Benjamin Winter

February 26^th, 2008

Anth 3980

 

Russell Simmons: The Business Man

           

Music has always been a large part of American culture and has influenced language, dress, and has even created cultures within musical genres. People are always trying to come up with something new and fresh to bring to the musical scene. Blues, Jazz, and Rock and Roll have all influenced music, past and present, but in the late seventies and early eighties it was hip hop’s turn to take the wheel and steer the musical community into a new direction. Hip hop started out as a small underground scene in New York City but has grown to be a world wide phenomenon and has even evolved within its own genre. But this transformation from underground clubs to millions of homes worldwide would not have come with out the help of business mogul Russell Simmons. Simmons not only catapulted himself from the poor streets of New York City but has also helped hip hop evolve from a street level production to a multi million dollar industry.

            Russell Simmons was born October 4^th, 1957 to Daniel and Evelyn, who were both well educated African Americans and shared a passion for the arts.  Russell was born into the Jamaica, Queens’s neighborhood but soon moved to Hollis, Queens in the year of 1965.  Both of these neighborhoods were composed of mostly all African Americans who had little money but the Simmons lived a comfortable lifestyle. Money was never an issue in the Simmons household, like it was for many of the other struggling individuals in Queens, but that didn’t stop Russell from becoming influenced by drugs (Simmons and George, 2001, 16).

Drugs were a huge part of life in the streets of New York City. Simmons had two main reasons for becoming part of the drug scene. He states, “Part of it was pure pressure, many of my friends were doing it. Part of it was greed…”(Simmons and George, 2001, 17). This greed stemmed from his need of trendy clothes and being able to get into the most hip clubs(Simmons and George, 2001, 17). This need for money would also resurface in Simmons later business ventures. Simmons would continue to sell drugs and use them heavily throughout his high school years and well into his college years.  Simmons’ last semester of high school consisted of taking LSD nearly everyday and smoking PCP regularly. For Simmons these drugs made him happy (Simmons and George, 2001, 32). His senior year was also the year his father forced him to get a real job at Orange Julius in Greenwich Village. This job exposed Russell to an environment which was much different from the one he grew up. His father thought this was a way to get him away from the drugs and experience life away from the streets, but it only did the opposite. Working a real job was hard for Simmons who had experienced making large amounts of money fast being a drug dealer, so he reverted to selling drugs again to make more money. Down the street from the Orange Julius was a small store that sold Coca Leaf Incense. This substance was legal but produced some of the similar effects of cocaine. With this knowledge Simmons began selling the Coca Leaf Incense as actual cocaine because he could make more profit and also the police couldn’t arrest him for the sale of incense (Simmons and George, 2001, 27). This business venture, of making large profits and giving the people what they want, would help Simmons in the next step of business career.

1975 would bring Simmons to City College of New York, in Harlem and as sociology major he started to become aware of a new social phenomenon going on around him. He noticed students rapping with each other and other individuals break dancing. At the time this was new to almost everyone but Simmons saw potential in this new movement (Simmons and George, 2001, 34). At this time Simmons was still into partying at the club and because of this met a promoter by the name of Rudy Toppin. Toppin brought Russell with him to many of the clubs he went to and Russell began to see how many people were interested in the DJs and MCs that were performing at these clubs (Simmons and George, 2001, 33). Simmons says, “I was standing there in a room full of peers-black and Hispanic college kids, partying and drinking-and it hit me: I wanted to be in this business.” (Simmons and George, 2001, 35) Once again Simmons’ businesses instincts kicked in and he saw a new market that could make him a lot of money. From this point forward Simmons left behind his drug dealing days and entered the entertainment business (Simmons and George, 2001, 35).

At this point in his new career Simmons was spending most of his time and all of his hard earned money booking venues and promoting up and coming artists. He decided to drop out of school being only five credits short of receiving a sociology major to pursue his new business venture more intensely (Mueller, 1991). This upset his parents who thought that Russell’s entertainment career idea was a joke. Simmons continued to work painstakingly hard hosting “rap nights”, promoting local rap artists, and producing records with the little money he had. He helped form one of the most influential hip hop groups ever called Run-D.M.C., featuring his brother Joseph "Rev Run" Simmons, MC Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels and DJ Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizel. Russell was their manager, agent and producer and the group saw success on a street level but Simmons and Run-D.M.C.’s influence and fame in the music industry would not reach its full potential until he met Rick Rubin and formed Def Jam Records (Stark, 1999).

