Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label by Bill Adler and Dan Charnas

Like all great companies, there is great story behind Def Jam: the demo that James Todd Smith sent to Rick Rubin at his New York University dorm room almost didn't get opened.

(Rizzoli, $60)

It was a seminal moment in hip-hop that almost didn’t happen, said Ted Mann in TheAtlantic​.com. “When James Todd Smith’s home-recorded demo tape arrived at Rick Rubin’s New York University dorm room, Rubin didn’t even listen to it at first.” Smith, who had been writing rhymes since he was 12, had sent the cassette to a fledgling label called Def Jam. Fortunately, a friend of Rubin’s rescued the demo from the mail pile, and soon the Kangol-hat-wearing teenager was working in the studio with Rubin and label co-founder Russell Simmons. Thus was born the million-selling rapper LL Cool J, as well as a juggernaut of a recording label whose vision of mid-1980s New York “spawned a global culture.”

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