Def Jam Recordings And The Birth Of New School
Rick Rubin And Demo Tapes -- LL Cool J
As a result of the success of "It's Yours," Rick Rubin began to receive demo tapes from young MCs who hoped that he would produce their records. One of those tapes came from a very young rapper named James Todd Smith, although the tape was labeled, "Ladies Love Cool James." Rubin's friend Adam Horovitz, Ad-Rock of The Beastie Boys, stumbled across the tape in a box of demos in Rubin's dorm room and brought it to his attention. "When I heard 'It's Yours,' I sent a tape to the address on the cover of the single: 5 University Place. And his phone number was on the label: 212-420-8666. So, I called Rick everyday for, like, two weeks. 'Rick, you get the tape yet.' 'Nope.' 'Yo, Rick, you get the tape yet?' 'Nope.' But Ad-Rock listened to my demo and he let Rick hear it." LL Cool J
Walk This Way & Licensed To Ill
Four years later, Rubin would produce the first hip-hop single to break into the Top Five of the Billboard Hot 100 and both produce and release on the Def Jam label the first hip-hop album to top the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. That first single was "Walk This Way" by RUN-D.M.C and Aerosmith and that first album was Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys. The success of "Walk This Way" and Licensed to Ill are generally credited as "the records that established hip-hop as a viable part of the commercial mainstream" and lead to what would be called "new school."
Simmons Full Time Rush Productions And Creation Of Christmas Rappin
In 1978, Simmons left CCNY a few credits short of graduation to devote himself full-time to "Rush Productions." Simmons work as a promoter came to the attention of Robert "Rocky" Ford who wrote for Billboard and interviewed him for one of the first articles on hip-hop to appear in the industry trade bible. The following year, Ford and another writer at Billboard, James Briggs Moore III, approached Simmons with the idea of producing a hip-hop Christmas record that Moore had written for Kurtis Blow. That record became "Christmas Rappin'" and was co-produced by Simmons with Ford and Moore. The record sold 100,000 copies over the holidays, more than 200,000 after Christmas, and, eventually, "Christmas Rappin'" would sell over 500,000 copies. Russell Simmons was now a producer and about to become the manager of a client with a hit record.
Differences Between Simmons And Rubin
In many ways, Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons were as different as they were alike. Both were gifted, clever, driven, and visionary, but in very different ways. Simmons was at heart a street hustler interested in the deal and always rushing off to pursue new opportunities. Rubin was "a music guy" first, last, and always with little interest in money or success in a business sense. He produced The Bangles' "Hazy Shade of Winter" for the Less Than Zero soundtrack album, which went to Number Two on the pop charts and would have given him his highest charting single at that point in his career. However, he was so disappointed with the mix-down that, instead, he insisted that his name be removed from the record. Simmons and Rubin also differed in their musical tastes, which grew to be a source of friction between them. Simmons never understood why Rubin was drawn to artists like Slayer, a heavy metal band, and, especially, Public Enemy, who Simmons saw as "a Black punk rock group that's never going to sell any records." Similarly, Rubin never understood Simmons' R&B acts. The fact that almost all of the acts that Rubin brought to Def Jam were successful and that none of Simmons' signings succeeded merely aggravated their relationship.
September 1984 -- Def Jam Recordings Is Born With "I Need A Beat".
It took Simmons some time to finally agree to the idea, but, in September of 1984, Simmons and Rubin had entertainment lawyer Paul Schindler draw up an agreement that made them equal partners in Def Jam Recordings. Rubin came up with $5000 that he borrowed from his parents and Simmons added $1000 to get the company started. Their first official release as an actual label was LL Cool J's "I Need A Beat," the song that Simmons had thought was "fantastic" and likely to be a hit. The record cost $700 to produce and sold more than 100,000 copies in less than a month. Def Jam Recordings had a hit with its first release. Remarkably, Rubin continued to run the label from his dorm room at NYU.
Krush Groove Movie Details
Krush Groove opened on October 25, 1985. It starred Sheila E., RUN-D.M.C, Kurtis Blow, The Fat Boys, and featured New Edition, LL Cool J, and The Beastie Boys. Blair Underwood played Russell Walker (who was loosely based on Russell Simmons) and Rick Rubin appeared as himself. Krush Groove grossed almost $3 million in its first week and essentially recouped its investment. In its initial run, it made more than $11 million at the box office and would later earn an additional $5 million in video rentals. More important, it was a major promotional vehicle for new school hip-hop, in general, and for Def Jam/Rush Management artists in particular.
Radio Reception
LL Cool J's Radio came out as Krush Groove was finishing its run in theaters. In it's first five months of release, Radio would sell 500,000 copies and eventually be certified Platinum by the RIAA with over 1 million copies sold. Four singles in addition to the already released "I Need A Beat" and "I Can't Live Without My Radio" were released from the album, including "I Want You" and "I Can Give You More," the first successful hip-hop ballads. Most important, Radio crossed-over into the mainstream Top 200 albums chart and stayed there for thirty-eight weeks.
