“Here it is… BAM! And you say goddamn, this is Def Jam.”

OK, so maybe the iconic opening lyrics to Public Enemy’s “Night of the Living Baseheads” are a little rearranged, but in true Def Jam fashion that’s exactly what they did to the game as chronicled in "Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label."

By FELICIA C. HANEY

Staff Reporter

“Here it is… BAM! And you say goddamn, this is Def Jam.”

OK, so maybe the iconic opening lyrics to Public Enemy’s “Night of the Living Baseheads” are a little rearranged, but in true Def Jam fashion that’s exactly what they did to the game. Don’t fret, the unintentional rhyming stops there. Rest assured there are no CP2 reporters looking for a deal in return for this article. Though that story will never be told, there are countless great stories about the music business with the story of Def Jam Recordings surely ranking as one of the most intriguing of recent times. 

When Def Jam’s founders – the now legendary multi-millionaires Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons – first met, no one could have predicted that the company they merged to create would end up defining the essence of hip-hop culture. It grew from modest beginnings to become one of the most influential and enduring record labels in the history of the business.

There from the inception was publicist Bill Adler and design artist Cey Adams. The two have chronicled the Def Jam story into an amazing collage of the past 25 years through words, song and imagery that are presented in the form a hardback book titled “Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label (Rizzoli, September 2011)” about the size of an album cover, roughly. Before signing copies recently at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the author and artist gave a one-hour Def Jam 101 tutorial walking the audience through the golden years of the recording company and even sharing some lesser-known tales about the artists and execs like the one about there once being a fourth member of the Beastie Boys who was actually a girl before Rubin booted her out and filled the role himself.

At Def Jam’s onset, Rubin was a music-obsessed, first-time record producer, still enrolled at NYU, with limitless enthusiasm and little to no business experience. Simmons was a veteran party promoter, record producer and artist manager, one of the very first businessmen to specialize in rap music. In what seemed like record time (no pun intended), this unlikely team oversaw the revolution of an emerging culture into a successful, global phenomenon. 

Adler, who was Def Jam’s founding publicist, has penned this phenomenon in the form of a book along with co-author Dan Charnas, with help from Adams, a celebrated painter, photographer and graphic designer who at 19 was also a part of Def Jam’s founding team as the creative director. The New Yorker culture writer Kelefa Sanneh added an introduction and all this was done in partnership with Def Jam’s founders put in a package and delivered to you for about $60 bucks. 

Adams and Adler’s walk down memory lane at the Rock Hall was emphasized via a slideshow filled with throwback pictures of teenage and 20-something artists that included LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Kurtis Blow, Run DMC, Kanye West, Slick Rick and a host of others. It also showed much younger versions of mega execs-in-the-making like Russell Simmons with hair, Rick Rubin with not so much hair, Kevin Liles – who started in 1991 as an unpaid intern and rose through the ranks to become president in 1998 – and Lyor Cohen before he looked like (and was worth) more than a million bucks. The Q&A added extra insight and good advice to those interested in making it in the music biz and the book signing that wrapped up the night further intrigued fans on how down-to-earth these guys were in sharing their time, knowledge, advice, photo ops and brain fodder in the form of a Russell Simmons quote that suggests, “Those who are locked out create something of their own. They do it so well – it’s such an authentic expression of truth – that it spreads.”

This, like many Rock Hall events, was free and open to the public and even streamed live on their site. If you missed out, the good news is you can still purchase the book (minus the personalized autographs) online or at your local bookstores. Be sure not to miss future great events by logging on to Rockhall.com and signing up for their mailing list.