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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The founder of Def Jam Records brought hip-hop culture into the American mainstream, and his empire is growing.
Jul 6, 1999 | Russell Simmons didn't invent rap, but he is, perhaps more than any other individual, responsible for the music's astonishing success. As a young man, he heard a thriving, vibrant music in battered ghettos and solid middle-class black neighborhoods like his own and turned it up loud enough to blast suburban multiplexes and small-town burger joints. If Simmons hadn't mainstreamed rap, someone else certainly would have -- the music was too potent, too necessary, too relevant to smoke without ever catching fire. The point is that Simmons lit the match.
Like rock 'n' roll itself, rap was supposed to be a fad. And just like rock, it turned out to be much more. At this point, almost 20 years after the first commercial rap song hit the Top 40 -- the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" -- the genre represents the single most significant development in pop culture in the past two decades. Its cultural pervasiveness extends from McDonald's commercials to Lauryn Hill's picture on the cover of Time, from designer Tommy Hilfiger (Simmons' friend) to "Wild Wild West," starring Fresh Prince Will Smith (one of Simmons' old acts). Last year, according to Soundscan, 81 million rap albums were sold, 9 million more units than country, making the genre the largest and fastest growing in the business.
In 1985, before Russell Simmons, now 41, had even a single gold record on his wall, he and his partner, Rick Rubin, who together owned the fabled Def Jam record label, signed a production deal with CBS Records for $600,000. That kind of money is pocket lint to Simmons now. This year, he'll most likely sell the label that he built -- the flagship of a modest media empire -- for $100 million. The deal will make Simmons even richer, as it threatens to separate him from hip-hop, a culture and a music that he understands as well as anyone, and understands how to extract money from better than anyone.
The same year that Simmons, who is nicknamed Rush, signed the deal with CBS, the budding rap impresario produced a goofy Hollywood movie called "Krush Groove," modeled loosely on the Def Jam creation myth. Simmons hated the final picture, which starred rap group Run-D.M.C., Rick Rubin and the handsome Blair Underwood in Simmons' place. But a close look at the movie today reveals a few signal characteristics within the nearly plotless hour and a half of rock videos by the Beastie Boys, L.L. Cool J and the Fat Boys. First, Simmons stayed behind the scenes and had an actor play him in the lead, even though all the other characters in the film played themselves. (Simmons took a small cameo role.) Second, even before Def Jam became a huge success, Simmons was diversifying his business, making forays into new media and cross-promoting his artists. Third, the $3 million movie returned $20 million, even though it received universally terrible reviews from critics. And fourth, in a small piece of dialogue, the character based on Simmons' father ridicules him for betting on street artists. "Here comes Berry Gordy," sneers the old man when Simmons stops by to scare up some money.
That last thought -- just a tossed-off line in a silly movie -- might be the most telling of all the moments, or at least the most important signifier of just how far Simmons exceeded what was expected of him. Indeed, sarcastically at first but with growing confidence, others have declared Simmons an inheritor of the famous Motown Records mogul's empire. The amazing thing is that Simmons -- at the helm of Rush Communications, a conglomerate that includes a record label (Def Jam), a management company (Rush Artist Management), a clothier (Phat Farm), a movie production house (Def Pictures), television shows ("Def Comedy Jam" and "Russell Simmons' Oneworld Music Beat"), a magazine (Oneworld) and an advertising agency (Rush Media Co.) -- is even more successful than Gordy.
Last year, Def Jam alone took in almost $200 million in receipts. Motown had an astonishing hold on the pop charts (75 No. 1 hits in 27 years), but Gordy couldn't hold on after he busted on a couple of Hollywood movies. He sold out to MCA before going under for $61 million in 1988. Even considering inflation, Simmons' Def Jam, valued at approximately $250 million (he owns 40 percent), is impressive. Moreover, Def Jam is approaching even hallowed Motown in terms of cultural significance. Granted, Motown artists leaped taller racial hurdles, but they succeeded on the charts in a time when the pop audience was far less balkanized. Also, most of the hip-hop audience, which is mainly white, isn't yet old enough to give the music serious nostalgia cachet. If Run-D.M.C., De La Soul, Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys and Method Man -- all either Def Jam acts or groups managed by Simmons -- don't seem like national treasures or the appropriate soundtrack for some "Big Chill" rip-off, just wait 20 years.