Def Jam Head Lineage
Lyor Cohen was succeeded at Def Jam by Antonio "L.A." Reid, who briefly headed the company until Jay-Z was named President of Def Jam late in 2004. Jay-Z held that position until 2008, when L.A. Reid returned to head the company. In 2012, Joie Manda was named the first President of Def Jam since Jay-Z, although he stayed only a year before moving to Interscope Records. Currently, Island Def Jam Chairman, Barry Weiss, and President/COO, Steve Bartels, oversee the operations at Def Jam. Current artists at Def Jam include 2 Chains, Big Sean, Common, Frank Ocean, Kanye West, Iggy Azelea, Jeezy, Nas, Pusha T, Rick Ross, Rihanna, and The Roots.
Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin founded Def Jam in 1982. Rubin was white, suburban, Jewish, and a philosophy major at NYU when he produced the first Def Jam recordings out of his dorm room. He was also only 19 years old.
The Pricks
Rick Rubin grew up in Lido Beach in Nassau County Long Island. He was always interested in music and, while in high school, played guitar in a punk band called The Pricks that once played at CBGB. In his senior year, he made his first recording: a demo of his band on a four-track tape deck in his high school audio-video lab.
Tougher Than Leather
Rick Rubin and a college friend, Ric Menello, began to write the screenplay for the RUN-D.M.C film, tentatively tiled Who Shot Runny Ray, from a story idea that Lyor Cohen and Bill Adler had come up with. The sketchy plot told the story of RUN-D.M.C's roadie, Runny Ray, who is murdered, and RUN-D.M.C find the killer and bring him to justice. They envisioned the film as an "urban spaghetti Western" and took the rhymes in Schoolly D's "P.S.K What Does It Mean?" as an inspiration. "P.S.K. What Does It Mean?" comes from a long line of violent street raps - boasts of crime and retribution - that were common on the streets of Philadelphia as far back as the 1960s. Most were associated with gang activities and told lurid tales of murders, gunfights, drug deals gone wrong, and other real and imagined examples of "thug life" in the inner city. "P.S.K. What Does It Mean?" was likely the first of such raps to be recorded and one of the first to use the word "n****" The record was terribly influential and is often credited with giving rise to "gangsta rap" in the late 1980s. Rubin not only co-wrote the film, now titled Tougher Than Leather, but was to direct it and set to play the part of Vic Ferrante, RUN-D.M.C's evil booking agent. Although Rubin had technically graduated from N.Y.U. with a degree in Film and Television, he had almost no background in filmmaking and was in over his head from the first day of shooting. Things went from bad to worse as shooting progressed and Rubin lost interest in the project. Although shooting finished before the end of 1987, it would take until the following September for Rubin and Steven Brown to finish the edit for release, which delayed the release of RUN-D.M.C's fourth album, also titled Tougher Than Leather, by almost five months. On September 16, 1988, the film and the album were finally released. The film proved to be a disaster. Richard Harrington in The Washington Post found the film "vile, vicious, despicable, stupid, sexist, racist and horrendously made." Harrington also singled out Rick Rubin as "the worst actor in a cast defined by ineptitude" and noted that "he shows absolutely no talent as a director." RUN-D.M.C's album fared better, but, as Cary Darling noted in his review for Rolling Stone, "mainstream success does have a way of blunting hard edges." Davy D and RUN-D.M.C produced the Tougher Than Leather album without much input from RUN-D.M.C's former producers Larry Smith and Rick Rubin. Although they had learned their lessons well from Smith and Rubin, the album lacked the raw invention of Raising Hell and was unable to duplicate its success. As Cary Darling noted at the end of his review, "While the members of RUN-D.M.C aren't yet in danger of losing their self-applied titles as the kings of rap, the future is far less certain than it was two years ago.
Rush Management New Location/Lyor Cohen
Rush Management also moved to a new location in September, a 600-square-foot dance studio on East 19th Street. Simmons and Lyor Cohen shared an apartment next door to the new office. Lyor Cohen came to Rush Management from Los Angeles where he had promoted both RUN-D.M.C and Whodini shows at the Mix Club. He initially served as the road manager for RUN-D.M.C and then became Simmons "right-hand man" handling the day-to-day business at Rush Management. Six years later, Cohen would become the president of both Rush Management and Def Jam Recordings and, later, the president of the Island Def Jam Music Group, which included Mercury Records, Motown, and Island Records, in addition to Def Jam Recordings.
RUN DMC Demo
Russell Simmons enlisted Larry Smith to produce a RUN-D.M.C demo, which became their first single - "It's Like That" backed with "Sucker MCs" - released late in 1983 on Cory Robbins and Steve Plotnicki's Profile Records.
Promotional Singles
The first album release was slated to be LL Cool J's Radio in December 1985 and Rubin released a single from the album, "I Can't Live Without My Radio," in October to create "buzz" in advance of the album's release. To create further interest in the album, a staged scene in Krush Groove, also released in October, showed LL Cool J auditioning with the song. Rubin also released The Beastie Boys' "She's On It," also performed in Krush Groove, in September to capitalize on the promotional potential of the film.
Hip-Hop Very Long Future
The next year would prove that hip-hop not only had the potential to become part of the popular mainstream, but a major part with "a very long future in front of it." And most of that early future belonged to Def Jam.
Russell Simmons
Unlike Rubin, Russell Simmons grew up in the streets, was once a warlord of the Seven Immortals in Queens, and spent much of his teen years hustling drugs. Simmons enrolled at CCNY in 1975 to study sociology, but began promoting hip-hop parties at Harlem clubs to make a little extra money. According to Simmons, "It was a much less stressful job than selling drugs."
