Jerry Heller is best known for managing west coast rap supergroup and
gangster rap pioneers NWA and Eazy E and was a co-founder and CEO of
Ruthless Records.
Jerry Heller can be counted as one of the select few in the music
industry who has had a significant role in shaping trends and musical
movements for five decades. Truly a unique force with his unparalleled
ability to predict the movements of the music industry, Jerry Heller
rose to prominence in the 1960s and 70s as one of the preeminent super
agents; a title arguably shared only by Freddie Fields and David
Geffen. During this historically important time in the music industry,
He was responsible for bringing Elton John and Pink Floyd to America
for their first United States tours. Among the many other notable
accomplishments of Jerry Heller during this time included his
representations of such foundational artists as Journey, Styx, REO
Speedwagon, Boz Scaggs, Grassroots, Guess Who, Marvin Gaye, Joan
Armatrading, Van Morrison, War, Average White Band, and Crosby Nash.
Following the momentum of the 1960s and 70s, he continued to generate
many of the groundbreaking record deals in New Wave and Punk-which
defined and reinvented the music industry for the next decade.
Starting in the mid-1980s, Jerry Heller was the moving force and
marketing genius behind the emergence and crossover of Rap music to the
record buying public. His musical vision continued to demonstrate its
capacity to be nothing short of astounding. He not only founded
Ruthless Records with the late Eazy E, but he discovered and managed
NWA, Egyptian Lover, World Class Wreckin Cru, LA Dream Team, J.J. Fad,
The DOC, Michel'le, Above the Law, and other trend-setting artists who
formed the foundation for the incredible successes of Priority Records
and Interscope Records. To date, Ruthless Records has sold in excess of
110 million records, not counting singles. The artists (including the
heir apparent to the NWA legacy Bone Thugs 'N Harmony, discovered as
homeless Cleveland youths by Eazy and Jerry) and producers such as Dr.
Dre whose careers Jerry Heller established sold millions upon millions
of records for Interscope Records, Priority Records, ATCO/Atlantic
Records, MCA Records, Relativity/Sony Records. At the time of Eazy-E's
death and Jerry Heller's departure from Ruthless Records, the company
was earning $10,000,000 per month.
Jerry Heller is arguably dollar-for-dollar the most successful record
company executive of the entire Rap Era. He started Ruthless Records
with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of his own money along with
another $2.25 million dollar contribution by Sony/Relativity when the
P&D deal was struck. To date, the Original members of NWA have grossed
somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.75 billion dollars.
