Roy Harper

His son Nick, a successful singer/songwriter in his own right, occasionally tours and records with him. 2004- R.U.L.E. Gold (as of 01/04/05). A recording of the concert was released as a double CD shortly afterwards. 2003- Blood In My Eye Gold. In June 2001, he celebrated his 60th birthday with a concert at London's Royal Festival Hall, featuring many guest artists. 2002- Last Temptation- Platinum. The 2000 album, The Green Man was an entirely solo effort with Harper on acoustic guitar with no accompaniment. 2001- Pain Is Love- 3X Platinum.

Jethro Tull's singer Ian Anderson also sessioned, contributing flute to the song, "These Fifty Years". 2000- Rule 3:36- 3X Platinum. His son, Nick Harper, is also a songwriter- guitarist and contributed tracks to the 1998 album, The Dream Society. 1999- Venni Vetti Vecci- Platinum. Harper's spoken words can be heard on The Tea Party's 1995 album Edges of Twilight and he sings on the track "Time" from their 1996 album Alhambra. Ja Rule has co-starred in a number of action movies such as Half Past Dead, The Fast and the Furious, Scary Movie 3, and Assault on Precinct 13. After the end of his marriage, Harper composed the melancholy Death or Glory in 1992. and Tupac Shakur, though most in the rap community, including Lil' Mo and several others of the aforementioned victims of Ja Rule's bashing, have expressed hope that all rappers could learn a lesson from what happened to Biggie and Tupac and stop serious feuds before someone ends up hurt.

Since 1986, Harper has had a relatively low public profile, although 1990's Once was a tour-de-force, again featuring David Gilmour and Kate Bush. It remains to be seen whether this 'dispute' will elevate to the level of Notorious B.I.G. They released an album called Whatever Happened to Jugula? under Harper's name but co-credited to Jimmy Page. Tony Franklin, the bass player in Harper's group would later join Page in The Firm. Dre and Eminem were gay lovers; suggested Dre's newest female protege, Truth Hurts, might be a transsexual; and even claimed that Eminem's young daughter would end up a prostitute. Throughout 1984, Harper toured the United Kingdom with Jimmy Page, performing a predominantly acoustic set at folk festivals under various guises such as The MacGregors, and Themselves. He referred to Lil' Mo as an ungrateful bitch who had never had a hit single without his help; alluded that Dr. The Work of Heart album released in 1982 marked the formation of his own record label with Mark Thompson, entitled Public Records. Dre, Lil' Mo, Truth Hurts, and Eminem's 6-year-old daughter, Hailie Jade, along with 50 Cent on a single track.

In 1980, Harper sang backing vocals on the Kate Bush song "Breathing". The feud eventually escalated to such a level that Ja Rule mocked Eminem, Dr. For much of the seventies, Harper was managed, and had records produced, by Peter Jenner. Initiated by 50 Cent's labelling Ja Rule, among others, a "fake" gangster, or a "wanksta", because of their pop sensibilities, the two rappers exchanged insults and disses in a series of singles and underground mixtapes. In April 1978, Harper began writing lyrics for the next Led Zeppelin album, with Jimmy Page, but the project was shelved when Robert Plant returned from his self-imposed sabbatical after the death of his son Karac. In 2003, it was this very dichotomy which started a rap war between Ja Rule and fellow MC 50 Cent. Bullinamingvase also featured "One of Those Days in England", with backing vocals by Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney, which became a Top 40 hit. "Always On Time" with Ashanti, "Put It On Me" with Lil' Mo, and "Between Me And You" with Christina Milian are just three examples of such songs, which have married his thuggish image with more sensitive, relationship-minded topics.

Harper was forced under duress to drop it from future copies of the album, though it reappeared on a later CD reissue. Despite culling a gangster image, Ja Rule's biggest hits have, to date, been hip-hop inspired ballads, all of which have contained at least one female singer on the chorus. Controversy soon followed with the release of 1977's Bullinamingvase, with a motorway service station objecting to the lyrics in the song "Watford Gap" which criticised their food. in 2001. The single "When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease", taken from the album, is Harper's biggest selling and best known solo record to date. This led Mo to leave Murder Inc. Pink Floyd's David Gilmour returned the favour by appearing on Harper's next album, HQ, with his occasional backing band called Trigger (Chris Spedding on guitar, Dave Cochran on bass guitar, and Bill Bruford on drums) and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones. With Ashanti's career on the rise, Mo felt that Ja and Irv Gotti were ignoring her and focussing unfair amounts of time and money on Ashanti.