Radio/Hard Rock
With the completion of "I Need A Beat," Rubin began to produce new songs for LL Cool J's first album, Radio, and finish production on The Beastie Boys' "Hard Rock," a 12-inch EP with four songs, that became the second release on the now "official" Def Jam label.
Christmas Rappin
"Christmas Rappin'" was the first hip-hop record released by a major label, Mercury Records, in 1979. The idea for "Christmas Rappin'" came from two writers at Billboard, Robert Ford and J.B. Moore III, who were interested in what, at the time, was called "the breakbeat phenomenon" in the Bronx. According to Kurtis Blow, J.B. Moore, who was white and 37-years-old, "wrote the first half of the song, the Christmas part" and Blow wrote "the party part, the second half of the song. I wrote all that on the train ride down to the studio around Christmas time." Moore and Ford put the backing track together using live musicians in the studio and did not sample in order to avoid copyright issues like those that arose following "Rapper's Delight" unauthorized use of Chic's "Good Times" for its backing track. "Christmas Rappin'" sold more than 300,000 copies in its initial release and led to Moore, Ford, and Kurtis Blow following the record with "The Breaks," again on Mercury, in 1980. "Christmas Rappin'" has been re-released at Christmas time every year since 1979 and in 1987 it was certified Gold by the RIAA.
Rubin Meets LL Cool J -- Def Jam Is About To Be Born
"He was the first person I ever called based on a demo tape," recalled Rubin. After meeting with LL Cool J in the Def Jam "office," Rubin recorded a song that LL wrote (Adam Horowitz also supplied a verse) and took it to Russell Simmons. Simmons loved the song - "It's a hit! I think it's fantastic!" - and suggested that they take it to Profile Records where RUN-D.M.C was signed. "Why?" Rubin asked. "All you've done since we've been friends is complain to me about Profile - you hate 'em, you don't trust 'em, you have to do all the work because they don't do any, they steal from you, they don't pay you. Why would we give it to them? Why don't we just do it ourselves? Let's do a little independent company. I'll make all the records. I'll do all the work. You just be my partner."
I Need A Beat
"I Need A Beat" was cut in September 1984 and released in November as a 12" single. It was the first recording made by LL Cool J and the first official release by Def Jam Recordings (DJ 001). Although, T La Rock and DJ Jazzy Jay's "It's Yours" was the first recording made by Rick Rubin as a "Def Jam Recording," it was released through Arthur Baker's Partytime Records. The original demo tape of "I Need A Beat" was sent by then 16-year-old James Todd Smith to Rick Rubin after Smith heard T La Rock and DJ Jazzy Jay's "It's Yours." His rhymes were recorded over a remix of "It's Yours." The tape was found by Adam Horovitz (Ad Rock of The Beastie Boys), who brought it to the attention of Rick Rubin. After meeting with Smith, Rubin created a new demo with drum machine beats created by Horovitz and brought it to Russell Simmons. As a result, Simmons and Rubin decided to form Def Jam Recordings with "I Need A Beat" as the first recording on their new label and James Todd Smith became LL Cool J. "I Need A Beat" sold more than 100,000 copies in its initial release and led Def Jam to produce an album for LL Cool J, Radio, that was released in November 1985. "I Need A Beat" was included on the album, although with a remixed backing track. The first track is the Radio remixed album version and the second track is from the original 12" single.
It's Like That
"It's Like That" was first released in 1983 on a cassette backed with "Sucker MCs" and later released as a 12" single by Profile Records. Both "It's Like That" and "Sucker MCs" were included on RUN-D.M.C.'s eponymous debut album that was released in March 1984. According to the liner notes by Angus Batey from the re-release of RUN-D.M.C. in 2003: "[Larry] Smith had created one particularly stark backing track that would provide a perfect setting for rap. He was aware of RUN's prowess as a writer, having previously paid the teenager $100 for a set of lyrics with the intention of [Kurtis] Blow recording them. One evening, in Smith's home studio in Queens, RUN and D persuaded Larry and Russell [Simmons] to let them have a chance to make a demo. Russell agreed; taking RUN's $100 rap and extensive additional lines penned by the prolific D.M.C., Russell doled it out line by line between the two vocalists, who sprayed their lyrics over the stark beat onto tape. 'It's Like That' became the band's debut single, stridently announcing that a new era began."
It's Like That/Sucker MCs Attention
"It's Like That/Sucker MCs" attracted a lot of attention in part because of Russell Simmons' aggressive and insistent campaign to get radio airplay and exposure for RUN-D.M.C in the media. They gave interviews on black radio stations, appeared on local TV shows, and Simmons even managed to have them perform on the pilot for what would have been the first national hip-hop television series, Graffiti Rock. Michael Holman - who created, managed, and choreographed the New York City Breakers - came up with the idea of creating a weekly hip-hop TV show and assembled the financing to do a pilot. Unfortunately, the pilot proved to be the only episode of Graffiti Rock ever produced. Hip-hop was barely known outside of the inner city in 1983-84 and the idea of a weekly hip-hop TV show was, simply, a few years ahead of its time.
Impact Of It's Yours
"It's Yours" became an underground hit and proved to be one of the most influential hip-hop recordings made in the early 1980s. T La Rock's rap was far more lyrical and complex than most of his contemporaries and many young MCs began to emulate T La Rock's style. Perhaps more important - and influential - was Rubin's musical backing. It was minimal, composed primarily of beats and scratches with no discernable melody, which became a central characteristic of most of the new school recordings that followed. It established Rick Rubin as an important producer and "It's Yours" became the model for what would become known as new school hip-hop.
