Book - The Men Behind Def Jam: The Radical Rise of Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin

Now I copped this book quite a while back while in Borders Book Store. Now trust me im not one to be much of a reader, but given at the time I had just begun a course on Music Industry Business. I figured i'd read up on none other than the two men who founded the urban music label that pioneered the Hip Hop Industry and further brought to light the elements of its culture.

Published November 2006, written By Alex Ogg. Who is also the author of The Hip Hop Years and a consultant for the channel 4 tv series of the same name. Ogg examines in this book, the unlikley partnership between black entrepreneur Russell 'Rush' Simmons and ex-punk Rick Rubin. The book tracks the history of both men from such times as Simmons early organising of parties at venues, such as the "Renaissance" in New York (His first party he ever threw was at this Queen's venue in the 1970's) and early show bookings for 'hip hop luminaries such as Lovebug Starski, DJ Hollywood and Grandwizard Theodore throughout the five borrows of New York' in the late 1970's. To Rubin's student dorm, where numerous demos built up over time. LL Cool J's tape finding also its way into this mix. Ending up in the hands of none other than Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz, finding the tape in the amounting crates of demo's and bringing it to Rubin's attention.

The book also covers such artists and acts as Run-DMC, The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, EPMD, Jay-Z, DMX, Redman, Method Man & Foxxy Brown. An also mentions such pivotal figures in Hip Hop such as DJ Kool Herc & Afrika Bambaataa. I would say this book is one of the most unbiased and revealing books on the rise of the label and the the two men at the center of it. Definitely worth the read, given the wealth of knowledge it holds on the rise of the men who rose Def Jam from a college dorm room to the cornerstone, of Hip Hop Record Labels.

As it says in the blurb "Here is an honest appraisal of the rival personalities, the quarrels, the successes and the failures of the spectacular Def Jam Adventure. An Ogg definitely delivers on such a statement.