Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin, and the Extraordinary Story of the World's Most Influential Hip-Hop Label
June 13, 2005
Hip-hop devotee and expert Gueraseva writes about one of the genre's most important labels with an insightful combination of doting love and cold, hard reality. Her chronicle of Def Jam, which was started in 1984 by NYU roommates Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons with $5,000 and became a multibillion-dollar phenomenon, covers the art and personalities of the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Jay Z and others. Gueraseva portrays Rubin as a rebel and Simmons (whose brother was in RUN-DMC) as a skillful deal maker. Early on, the label signed such talent as LL Cool J and Slick Rick. Along with a gallery of triumphs—the Beastie Boys' "Brass Monkey," Nice & Smooth's "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow"—came occasional failures, such as the 1988 film Tougher Than Leather
, which critics called "vile, vicious, despicable, stupid, sexist, racist and horrendously made." The story builds forcefully after a Village Voice
article pronounces Rubin "the king of rap," a title widely seen as underrating Simmons, and the first major crack appears in a partnership that eventually collapses. Though often grim, this is an inspiring study of visionaries who found success beyond their wildest dreams. Photos. Agent, Kate Garrick.
November 1, 2005
Adult/High School -In the early '80s, unconventional NYU student Rubin had a dream and a logo. A friend introduced him to Simmons, a Queens-based promoter only slightly older than himself. With more passion than business acumen, they started Def Jam, a company that outgrew Rubin's dorm and moved to increasingly more glamorous offices, eventually becoming part of the Universal media conglomerate, making its founders multimillionaires in the process. When Rubin began to feel trapped in the -rap only - formula, he left the company to form his own, more varied label, Def American. In the mid-'90s, Def Jam became part of Island records, and at that point Rubin was long gone and Simmons was no longer in the day-to-day operations. The final third of the book is less a human story than a business tale of mergers and acquisitions. Though the discography shows several releases in the late '90s, much less is written about them than Def Jam's original performers LL Cool J, Run DMC, and the Beastie Boys. Some of the details are ragged, there are some misspellings, and the cover has a stock picture of a DJ and a turntable. But for those who want to know how to succeed in the music business, this title really shows how it was done in the beginning." -Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD"
Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
August 1, 2005
What Gueraseva offers on one of the biggest entertainment concerns of the age is detailed, referenced, and well written but, since she is also a former editor of Def Jam honcho Russell Simmons' " One World," perhaps easier on the company than a book by a more distanced author would be. Simmons and Rick Rubin started Def Jam on a shoestring, and their legendary deftness at picking and promoting talent deserves Gueraseva's detailed accounting, as do Def Jam's unique corporate difficulties, such as arose when a former Columbia Records intern managing Def Jam's publishing subsidiary discovered that none of the songs the label had recorded had performing rights registered with either ASCAP or BMI. Covering corporate crises doesn't pack the punch of limning drive-by shootings in armored SUVs, but it does reveal the ad hoc nature of the business side of rap in the music's early days. Replete with mots anent such Def Jam stars as Run-DMC, Public Enemy, and Jay-Z, this is a generally sunny read on pop culture's corporate face.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)