Sucker MCs
"Sucker MCs" also known as "Sucker MCs (Krush Groove 1)" was first released as the B-side of a cassette that featured "It's Like That" as the A-side. Later, the two tracks were released as a 12" single by Profile Records and included on RUN-D.M.C.'s eponymous debut album in 1984. Initially, "Sucker MCs" was not considered important and was included merely as a "bonus track" for "It's Like That." However, it became as important and influential as "It's Like That" in establishing RUN-D.M.C. as a seminal force in what came to be known as "new school" hip-hop. The backing track was created from one of four earlier tracks made by producer Larry Smith's band, Orange Krush - hence, "(Krush Groove 1)" - with the acoustic drums removed by Orange Krush's Davy DMX and a new drum track produced on an Oberheim DMX drum machine. Unlike later RUN-D.M.C. recordings, "Sucker MCs" contains no samples. "Sucker MCs" is often cited as the first "diss-track" and, in fact, prompted the release of what is also considered the first "diss-track answer" recording, "Sucker DJ (I Will Survive)" by Marley Marl and the Juice Crew with vocals by Dimples D.
Rubin Produces Hip-Hop Record
After hearing RUN-D.M.C's "Sucker MCs" in 1983, Rubin decided to produce a hip-hop record.
Beastie Boys And Rick Rubin
After the release of Raising Hell, Rick Rubin turned his attentions to finishing The Beastie Boys' first album and producing an album for Slayer, a heavy metal band that had signed with Def Jam after Rubin saw them perform in Brooklyn. Rubin had been working with The Beastie Boys for almost two years as a sometime DJ (DJ Double R) and frequent producer. With the success of Radio and Raising Hell, Rubin had the industry clout to exert near total control over every aspect of the album, which was to be titled Licensed to Ill. He insisted that the album have a gatefold cover with a four-color inner sleeve, which was a very expensive cover for a debut album release by a group of virtual unknowns. Rubin ultimately prevailed over the objections of CBS executives and David Gambale's illustration for the album cover is now regarded as one of the greatest designs ever created for a record album. Rubin paved the way for the album release with The Beastie Boys' "It's the New Style/Paul Revere" in September and "Fight for Your Right (to Party)" immediately before the album's release in November. A music video for "Fight for Your Right (to Party)" was released with the single and immediately went into heavy rotation on MTV. Licensed to Ill proved to be even more successful than Raising Hell. It became the first hip-hop album to top the Billboard Top 200 albums chart where it would stay for five weeks. It eventually sold more than 9 million copies in the United States and became the largest selling hip-hop album of the 1980s. The single "Fight for Your Right (to Party)" went to Number Seven on the Billboard Hot 100. Although the idea of white rappers was certainly new and greeted with some skepticism in 1986, Licensed to Ill was nonetheless favorably reviewed in the music press - Rolling Stone reviewed the album with the now famous headline, "Three Idiots Create A Masterpiece."
Krush Groove Reaction
Although Krush Groove was a financial success and a promotional gold mine, Rick Rubin, Russell Simmons, and RUN-D.M.C hated it. They agreed with Janet Maslin, The New York Times film critic, who wrote that in the film "talent contests, feeble attempts at romance, and the travails of a struggling young record company are all enlisted, however, briefly, in the effort to drum up backstage activities for the players, who are best watched in performance anyhow. Rap music is infinitely more original than these creaky devices, and it deserves something better." Simmons and Rubin believed that rap and Def Jam/Rush Entertainment artists clearly "deserved something better" and began to think about making their own hip-hop movie.
Russell Simmons And RUN DMC
Among the acts that Russell Simmons would represent was a group formed by his younger brother Joey and two friends, Darryl McDaniels and Jason Mizell. Joey Simmons was hired by his brother to tour as Kurtis Blow's DJ in 1978 and was known as "Kurtis Blow's Disco Son - DJ Run." Joey Simmons was also an aspiring MC who would duel with Kurtis Blow on the road. In 1980, Joey met Darryl McDaniels and they began to write raps together as Run and Easy D. Later they met Jason Mizell, who was then known as "DJ Jazzy Jase." In 1982, Joey and McDaniels finally convinced Russell Simmons to represent them as a duo, but only after Simmons had changed McDaniels' name to D.M.C. (for "Darryl McDaniels"). They recruited Jason Mizell (who was then known as "Jam Master Jay") to act as their DJ and RUN-D.M.C was born.
Late Summer Of 1985
By late summer of 1985, The Simmons/Rubin operations had taken the hip-hop world by storm...and was about to have the same effect on the popular mainstream. Although less than a year old, Def Jam had put out a half-dozen 12-inch singles that had attracted critical attention and sold well. Since becoming Rubin's partner, Russell Simmons had managed to secure a major motion picture deal that would serve as a promotional vehicle for artists signed to Rush Management, landed the very young and untested Beastie Boys the opening act slot on Madonna's Like A Virgin Tour (Rick Rubin joined as the Beastie's DJ), and launched the second Fresh Fest Tour, which would prove to be more successful than the first.