Pink Floyd's 1975 release Wish You Were Here saw Harper as lead vocalist on the song "Have a Cigar". Lil' Mo, Ja Rule's former friend, had a falling out with Ja shortly after they released the "I Cry" music video together, in 2001. Between 1975 and 1978, Harper spent considerable time in the United States. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The live album Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion soon followed. It peaked at No. A concert to mark its release was held at London's Rainbow Theatre with Page, Bedford, and Keith Moon on drums. It debuted at #1 in the UK Singles Chart, giving him his biggest single of his career there (even though at the same time it broke the record of the lowest selling #1 debut single ever).

His next album Valentine, was released on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1974 and featured contributions from guitarist Jimmy Page. Kelly and Ashanti. The soundtrack for this film appeared in the following year with the title Lifemask. The first single from this album, "Wonderful", has been released, and features R. In 1972, Harper made his acting debut playing Mike Preston in the John Mackenzie film Made. On November 9, 2004, Ja Rule released his next album entitled "R.U.L.E." The album features several guest appearances (such as Jadakiss, Fat Joe, Trick Daddy and many more). Harper's 1971 critically acclaimed album was the four song epic, Stormcock, featuring Jimmy Page on guitar and David Bedford's orchestral arrangements, who would collaborate on future releases. The song's video, which was dark and simple and featured a bulked-up Ja Rule, contrasted deeply to the colorful, happier scenes in videos such as "Always On Time" and "Mesmerize".

In a mutual appreciation of their work, Harper would often attend live performances by Led Zeppelin over the subsequent decade as well as contribute sleeve photography to the album Physical Graffiti and appear, uncredited, in the 1976 film, The Song Remains the Same. Arguably his grittiest single yet, it seemed intended to challenge 50 Cent's comments about him. According to Jimmy Page, the band admired the way Harper stood by his principles and did not sell out to commercial pressures. Ja Rule returned in November of 2003 with the new single "Clap Back", on the album Blood In My Eye. After the Bath Festival of 1970, Led Zeppelin wrote a song titled "Hats Off to (Roy) Harper", which appeared on the album Led Zeppelin III. The female vocalist who sang the chorus of "Murder Reigns" was not credited as a "featured" artist, though she appeared in its music video. Flat Baroque and Beserk also marked Harper's long yet confrontational association with Harvest Records. The song also had received criticism for its sampling of Toto's "Africa", something that had just recently been done on another rapper's most recent album.

Its ethereal sound was achieved by a wah wah pedal attached to an acoustic guitar. MTV and other music video channels only played the video with the censored title of "The Reign", and with the word "murder" removed from the chorus' lyrics. Harper's first tour of the United States followed the release of the album Flat Baroque and Beserk in 1970 which featured The Nice on one track called "Hell's Angels". The album's final single, "Murder Reigns" also failed to become a huge hit, especially at pop radio, most likely due to the controversial song title. Starting since May, 1968, Harper was making regular appearances at free concerts in London's Hyde Park attracting a cult following of fans from the underground music scene. In late 2002 and early 2003, as Ja Rule ruled mainstream radio with "Mesmerize", another single of his, which featured Ashanti and Nas, "The Pledge", was released to radio, but failed to gain pop support. 1969's Folkjokeopus virtually mirrored the previous album, with a 15 minute version of "McGooghan's Blues". "Mesmerze" featured Ashanti on vocals and was another smash pop and urban radio hit--and an enormous MTV and VH1 video hit--for the duo.

Its cover was controversial at the time, depicting a new born baby, complete with umbilical cord. The second single from The Last Temptation, "Mesmerize", followed the pattern used in "Always On Time", hoping to repeat its success; it worked. CBS Records saw his potential and hired producer Shel Talmy to arrange Come out Fighting Genghis Smith, with the 11 minute blues track "Circles", marking a widening of Harper's audience away from pure folk. Thus far, Rule seems to have changed his mind. It consisted of his sung poetry backed by acoustic guitar with a revox tape machine. Around the time of The Last Temptation's release, Ja Rule started saying that it would likely be either his last or second-to-last album, after which he would concentrate solely on other aspects of his life, such as his acting career and the managing of Murder Inc. His first album, The Sophisticated Beggar, was recorded in 1966 after Harper was spotted at the Les Cousins club and signed to Peter Richard's Strike Records. Brown's attempted return to mainstream music with the single did not succeed.

