While Jay Z was cooly soaking in Coachella-vibes with his wife and friends this past weekend, the Los Angeles Police Department was unraveling an extortion plot involving some old Hov master tapes that have long been assumed "lost" but are now worth some $15 or $20 million. Per TMZ, a sound engineer/producer named Chauncey Mahan, who worked with Jay between 1998 to 2002, threatened Live Nation with an ultimatum: pay a $100,000 "storage fee" and get the "lost" tapes back or they go up for auction. He eventually settled for $75,000 from Live Nation, but when he arrived at the storage facility where the recording were being kept to finalize the deal last Friday, he found the LAPD waiting for him instead. He was held for questioning and then released, but is being investigated for alleged extortion. In addition, Jay Z's team has filed a grand larceny complaint with the NYPD. The LAPD will keep the tapes until a judge decides who has rightful ownership.
What does this all mean for fans hungry for new old-Jay? Probably not a whole lot, according to Just Blaze, who shared some thoughts on the incident on Twitter this afternoon:
Chauncey stayed effing up. Big part of the reason Hip and I brought in Guru.
— Just Blaze (@JustBlaze) April 21, 2014
Oh. And I have backups of just about all of those files Chauncey tried to extort for. Dummy.
— Just Blaze (@JustBlaze) April 21, 2014
They reside in a fallout shelter in an undisclosed location.
— Just Blaze (@JustBlaze) April 21, 2014
Anyways, Jay knows: “I’m way too important to be talking about extorting.”
