IGA, leading Iovine to take full control of the labels. In June 2002 of the latter year, Iovine was able to manage to negotiate Eminem and Dr. Dre's joint venture agreement involving then-upcoming hip hop artist and fellow New Yorker 50 Cent. On February 9, 2003, he released his debut studio album, Get Rich or Die Tryin', to acclaim.

Iovine was confidential in merging A&M, DGC, MCA and DreamWorks into defection through Interscope Geffen A&M between 1999 and 2003. Due to A&M co-founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss filing suit against Iovine, Interscope and UMG over a breach of agreement involving the label's operations, A&M Records had to remain fully operative as a one-off subsidiary of Interscope Records; the two plaintiffs were given a $200 million out of court settlement. At the end of 2003, Iovine made over $45 million in revenue generated from music sales from his label.

For the next four years, Iovine, Interscope and Geffen began to see extended success from other artists including D12, AFI, Nelly Furtado, The Roots, Gwen Stefani (as a solo artist), The Game, Robin Thicke, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, The Pussycat Dolls and others. Iovine discovered Lady Gaga in 2007 who was sent to work with singer-songwriter Akon, who in exchange for his mentorship of Gaga, asked Iovine to sign her to Vincent Herbert's Streamline Records and Interscope.

In 2014, Universal Music Group reported that Iovine was departing from Interscope Records, ending his twenty-five year tenure with the label and vacating his fifteen-year dual position as chairman and CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M Records (now Interscope Capitol Labels Group, as of 2024). It was confirmed that the Fueled by Ramen co-founder John Janick was hired as Iovine's replacement. Janick was hired to become Interscope's president and COO in 2012. The final artist Iovine signed to his label was J. Cole. On May 28, 2014, Iovine effectively vacated his CEO and chairman positions, while departing from Interscope. The news of his departure from the label occurred following the sale of his and Dr. Dre's headphone company, Beats Electronics, to Apple Inc.