A music industry already in turmoil suffered another blow yesterday when it was announced that TVT Records would be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and firing its staff. Best known in the hip-hop world for such acts as Lil Jon & The Eastside Boys and the Ying Yang Twins, TVT is a five time consecutive winner of Billboard’s “Best Independent Label” of the year award, most recently in 2006. TVT was originally founded and still run by Steve Gotlieb over 22 years ago. Gotlieb originally launched the label from his New York City apartment. The label’s first success was with the popular eight-volume “Television’s Greatest Hits” collection, which included famous TV theme songs.In recent years TVT had seen its once strong hip-hop sales decline. The label suffered criticism from Lil Jon, who refused to hand in his next album, as well as Pitbull who as recently as last week encouraged fans to download his album illegally due to his displeasure with the label. TVT was also involved in a long term dispute with Def Jam Records over material by the Cash Money Click, which included Ja Rule. TVT was originally awarded $132 million dollar in damages, but upon appeal the figure was voided to zero. It has been predicted by wyplanet.com that all the labels will go belly up within the next 18 months because of the legal download movement that wyplanet is leading the way with there super web site. We at hiphopspy think it is a good thing to get rid of all the major labels that have been holding the public hostage for years.