It’s a few minutes to midnight at Paramount Recording Studios in Los Angeles, and the plaques on the walls are starting to shake. Most of Def Jam Recordings’ freshman class — around two dozen hip-hop artists from all over the country, all signed in the last year — have packed into low-lit Studio C, where S3nsi Molly and Lil Brook are blasting their new track “Big Boss.”
The cavernous space is smoky and crowded, but you can’t miss Molly, 18, and Brook, 20: Dressed in head-to-toe neon with mermaid-blue hair and diamond-dipped fingernails, they’re like Gucci-clad angels descended from hip-hop heaven. The energy around them is strong: heads bobbing, bodies swaying, joints being rolled and passed. When the track finishes, people whoop, and someone signals to play it again.
“It’s all about the room,” says Alexander “AE” Edwards, 32, vp A&R at the New York-based record label. The Oakland, Calif., native worked with Tyga’s Last Kings Records before joining Def Jam in 2018 and has the kind of charisma that leads artists to seek his approval. “It’s all vibe,” he continues. “That’s how you know it’s a hit. When the kids see me in there and I’m dancing, they know it’s on.” And if the vibe is weak? “Then it’s back to work. Then it’s, ‘Get your notepad!’”
This is Def Jam rap camp, a new program designed to develop and promote the label’s fledgling artists. Not to be confused with the song or “synch” camps that have become industry-standard in country and pop — in which dozens of professional songwriters come together to write material for major albums, films or commercials — rap camp is more like spring training: an intensive retreat for the label’s young guns to write, collaborate and grow creatively under the guidance of seasoned producers and sound engineers. Def Jam’s new A&R team — including Edwards, Pedro Genao, Ricardo Lamarre (aka Rico Beats) and executive vp Steven Victor — does the coaching.
For many of the artists, some of whom are still in high school, this is their first time in a professional studio environment. “Some of these guys really haven’t seen much,” says Edwards, “but they’re confident and hungry. That’s why we signed them. They’re like wolves.” Others came in ready to hit the ground running: Lul G, 20, is a member of the fast-rising Bay Area group SOB X RBE; Dominic Lord, 25, designed clothes for A$AP Mob before shifting his focus to music; and Bernard Jabs, a cocky 17-year-old from rural Georgia, built a fan base on SoundCloud before signing to Def Jam last summer, and by November was opening for Pusha T.
On this night in February, S3nsi Molly and Lil Brook have just put the finishing touches on “Big Boss.” Rap camp has become a de facto record factory, yielding over 200 tracks in two weeklong sessions (the first was in August; the second, where Molly and Brook first recorded “Big Boss,” was in November). On March 8, Def Jam will present a selection of the songs on Undisputed, a compilation introducing fans to these new recruits and, to some extent, to the label’s new direction. As Def Jam celebrates its 35th year, it’s racing to reclaim its place as the leader in new hip-hop — and betting on this diverse roster of rookies to usher in a new era at the label under CEO Paul Rosenberg.
“To remain vital, we have to stay current,” says Rosenberg, 47, who just completed his first year helming Def Jam, investing heavily in video content as well as music. Prior to arriving at the label, the Detroit native spent decades managing Eminem, running Shady Records and leading management firm Goliath Artists (Danny Brown). “Around 2017, I felt like Def Jam was in need of some reconnection and a new look forward [in order to] continue to impact the culture. When I was just a fan and not working in the industry, Def Jam was the place every artist in hip-hop wanted to sign to. There was Def Jam, and there was everybody else. My goal” — with the help of the rap camp artists — “is to make that the case again.”
When Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons founded Def Jam out of Rubin’s New York University dorm room in 1984, they were focused on experimentation: mixing elements of punk and metal with the groundbreaking sounds of New York’s streets and seeing how it all landed. Bratty and provocative, that Def Jam was known for taking risks and making noise, for championing early rap innovators like LL Cool J and Public Enemy, and for turning the sounds of urban American youth into a 20th century phenomenon. In his book The Men Behind Def Jam: The Radical Rise of Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin, Alex Ogg recalls how, from its earliest days, the label “produced a musical legacy of unchallenged caliber” and “established rap as the dominant form of American youth music.”
In recent years, the financial pressures of a rapidly changing industry took the label in a different direction. Under the leadership of Steve Bartels in the mid-2010s, Def Jam broadened its scope to focus on mainstream pop artists like Justin Bieber and Alessia Cara and DJs like Axwell + Ingrosso — all hitmakers, but, grouped together, a bit of a musical grab bag. (Before Bartels took over in 2013, Joie Manda, Antonio “L.A.” Reid, Jay-Z and Kevin Liles had all taken turns at the wheel in various capacities. Lyor Cohen, the label’s longest-serving president, ran it from 1988 to 1998.) Among the 84 songs that Bartels helped shepherd onto the Billboard Hot 100, 12 made the top 10, including Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” (featuring Charli XCX) and DJ Khaled’s 2017 summer anthem, “I’m the One.”
“Look, the industry changed and went through some hard times” in the Bartels era, says Rich Isaacson, Def Jam’s new GM. Isaacson is an industry veteran: His label, Loud Records, signed Wu-Tang Clan in 1992. “The people who were running the company probably did what they had to do to keep the lights on, and they signed some great artists. But the brand needed to re-establish its place as the gold standard in hip-hop.”
In 2016, the streaming boom ignited a resurgence in recorded-music revenue, generating double-digit industry growth for the first time in two decades, with rap and R&B leading the charge. That should have been great news for Def Jam, but its market share and industry clout were both declining. By mid-2017, the former had dropped to ninth place, behind Interscope, Republic, Capitol and, most notably, Atlantic, which was ruling urban radio with artists like Cardi B, Meek Mill and Gucci Mane.
In August 2017, Lucian Grainge, CEO of Def Jam’s parent company, Universal Music Group, announced that Bartels was out and Rosenberg in. Their joint objective was clear: Refocus the label on hip-hop and reforge the Def Jam identity.
Rosenberg assembled G.O.O.D. Music’s Steven Victor (best-known for managing Pusha T and Desiigner) to lead A&R and a group of industry veterans, including former Complex content chief Noah Callahan-Bever, to manage an in-house creative team. Victor’s first order of business was signing an unusually large roster of new artists for a rebrand to coincide with the label’s 35th anniversary. His second was rap camp.
Originally posted on BILLBOARD.com