Def Jam Recordings Impresses
By the end of 1986, Def Jam Recordings had exceeded the wildest dreams of Columbia/CBS and had firmly established hip-hop in the popular mainstream. Rick Rubin's trifecta of success with Radio, Raising Hell, and Licensed to Ill proved that hip-hop was commercially viable and that Def Jam Recordings and Rush Management were the undisputed masters of the hip-hop revolution. Perhaps most important, Rick Rubin's productions had established a new norm for the sound of recorded hip-hop. The minimal drum machine beat track with carefully selected samples from rock and roll rather than R&B or soul records set the dominant style for hip-hop backing tracks that would last for more than thirty years. Further, the emphasis on the MC and the individual style of the MC would become the focus in hip-hop from that point forward. Although that new norm and standard had no name in 1986, it was what came to be known as "new school."
Def Jam Trouble Brewing
However in 1988, there were far more troubling problems at Def Jam/Rush Management than a failed motion picture and a less than stellar response to an album release. RUN-D.M.C had become embroiled in a licensing dispute with their record company, Profile Records, which had turned into a lawsuit that would drag on for almost two years. The Beastie Boys, exhausted from endless touring, were unwilling to begin work on their second album and were threatening legal action over unpaid royalties. Their relationship with Rick Rubin had also deteriorated to the point that they no longer spoke to him and refused to work with him as their producer. Many of the internal problems at Def Jam/Rush stemmed from a lawsuit brought by composer Jimmie Castor over the unlicensed use of a sample from one of his songs, "Hey Leroy," on the Beastie Boys' "Hold It Now, Hit It" from Licensed to Ill. Castor sued Def Jam and Columbia and Columbia froze payment on all Def Jam royalties until the suit was settled. Consequently, Def Jam couldn't pay the royalties to their artists and was technically in breach of contract with all of them. Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin both tried to resolve the situation with Columbia, but the label wouldn't budge. At the end of a particularly hostile meeting between Rubin and Al Teller of Columbia, Rubin threatened to leave. He told Teller, "You know I'm not signed here. Only Russell signed. So if we can't work things out, I'm gone." It was not an idle threat and, before the year was out, Rick Rubin would leave Def Jam. "Russell and I were at the NoHo Star restaurant, where we ate all the time. I said, 'Do you want to leave the company?' He said no. I was surprised that he cared, and I was also surprised that he didn't say, 'What's the problem? Let's fix it.' In retrospect, I guess I could have asked him the same question. The whole thing is that neither of us had that skill. So I said, 'Then I guess I have to leave the company.'" Rick Rubin
Hose
In 1981, Rubin moved to New York City to attend NYU and formed an artcore punk band called Hose modeled on San Francisco's Flipper. Rubin played guitar - badly - and acted as the band's producer/manager. In late 1981, he produced a 12-inch Hose EP in the activity room of his dorm covering Rick James' "Superfreak" and Hot Chocolate's "You Sexy Thing" along with three original songs. Although no record company actually existed, Rubin released a Hose single, "Mobo," the following year with a mailing contact for Def Jam Recordings on the sleeve with "2 University Place" as the address. 2 University Place was Rick Rubin's dorm room. Hose continued to play and tour until 1986, received some positive reviews in the music press, and opened for a number of established punk bands including Husker Du, The Buthole Surfers, and The Circle Jerks. However, shortly after the release of "Mobo," Rubin's attention began to shift from Hose and the punk scene to hip-hop.
It's Yours
In 1983, Rubin and Jazzy Jay produced "It's Yours" featuring rapper T La Rock. The demo of "It's Yours" was made in Jazzy Jay's living room and the release track later recorded at an obscure studio in Queens. "It's Yours" was released on Arthur Baker's Partytime Records with the Def Jam Recordings logo on the label ... although at that time, Def Jam Recordings consisted only of Rick Rubin, his dorm room, and the logo that Rubin had designed himself. "It's Yours" was the first release to carry the Def Jam logo, although it was released through Arthur Baker's Partytime Records and the master recording is legally held by Partytime Records. The record was produced by Rick Rubin and recorded at Power Play Studios in Queens. The rhymes for "It's Yours" were written by T La Rock (Clarence Keaton) and his younger brother, Kevin "Special K" of the Treacherous Three. The backing track was created by Rick Rubin with DJ Jazzy Jay (John Byas). T La Rock performed the rap. The crowd responses were made in the studio by friends of Rick Rubin and T La Rock including Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys. "It's Yours" was initially released in 1984 as a 12" single and was terribly influential. It is usually cited as the record that gave birth to what would become known as "New School" hip-hop. The first track, "It's Yours (Radio Mix)," is the original mix released in 1984. The second is the backing track created by Rick Rubin and DJ Jazzy Jay. The third is the rap track recorded by T La Rock.
Rubin And Jazzy Jay
In 1983, Rubin became a friend of the Zulu Nation's DJ Jazzy Jay, who was a protégé of Afrika Bambaataa, and Bambaataa's cousin, Kool DJ Red Alert. Jazzy Jay was instrumental in helping Rubin understand the intricacies and mechanics of recording and the music industries. Rubin has often referred to Jazzy Jay as his "mentor" and frequently credits Jay with "teaching me what the music business was about and how it worked."
Russell Simmons: Behind The Music
In 2000, as part of its third season, VH1's Behind the Music profiled the life and career of Russell Simmons. Russell Simmons, Joseph "RUN" Simmons, Rick Rubin, Nelson George, Lyor Cohen, LL Cool J, and others are interviewed.
