Jimmy Iovine

James Iovine ( EYE-ə-veen; born March 11, 1953) is an American entrepreneur, former record executive, and media proprietor. He co-founded Interscope Records in 1990, and served as chairman and CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M, an umbrella music unit formed by Universal Music Group, from 1999 to 2014.

Iovine has been involved in the production of at least 250 albums. In 2006, Iovine and Interscope signee Dr. Dre co-founded Beats Electronics. Two years later, the brand launched its first set of headphones. In late 2013, they began development for Beats Music, and released it in 2014, which went on to become the framework for Apple Music. The company was purchased by Apple Inc. for $3 billion in May 2014. At the same time, Iovine vacated his positions as chairman and CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, ending his twenty-five year relationship with his label.

On August 21, 2018, after initial denial, Iovine parted ways with Apple and effectively retired from the media business. He is credited or named in institutional education centers such as the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy, which was inaugurated in 2013, and the Iovine and Young Center, a magnet high school which opened in Los Angeles in August 2022.

Iovine was born on March 11, 1953, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, to an Italian working-class family. His mother was a secretary and his father, Vincent Iovine, worked on the docks as a longshoreman. He has an older sister, born in 1946. The family lived in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood. His father died in 1985.

Iovine attended a Catholic school in Brooklyn, graduating from the now-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.

In the early 1970s, Iovine became a recording engineer, working with John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen, among others. By 1973, Iovine was a part of the staff, working for the now-demolished New York City faction of the Record Plant, where he worked on Springsteen's Born to Run and Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell. He came to prominence through his work on Patti Smith's album Easter (1978), which included her Top 40 hit "Because the Night". He later collaborated with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on Damn the Torpedoes and U2 on Rattle and Hum. Iovine produced Bella Donna (the first solo album by former Fleetwood Mac member Stevie Nicks), Making Movies for Dire Straits, The Distance for Bob Seger and Get Close for The Pretenders.

Iovine served as sound engineer for the Voyager Golden Records, a pair of phonograph records that were launched aboard the Voyager space probes 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 1989, Iovine and Ted Field, founder of film production label Interscope Communications, co-founded Interscope Records. A year later, the label secured a distribution deal with Atlantic Records and garnered success with artists including No Doubt, 4 Non Blondes and Gerardo. Atlantic owned a 50% stock in the label. Iovine and Field signed Tupac Shakur to a recording contract as one of the first hip-hop acts under Interscope in 1991. A year later, Interscope became notable for providing distribution, initial funding and financial oversight for the highly successful Death Row Records. Death Row, founded by Suge Knight, operated as a subsidiary of Interscope, beginning with the December 14, 1992 release of label artist and producer Dr. Dre's solo debut album The Chronic. With singles consisting of "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" and "Let Me Ride", both of which featuring labelmate Snoop Dogg, The Chronic sold over five million copies in the United States and became Dr. Dre's best-selling album in his career. Iovine and Dr. Dre formed a friendship following the release of The Chronic. Over 19 million records sold from Death Row, the label was largely responsible for Interscope's multi-platinum success throughout the 1990s. However, Snoop Dogg accumulated more success on Death Row and Interscope with his November 1993 debut Doggystyle. It opened at number one on the Billboard 200 with the biggest first-week sales in 1990s hip hop. In November 1995, Interscope released Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt, which sold over 16 million copies worldwide as its single, "Don't Speak" made number one on Billboard's Radio Songs chart.

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 Dr. Dre Presents: The Aftermath, 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 The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory 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.

In May 2013, Iovine and Dr. Dre donated $70 million to the University of Southern California to create the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation. The first class of the academy began in September 2014 with 31 students. On October 2, 2019, the USC opened the Iovine and Young Hall.

In April 2020, Iovine and Dr. Dre donated to the city of Compton to provide support for medical supplies, free COVID-19 testing, and 145,000 meals for residents of the city. In May 2020, Iovine and Dr. Dre partnered with restaurant chain Everytable to provide 30 days of drive-thru meals to Compton residents.

In 2011, Iovine was honored by The Producers & Engineers Wing of the Grammy Awards. "This year we pay tribute to an industry leader, Jimmy Iovine, who has made an indelible impact as a recording engineer, producer, founder of Interscope Records, and now, entrepreneur focused on audio quality," Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the governing body of the Grammy Awards, said in presenting the award.

On May 17, 2013, Iovine received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the University of Southern California and gave the 2013 USC commencement address.

In 2022, Iovine was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Ahmet Ertegun Award category.

New York rock radio DJ Carol Miller and Iovine had a two-year relationship in the late 1970s. Miller says "Jimmy had a wonderful, close-knit Italian Catholic family from Brooklyn and Staten Island who could not have been nicer to me. It was I, the Jewish girl from Queens, who always felt silently out of place." She says her father was not very nice to Iovine and was against the relationship due to the differences in their religions. According to Miller, the relationship ended in 1980, when Iovine began spending most of his time in California working with singer Stevie Nicks.

While producing her album Bella Donna, Iovine entered into a relationship with Nicks. The two eventually broke up in 1982. Nicks wrote the song, "Straight Back", included in the Fleetwood Mac album, Mirage, about him. According to Nicks, Iovine was an inspiration for one of her signature songs, "Edge of Seventeen". The song also became the backbone for the guitar sample used on Destiny's Child's hit single, "Bootylicious" (2001). Nicks has said that Iovine's despondence from the death of his good friend John Lennon overwhelmed her, and eventually led to the end of their relationship. However, the strong emotion of the time led to the creation of "Edge of Seventeen".