Music star behind disastrous Fyre Festival 're-releasing all his albums'

By David Mercer, news reporter

Rapper Ja Rule – who co-founded the disastrous Fyre Festival – has announced he is re-releasing all his music as “visual albums”.

The US hip-hop star, who has brought out seven solo albums over the last 20 years, revealed on social media his ambitious plan to record new videos for “every song” he has ever made.

It is the latest venture for the musician who was fiercely criticised his role in Fyre Festival, which had to be cancelled in April 2017 when hundreds of ticket-holders arrived in the Bahamas to find awful conditions at the event.

In a Twitter post, Ja Rule wrote: “I will be re-releasing ALL of my albums as visual albums… I will be making a video for every song I’ve ever made… what songs do y’all wanna see videos for???”

The 43-year-old rapper – whose hits include Livin’ It Up and Always On Time – later clarified he would be shooting “over 40” videos, but they would not include tracks that already have videos.

One Twitter user asked Ja Rule why he was asking fans to choose which songs they wanted to see new videos made for, when he was supposedly recording “visual albums” for all his previous records.

He replied: “I wanna see which records are favoured.”

It comes several months after a Netflix documentary detailed what happened behind the scenes of the infamous Fyre Festival, which Ja Rule and his business partners were forced to abort after it was dubbed “a post-apocalyptic nightmare”.

A promotional film for the festival – which was advertised as a luxury party on a deserted island – featured bikini-clad supermodels including Bella Hadid, Kendal Jenner and Emily Ratajkowski, with tickets reportedly costing up to $100,000 (£75,000).

But when guests turned up, they found they were to sleep on rain-soaked mattresses in hurricane disaster tents on what had been a building site on a different island than originally advertised.

A lawsuit filed against the organisers said guests had been promised a “posh, island-based music festival featuring first class culinary experiences” but were instead lured into “what various media outlets have since labelled a complete disaster, mass chaos and a post-apocalyptic nightmare”.

The event’s co-founder Billy McFarland was jailed for six years for fraud for his role, but Ja Rule was never arrested or charged.

The rapper denied he was involved in defrauding party-goers and locals on the island and claimed he lost money through his involvement in organising and promoting the festival.

Ja Rule is due to release an album called Twelve, which will feature new music, in December.