Dawn Of Def Jam: Rick Rubin Returns To His NYU Dorm Room
In 2014, Rick Rubin returned to his dorm room at NYU - 712 Weinstein Hall - where he started Def Jam Records 30 years earlier. For the first few years of Def Jam Recordings, Rubin's dorm room was the Def Jam office, studio, and production center. Even after the multi-million dollar album deal with CBS/Columbia Records and the success of LL Cool J's Radio, Def Jam Recordings was run out of Room 712 Weinstein Hall. This short documentary from Rolling Stone Films follows Rubin on a personal journey into hip-hop history on the 30th anniversary of the founding of Def Jam Recordings and features interviews with Rubin, Rusell Simmons, The Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Lyor Cohen, and others.
Rubin Graduates
In May 1985, despite playing himself in Krush Groove, working on LL Cool J's first album, DJing for the Beastie Boys on the Madonna tour, and working through the details of the deal with CBS, Rick Rubin managed to graduate - on time - from NYU. He had changed his major from sociology to film and television and NYU granted him 8 independent-study credits for starting his own record company to complete his degree requirements. Remarkably, NYU also allowed him to stay in his dorm room until September when he finally moved Def Jam Recordings to a new location...a tiny SoHo loft a few blocks away that, of course, also served as Rubin's apartment.
Rubin Leaves For Los Angeles
In the end, Rubin left for Los Angeles and founded what was initially called Def American Recordings and, later, American recording after Rubin dropped the "Def" in 1993. Simmons eventually bought out Rubin's share in Def Jam and turned over most of the operations of both Def Jam and Rush management to Lyor Cohen, who in the space of six short years had risen from being a road manager to the president of Def Jam and the de facto operational head of both companies. Under the guidance of Cohen, Public Enemy, the group Simmons thought was "never going to sell any records," became the most successful artists in the Def Jam stable. The Beastie Boys left and signed with Capitol Records, while, under Cohen's leadership, the Def Jam roster grew to include Jay-Z, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, DMX, Ja Rule, Ludacris, and, eventually, Kanye West.
Def Jam First Year
In the first year, Def Jam was to release four LPs by different artists and was allowed to release an unlimited number of 12-inch singles. It was decided that the first albums by LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, Oran "Juice" Jones, and Davey DMX were to fulfill the first year LP obligation to Columbia. Oran Jones was an R&B singer who was signed to Rush Management and Davey DMX had partnered with Larry Smith and drummer Trevor Gale as Orange Krush, which provided the musical foundation for RUN-D.M.C's first two albums.
Trouble In Paradise
In the music business, nothing succeeds like success and with success comes opportunity. Sometimes that opportunity leads to more success as it had for Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons in 1985 and '86. However, sometimes it doesn't. After the release of Raising Hell, the idea of Def Jam/Rush Management making a hip-hop movie as a promotional vehicle for RUN-D.M.C gained momentum. Although everyone at Def Jam/Rush hated Krush Groove, the film was successful at the box office and had played an important role in bringing Def Jam/Rush artists before mainstream audiences. It seemed reasonable to Simmons and Rubin that a film made by people who really understood the ethos and energy of the street could accomplish everything that Krush Groove had and still be true to the aesthetic and soul of hip-hop. The deal that had been struck with CBS and the remarkable string of successes they had gave them the ability to fund the project internally and exercise total artistic control over it.
Raising Hell Reception
On the heels of the success of Radio came RUN-D.M.C's Raising Hell in May of 1986 followed by the release of the singles "My Adidas" and "Walk This Way" from the album. "Walk This Way," a collaboration between RUN-D.M.C and Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, went to Number Four on the Billboard Hot 100 and became the first hip-hop record to break into the Top Five. Raising Hell went to Number Three on the Billboard Top 200 albums Chart and eventually was certified Triple Platinum by the RIAA.
Rubin American Records
Rick Rubin turned American Records into a highly profitable company with an artist roster that included Slayer (who came with him from Def Jam), the Black Crowes, ZZ Top, Tom Petty, and Johnny Cash. As a producer, he was responsible for the last six albums made by Johnny Cash, Adele's 21, The Dixie Chicks' Taking The Long Way, Kanye West's Yeezus, and more than 100 albums by artists ranging from Slipknot to Neil Diamond. He has won 8 Grammy Awards including "Producer of the Year" in 2007 and 2009. In 2007, MTV named him "the most important producer of the last 20 years" and in 2016 the Producers and Engineers Wing of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences honored Rubin for his "commitment to creative and sonic excellence and ongoing support for the art and craft of recorded music." Neil Portnow, President/CEO of the Recording Academy, stated at the announcement of the award: "Rick Rubin has said he has one rule regarding his recording process, 'The only rule is that it's not done until it's great.' His contributions to music and to the artists he's worked with prove that Rick is beyond simply great. He is remarkable. We look forward to celebrating this musical icon and his pioneering career, which continues to inspire and climb to new heights." Rubin also served as co-chairman of Columbia Records from 2007 to 2012 and revived the American Recordings imprint at Republic Records after leaving Columbia.