Rubin and Simmons met in 1983 at NYU and everything about them seemed to be opposite (Stark, 1999). Rubin was white, rich, Jewish and held his roots in punk rock while Simmons was black, poor and held his roots in hip hop. Also Simmons was more focused on the selling and promoting of artists, while Rubin was far more interested in producing tracks. Together with a few thousand dollars and each of their backgrounds and expertise they formed a small record label called Def Jam (Simmons and George, 2001, 78) Immediately the two began producing rappers and immediately had a hit with “I Need a Beat” preformed by LL Cool J, who was only 16 years old at the time (Stark, 1999).  With their first success CBS decided to invest in the small label.  With this money Simmons and Rubin wanted to take hip hop to a new level and reach more than just disadvantaged people from the street. To solve this they combined a previous hit, “Walk This Way” by Areosmith, with Simmons’ group, Run-D.M.C., to produce a song that would target non traditional listeners. With Areosmith’s catchy guitar riffs and Run-D.M.C.’s charisma and in your face rapping, “Walk This Way” gained the attention of many white listeners and even made it on MTV (Stark, 1999). Simmons and Rubin were making headway on their goal to take hip hop to a global level. To reach even more people Def Jam signed an all white hip hop group called The Beastie Boys, for who Rubin had been a former MC (Gueraseva, 2005). The Beastie Boys’ songs reached the masses once again using rebellious lyrics and powerful guitar riffs (Stark, 1999). This combination of taking parts of popular music and mixing them with hip hop lyrics and style was what seemed to be winning over many new listeners. Also Simmons thought that many people could relate to the artists because they were not dressed up and marketed. Simmons states, “Michael Jackson is great for what his is- but you don’t know anybody like that. The closest thing Run-D.M.C. gets to a costume is a black leather outfit… It’s important you look like your audience. If it’s real don’t change it.”(Mueller, 1991) Tapping into why people were buying the music was something Simmons excelled at and it seemed Simmons and Rubin had cracked the combination to producing successful artists and reaching a broader more diverse audience.

Def Jam’s popularity continued to grow throughout the 1990s. Now that Def Jam held stake in the music industry, Simmons and Rubin decided to bring in Public Enemy. Public Enemy was different from the Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C. because they were more about political lyricism, but this didn’t stop their records from flying of the shelves. Simmons used his business skills and networking abilities to sell this new genre of hip hop to entertainment companies, while Rubin used his production skills to make the music catchy and sellable to a diversified audience. People all over loved the music coming from the Def Jam label and the music charts proved it. Every record they produced in the 1990’s went gold and hip hop could now be seen as a music genre that had to be taken seriously (Stark, 1999). Simmons even helped sign Run D.M.C to a shoe deal with Adidas that was worth $1 million per year and still has a lasting impression on hip hop culture (Simmons and George, 2001, 114). 1998 saw Rubin leave Def Jam but he continued to do crossover work bouncing from rock to rap and even country (Stark, 1999). Simmons, like Rubin, continued to produce and find new hip hop artists but he also began to bring the hip hop culture to a whole new level.

Simmons saw hip hop was more than just music, it was a culture. This culture consisted of its own artwork, music, dress and language and Simmons also wanted to set free this aspect of hip hop to the masses.  Following the years of Def Jam Simmons created Def Comedy Jam, a HBO television show that would expose African American and hip hop culture through comedy into many homes in the United States (Simmons and George, 2001, 124). He also tapped into the fashion scene by creating his own clothing line called Phat Farm. This clothing line was heavily influenced by hip hop fashion style mixed with some sophisticated aspects (Simmons and George, 2001, 153). Simmons has even had an influence on the silver screen by helping remake the Nutty Professor with Eddy Murphy and even helped promoted Will Smith from his days of rapping to The Fresh Prince of Bell Air television series (Simmons and George, 2001, 138). Simmons has had his hand in and been successful in just about every form of entertainment.

Simmons likes to see him self as a mix between the two black business in America. One like Ebony magazine that caters solely to African American individuals and the other like Bary Gordy’s company “The Sound of Young America” which helps expose African American culture to the masses (Simmons and George, 2001, 3). Whatever his style Simmons took his charisma, desire for money, and business knowledge from the streets and applied it to the fresh face of hip hop in the late 70s and early 80s. With the help of Def Jam, Def Comedy Jam, and Phat Farm Simmons has turned hip hop into a multi million dollar industry who's audience is now global. With his pioneering ideas and skills Russell Simmons has transformed hip hop from a mostly underground culture into one of the most influential cultures of today.

 

Works Cited

Gueraseva, S. (2005). Def Jam, Inc. : Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin, and the

Extraordinary Story of the World's Most Influential Hip-Hop Label. New York,

New York: Random House.

 

Mueller, M.E. (1991). Russell Simmons. Contemporary Black Biography, 1, Retrieved

February 25, 2008, from http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/bhm

/bio/simmons_r.htm

 

Simmons, R., & George, N. (2001). Life and Def: Sex, Drugs, Money + God.New York:

Three Rivers Press.

 

Stark, Jeff (1999). Russell Simmons. Salon.com, Retrieved February 25, 2008, from

http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/07/06/simmons