We had tattoo sessions, basketball sessions, haircut sessions. told) to participate in rap camp, all of them reacted with curiosity rather than apprehension. (At Def Jam’s Manhattan office one afternoon, a dozen employees drop everything at their desks to go hang out with DMX, who’s swung by for a quick visit “Who’s DMX?” says Brook, unperturbed.) But when they were asked (a.k.a.
Members of the new freshman class - who are being introduced as Def Jam’s vision for not only its future, but the future of hip-hop - don’t necessarily care for that legacy. Rosenberg says the team at Def Jam really “wanted to do something organic” with its new rappers after signing them and recalls the inspiration for the compilation name coming from a wistful remark someone made, around the time he first arrived, when looking at the logo of the label: “It’s just the undisputed greatest hip-hop label of all time.” UMG wants to make sure Def Jam keeps up its legacy and doesn’t lose out - especially amid the industry-wide gold rush for new acts. It worked.”Īs music-streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music bring major new revenue streams to the business, with rap leading the surge in listeners and money alike, Def Jam’s history as a hip-hop label quickly became its focus again. He rubs at his eyes - it’s past midnight and everyone’s been up nearly the whole week straight making final tweaks to the record and preparing to promote it - then shrugs. Like, if this went bad - you know what I mean? It would have been bad,” Rico “Rico Beats” Lamarre, an in-house Def Jam producer and A&R, tells Rolling Stone on the night of Undisputed‘s production wrap, a few days before the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. “We never thought it was going to fit like this. If the album catches on, Def Jam, which turns 35 years old this year, will think seriously about refashioning its whole business model.
#RAPT DEF SERIES#
(By far the toughest part, A&Rs say, was getting all the rappers to arrive on time.) What began as a cost-cutting measure then bloomed into something Def Jam could actually sell: Undisputed, a compilation album showcasing work from 15 or so freshman acts, paired with an eight-part documentary series à la Real World about their lives during the making of the record, was released today.įrom Instagram darling YK Osiris to designer-turned-artist Dominic Lord to neon-haired teenage duo S3nsi Molly and Lil Brook, the coast-spanning artists comprising Undisputed‘s tracklist are a nearly overwhelming list of new talent and, more importantly, an ambitious, untested new hit-making strategy for hip-hop labels. The label ushered its recruits out in droves to lay down tracks together at West Hollywood’s Paramount Recording Studios, where they rotated in and out from three in the afternoon to three in the morning in week-long stretches.
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