Def Jam & Rush Management Are Intertwined
Rubin was also at work on RUN-D.M.C's third album, Raising Hell, which Russell Simmons had asked him to produce. Larry Smith, who had produced RUN-D.M.C's first two albums, was busy working with other artists and Rubin seemed the logical choice to take over producer responsibilities. Although RUN-D.M.C were under contract to Profile Records and Rubin was technically producing a record for a rival record company, the interests of Rush Management and Def Jam were now so intertwined that it was virtually impossible to tell where one stopped and the other began. In order to cement the Def Jam/Rush Management relationship, the two companies took over a four-story building on East Elizabeth Street in Lower Manhattan with Rubin occupying the top two floors and the Rush Management and Def Jam offices sharing the ground and second floors. The basement became home to a state-of-the-art recording studio.
Rubin And Russell Simmons
Shortly after the release of "It's Yours," Rick Rubin was introduced to Russell Simmons. "It was the sound of the records that inspired me to be his partner. He's a great producer and I thought, 'We can do a lot together.'" Russell Simmons It was at the premier party for Graffiti Rock that Rick Rubin first met Russell Simmons. According to Rubin, "I remember being really excited when I met him because, as a fan of hip-hop, he had already, you know, his name on a lot of the rap records that already came out — Kurtis Blow, RUN-D.M.C. — so I was excited to meet him. And when I met Russell, it turns out that "It's Yours" was his favorite record, which was a surprise to me." Simmons was equally surprised to find out that a white, Jewish, barely 20-year-old undergraduate who made records out of his dorm room was the producer of "It's Yours." Simmons told Rubin, "I can't believe you made that record and you're white, 'cause that's the blackest hip-hop record that's ever been!" Although Simmons was five years older than Rubin and already an established promoter and manager, they quickly found that they were kindred spirits who saw enormous potential in hip-hop and shared a common belief in the direction hip-hop should take in the 1980s. They began to explore the possibility of working together and began to share their ideas with one another. Simmons recalled, "We did everything together. We'd be at the studio every night; if it wasn't the studio, we were in Danceteria. I used to take him to Disco Fever in the South Bronx. I took him everywhere." In turn, Simmons went to see Hose perform, entered into a management agreement with T La Rock and DJ Jazzy Jay, and even went to see Rubin DJ for three very young, white MCs who called themselves The Beastie Boys.
Krush Groove
Simmons also began to negotiate with Cannon Films, which had produced Breakin' and Breakin' 2, to develop a feature film focused on RUN-D.M.C. The deal with Cannon Films eventually collapsed, but led to producer George Jackson and director Michael Schultz reworking the idea into a story about the start of a fictional independent record label modeled on Def Jam. Warner Brothers, hoping to capitalize on the success of the "break dance" movies, agreed to finance the film with a budget of $3 million. Simmons was made a co-producer of what was eventually titled Krush Groove and the film went into production in early 1985.
Simmons And Kurtis Blow
Simmons promoted DJ and rapper Curtis Walker, who was also a student at CCNY and member of a hip-hop crew called the Force, at a number of his first parties and they soon became friends. Simmons decided that Walker needed a "catchier name" and they settled on Kurtis Blow in an attempt to follow the lead of DJ Eddie Cheeba ("cheeba" was street slang for marijuana and "blow" slang for cocaine). Calling himself "Rush Productions," Simmons managed to build an audience for Kurtis Blow and eventually booked a series of shows in 1977 featuring Blow and Grandmaster Flash at the Hotel Diplomat in Times Square. The Hotel Diplomat shows were a success and established Kurtis Blow as a rising star in hip-hop and Simmons as a major promoter.
Def Jam Deal With CBS
The deal with CBS not only provided Def Jam with $2 million in capital to work with; it also gave Rubin and Simmons near total creative control of the records they produced, which was a very unusual arrangement for a major label to agree to, especially with a tiny independent that had yet to establish much of a track record. Def Jam could work out of its own space, assemble its own staff, sign its own artists, negotiate its deals with their management, set production budgets, and even handle details like artwork and local promotion. Columbia Records would then handle national promotion, marketing, and distribution. Columbia, of course, had final approval of any release and owned all of the Def Jam masters.
Bill Stephney/Bill Adler
The phenomenal success of Raising Hell and Licensed to Ill was in large measure the result of the extraordinary joint promotional efforts of the Def Jam/Rush Management relationship. Rick Rubin had hired Bill Stephney from the College Music Journal to handle promotion for the label and Russell Simmons had brought on Bill Adler to handle promotions at Rush Management. Stephney had launched the "Beat Box" chart of hip-hop records at CMJ and, more important, had developed a network of college radio shows that played hip-hop. Adler was a music journalist who had written for The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, People, and The New York Daily News. As with most aspects of Def Jam/Rush Management, Stephney and Adler worked as a team and their charge was to promote the all-important crossover of Def Jam/Rush Management artists into new markets. The idea was to make artists like RUN-D.M.C and LL Cool J viable on white radio and MTV while, simultaneously, making artists like The Beastie Boys viable on black radio. In short, the Def Jam/Rush strategy was focused on desegregating the major media that promoted recording artists to the public. Through the efforts of Stephney and Adler, hard rap from LL Cool J and RUN-D.M.C crossed over into the popular mainstream and white rap from The Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill not only succeeded on the mainstream albums chart, but captured the Number Two spot on the R&B albums chart. LL Cool J's "rap ballads" on Radio opened up hip-hop to the idea of hip-hop "slow jams" and started to gain airplay on both black and white radio. Stephney and Adler also made Def Jam/Rush Management artists an international phenomenon. Licensed to Ill went to Number Seven on the UK albums chart and Number Five in Canada.
