James Iovine (/ˈaɪ.əviːn/ EYE-ə-veen, Italian: ; born March 11, 1953) is an American entrepreneur, record executive, and media proprietor best known as the co-founder of Interscope Records. In 2006, Iovine and rapper-producer Dr. Dre founded Beats Electronics, which produces audio products and operated a now-defunct music streaming service. The company was purchased by Apple Inc. for $3 billion in May 2014.
Prior to the Apple acquisition of Beats in 2014, Iovine became chairman of Interscope-Geffen-A&M, an umbrella unit merged by the then-newly-reincarnated Universal Music Group in 1999.
James Iovine was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an Italian working-class family. His mother was a secretary and his father, Vincent "Jimmy" Iovine, worked on the docks as a longshoreman. His father's death and his love for Christmas inspired Jimmy to record A Very Special Christmas in 1985. Iovine attended Catholic school in Brooklyn, graduating from the since-closed Bishop Ford Central Catholic High School and went on to attend New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. At 19, he was a college dropout. He was introduced to music production after he met a songwriter who got him a job cleaning a recording studio. He began working as a studio professional around 1972. Since the start of his career, Iovine has been involved in the production of more than 250 albums.