Harper then busked around Europe until 1964 when he returned to England and gained residency at London's famous Les Cousins folk club in Soho. Despite "Thug Lovin'"'s being the first single from Ja's fourth album, The Last Temptation and Brown's "comeback" appearance on the song, it was relatively unsuccessful compared to many of Ja's previous singles. Leaving school when he was 15, he joined the Royal Air Force only to reject its rigid discipline, and then managed to feign madness—and receive ECT—in order to get a discharge. Ja then featured Brown, Murder Inc.'s newest artist, in his next single "Thug Lovin'" in the fall of 2002, as he had done previously with Baltimore, Lil' Mo, and Ashanti when they were the newcomers. At the age of 10, he began playing skiffle music with his older brother, David Harper, as well as being influenced by blues music. did shortly sign Bobby Brown. Harper's anti-religious views would later become a familiar theme in his music. Following all this, Murder Inc.

After the death of his mother during childbirth, he was raised by his father and his step-mother, whom he did not get along with because of her Jehovah's Witness beliefs. There was even talk that Michael Jackson had enlisted the help of Irv Gotti and Ja Rule and was in the process of signing a contract with Murder Inc. Harper was born in the Manchester suburb of Rusholme, England. at the time. Roy Harper, (born June 12, 1941), is a British singer-songwriter who specialises in uncompromising introspective lyrics and folk influenced compositions. Some dismissed the claims as rumors, since it seemed that everybody in the industry wanted to be affiliated with Ja and Murder Inc. The Song Remains the Same (1976). and was preparing to released a long-awaited comeback album.

Made (1972). Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston had cameos in the video and speculation soon arose that one or both of them had been signed to Murder Inc. Today Is Yesterday (archive recordings from 1964/5). The "Down 4 U" video was a hit at MTV in the summer of 2002 because of its beach setting and its party theme. Royal Festival Hall Live 2001 (2001). The remix of "Down Ass Chick", called "Down 4 U", fared slightly better at mainstream radio, thanks once again to a chorus sung by Ashanti, in addition to raps from Baltimore, Rule, and Vita. The Green Man (2001). The song heralded the return of Charli Baltimore--who was a "featured" rapper on the track--to the music industry after a five year absence.

The Dream Society (1998). In spring of 2002, the third single from Pain Is Love, "Down Ass Chick", was far less successful at pop radio than its two predecessors had been. East Of The Sun (compilation of love songs). "Rainy Dayz" became yet another successful song in which a female vocalist's singing complimented Rule's own unique style of rapping. The BBC Tapes (1997) (six volumes, on CD, not tape). Blige invited Ja Rule to record a song with her, called "Rainy Dayz", which was added to a 2002 rerelease of her most recent album, 2001's No More Drama. Live at Les Cousins (1996) (live). Looking to capitalize on the same type of strategy, Mary J.

Unhinged (1995) (compilation). The only exception to this was American VH1 which played the original pop versions of the music videos rather than the hip-hop versions. An Introduction to Roy Harper (1994) (compilation). Both remixes featured vocals and rap verses from Ja Rule and both far outperformed the song's original versions, in mainstream radio, urban radio, and music video channels, in America and Europe alike. Commercial Breaks (1994) (previously unreleased material from 1977). In early 2002, the formula was repeated with Lopez' next single, "Ain't It Funny". Born in Captivity II (1992) (live). The "Murder Remix" of "I'm Real" contained vocals by both Lopez and Rule and went on to become one of 2001's biggest hits.

Death or Glory (1992). Lopez had enlisted the help of Ja Rule and Irv Gotti in the production of an urban remix for her unsuccessful, pop-sounding song "I'm Real". Burn the World (1990). Ja's popularity in the hip-hop industry was cemented even further in the summer of 2001, thanks to a hugely popular duet with Jennifer Lopez. Once (1990). Christina Aguilera, NSYNC, Britney Spears, Destiny's Child, Jennifer Lopez, and Gaye's own daughter, Nona, among others, sang the original lyrics to Gaye's song. Loony on the Bus (1988). He, along with Nelly, Eve, and Fred Durst, added their own original rap lyrics about the disease to the song.

Descendants of Smith (1988). Ja Rule had a memorable part in the song. In Between Every Line (1986) (live). The song went on to become associated with the terrorist attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan more so than with AIDS. However, in December, the song was rereleased as planned, with several new versions/remixes of both the song and the video, in order to benefit AIDS charities as originally planned. Whatever Happened to Jugula? (1985), with Jimmy Page. After 9/11, however, the song was rush-released to radio and to MTV; its video having been hastily thrown together "home-movie" clips from the very recent studio recording of the song. Born in Captivity (1984). It was to be released in December.