Def Jam + Columbia/CBS
The success of Def Jam/Rush Management caught the attention of Steve Ralbovsky at Columbia Records, who was an old friend of Russell Simmons. Columbia was a subsidiary of CBS Records International and was interested in expanding its roster of rising black artists. Initially, Columbia had been considering a deal with Tom Silverman's Tommy Boy Records, but Ralbovsky suggested that Def Jam would be a better deal for Columbia and arranged a meeting with Russell Simmons. Simmons made an impressive presentation that focused on the future potential of hip-hop and, especially, the business potential of Def Jam because of its association with Rush Management. In September 1985, Def Jam entered into a $2 million multi-album deal with Columbia/CBS that covered recording, marketing, and overhead costs at Def Jam. According to Al Teller, the president of Columbia Records, "I was taken with their passion for the music and their belief that this was going to be, without question, a mainstream music genre that had a very long future in front of it."
Hip-Hop Into Mainstream
The success of Krush Groove, Radio, Raising Hell, and "Walk This Way" moved hip-hop from the margins to the very center of the popular mainstream. More important, the conception of hip-hop that exploded in the popular mainstream was the creation of Rick Rubin and artists all under contract to Rush Management. By the end of the summer of 1986, hip-hop was firmly a part of the popular mainstream and the sole province of Def Jam/Rush Management...and the year wasn't over.
Public Enemy
When Rick Rubin hired Bill Stephney to handle promotion for Def Jam in 1985, he also made it clear that Stephney's responsibilities included getting Chuck D (Carlton Ridenhour) signed to Def Jam. Rubin had made an offer to Chuck D to front a group called Original Concept with his fellow classmate at Adelphi University, Andre Brown (aka Dr. Dre), but Chuck declined. Rubin continued to pursue Chuck and finally called upon Stephney to help convince him to at least meet with Rubin and explore a possible relationship with the label. For Stephney, this was less of a task than the realization of a dream that was only hinted at in late night discussions when Stephney was the program director at radio station WLIR. Chuck D and Hank Boxley were his hosts on The Super Spectrum Mix Hour, a Saturday late night show he produced and one of the first hip-hop radio shows in the New York listening area. Stephney, Chuck D, Hank Boxley, and an assortment of other hip-hop fans associated with the radio show had talked about finding a way to meld hip-hop with the kind of political consciousness one heard on albums by The Clash. Their dream was to take hip-hop to a new level of revolutionary political awareness...and Stephney believed that Rick Rubin and Def Jam could turn that dream into a reality. Rather than concentrate on merely signing Chuck D to the label, Stephney approached Chuck D and Hank Boxley to come up with an idea that they could take to Rick Rubin and Def Jam. What they came up with was Public Enemy. As Hank said, "We had to create our own myth for ourselves." According to Rick Rubin: "Finally Chuck called and said, 'I wanna come in for a meeting.' He came in with Flavor (Flavor Flav) and Hank (Hank Boxley) and said, 'It's not Chuck D. It's called Public Enemy.' He explained the whole thing to me - how it's a group and we're gonna have S1Ws and it's gonna be like the Clash of hip-hop. I said, 'Great. Let's do it.'" And so in 1986, Public Enemy became part of the Def Jam stable of artists.
Swatch Watch New York City Fresh Fest
While Rubin was keeping his promise to "make all the records" and "do all the work," at least from a production standpoint, Simmons was hard at work to expand the reach of both Rush Management and Def Jam. Simmons put together the 1984 Swatch Watch New York City Fresh Fest, hip-hop's first national tour, with RUN-D.M.C., Kurtis Blow, Whodini, The Fat Boys, and the Dynamic Breakers. Although primarily undertaken to promote recent album releases by RUN-D.M.C, Kurtis Blow, and Whodini - all signed to Rush Management - the tour grossed a remarkable $3.5 million for only 27 dates and Simmons immediately began work on a second Fresh Fest Tour for 1985.
Lyor Cohen Takes Over
With Lyor Cohen taking over the day-to-day business of Def Jam/Rush Management, Russell Simmons moved into other areas, including fashion (Phat Farm), television (HBO's Def Comedy Jam and Def Poetry Jam), motion pictures (producer of The Nutty Professor and How To Be A Player), magazine publishing, and advertising. In 1996, Simmons sold his shares in Def Jam to the Universal Music Group for an estimated $120 million. Two years later, Lyor Cohen engineered the merger of Def Jam, Island Records, and Mercury Records to form the Island Def Jam Music Group with Cohen as its president. In 2004, Lyor Cohen left Island Def Jam to become the chairman and CEO of the Warner Music Group, a position he held until 2012.
Rush Management
With the success of "Christmas Rappin'", Simmons formed Rush Management with Kurtis Blow as his first client. Like Rick Rubin's Def Jam Recordings, Rush Management was a one-person company that had no real office or staff, but Simmons was eager to move forward and try his hand at being more than a modestly successful promoter. The success of "Christmas Rappin'" led to Mercury Records exercising an option to produce a second Kurtis Blow record, "The Breaks," which went Gold, and Simmons was able to negotiate a long-term contract for Blow with the record company. At the time, Simmons was one of a very few professional managers who handled hip-hop artists and, with the success of Kurtis Blow, he quickly added more than a dozen hip-hop acts to his talent roster and took the giant step of actually opening an office.