Work of Heart (1982). Just days before the tragedy of September 11th, around the same time that "Livin' It Up" was breaking big, the American supergroup lineup known as the "All Star Tribute" was recording a cover of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", in order to raise international AIDS awareness as well as money to combat the disease. The Unknown Soldier (1980). The song and video were also notable because they provided MTV viewers and listeners of mainstream radio the first introduction to singer Ashanti, who was the featured singer on the single's chorus. Roy Harper 1970-75 (1978) (compilation). The followup single and video, "Always On Time", was released in December of that same year and was even bigger than "Livin' It Up", becoming Ja Rule's biggest pop radio hit to that point. Bullinamingvase (1977). The song, which featured guest vocals by R&B singer Case, went on to become another smash hit for the rapper thanks in part to its familiar sample of Stevie Wonder's "Do I Do".

HQ (1975) (US title: When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease). In the fall of 2001, after "I Cry" had run its course, Ja Rule released "Livin' It Up", the first single from his third album, Pain Is Love. Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion (1974) (live). The album's third single, "I Cry", also featured singing from Lil' Mo, but the song failed to blow up as the two prior singles had, even despite getting respectable video play on MTV2. Valentine (1974). In late 2000, Rule released his second album, Rule 3:36, which spawned the huge hits "Between Me And You", featuring young newcomer Christina Milian on vocals, and "Put It On Me", featuring his label-mates Vita and Lil' Mo. Lifemask (1973) (soundtrack). He later started his own record label, with friend Irv Gotti, called Murder Inc.

Stormcock (1971). The same year, he released the "How Many Wanna" single off of a movie soundtrack. Flat Baroque and Berserk (1970). It spawned the singles "Holla Holla" and "Daddy's Little Baby", which only achieved minor success compared to his later singles. Folkjokeopus (1969). After his auspicious start on "Can I Get A...", Ja wasted little time preparing and releasing his debut album, Venni, Vetti, Vicci, in 1999. Come out Fighting Ghengis Smith (1968). Jeffery Atkins (born February 29, 1976, Hollis, Queens, New York City), better known as Ja Rule, is a rapper who made his name on several tracks of recordings by his mentor Jay-Z, the most notable of which was the smash 1998/1999 hit "Can I Get A...".

The Sophisticated Beggar (1966). Ja Rule News (http://www.bandnews.org/Ja%20Rule/). Fansite (http://www.murderinc-online.com/). Biggest unoffical Murder Inc. Ja Rule Official Site (http://www.defjam.com/jarule/).

Fat Joe & Jadakiss) #44 US. 2004 "New York" (feat. Kelly and Ashanti) #5 US, #1 UK. R.

2004 "Wonderful" (feat. 2003 "Clap Back" #44 US, #9 UK (double A-side with Reigns in the UK). Ashanti) #2 US, #12 UK. 2002 "Mesmerize" (feat.

Bobby Brown) #42 US, #15 UK. 2002 "Thug Lovin'" (feat. Case - re-release) #5 UK. 2002 "Livin' It Up" (feat.

2002 "Down 4 U" (Irv Gotti presents The INC featuring Ja Rule, Ashanti, Charli Baltimore and Vita) #6 US, #4 UK. Charli "Chuck" Baltimore) #21 US. 2002 "Down Ass Chick" (feat. Ja Rule) #12 US, #17 UK.

Blige feat. 2002 "Rainy Dayz" (Mary J. Ja Rule and Caddillac Tah) #1 US, #4 UK. 2001 "Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix)" (Jennifer Lopez feat.

Ashanti) #1 US, #6 UK. 2001 "Always On Time" (feat. Ja Rule) #27 US, #6 UK. 2001 "What's Going On" (All Star Tribute feat.

Case) #6 US, #27 UK. 2001 "Livin' It Up" (feat. Ja Rule) #1 US, #4 UK. 2001 "I'm Real (Murder Remix)" (Jennifer Lopez feat.

Lil' Mo) #40 US. 2001 "I Cry" (feat. Lil' Mo and Vita) #8 US. 2001 "Put It On Me" (feat.

Christina Milian) #30 US, #26 UK. 2001 "Between Me And You" (feat. Amil and Ja Rule) #27 US, #24 UK. 1998 "Can I Get A..." (Jay-Z feat.