--- title: Bring the Noise: 25 Years of Def Jam description: What are the names that pop to mind when you think of '80s rap? The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, LL Cool J—all essential hip-hop artists, all signed to Def Jam Records. Half oral history, half photo portfolio, the coffee-table book Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label sketches out the tales of a record label that became one of the greatest forces in American pop culture. canonical: https://time.com/3780916/bring-the-noise-25-years-of-def-jam/ author: Marie Tobias article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2011-09-15T08:00:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:41:23.319Z article:section: World og:title: Bring the Noise: 25 Years of Def Jam og:description: What are the names that pop to mind when you think of '80s rap? The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, LL Cool J—all essential hip-hop artists, all signed to Def Jam Records. Half oral history, half photo portfolio, the coffee-table book Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label sketches out the tales of a record label that became one of the greatest forces in American pop culture. og:url: https://time.com/3780916/bring-the-noise-25-years-of-def-jam/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt87e0f03ec1789c07/698798bdf887dca232e8b5ce/therootssuits_rgb.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TheRootsSuits_RGB og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Bring the Noise: 25 Years of Def Jam twitter:description: What are the names that pop to mind when you think of '80s rap? The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, LL Cool J—all essential hip-hop artists, all signed to Def Jam Records. Half oral history, half photo portfolio, the coffee-table book Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label sketches out the tales of a record label that became one of the greatest forces in American pop culture. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt87e0f03ec1789c07/698798bdf887dca232e8b5ce/therootssuits_rgb.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Bring the Noise: 25 Years of Def Jam by [Marie Tobias](/author/marie-tobias/) ## Marie Tobias Sep 15, 2011 8:00 AM CUT  The Roots, New York, 2006 The Roots, New York, 2006F. Scott Schafer by [Marie Tobias](/author/marie-tobias/) ## Marie Tobias Sep 15, 2011 8:00 AM CUT What are the names that pop to mind when you think of ’80s rap? [The Beastie Boys](http://shop.beastieboys.com/ "undefined"), [Public Enemy](http://www.publicenemy.com/ "undefined"), [LL Cool J](http://www.islanddefjam.com/artist/home.aspx?artistID=7309 "undefined")—all essential hip-hop artists, all signed to [Def Jam Records](http://www.islanddefjam.com/Default.aspx?labelID=74 "undefined"). If you know just one thing about the history of Def Jam, it’s probably the story of its birth: created in an NYU dorm room by [Rick Rubin](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1587248,00.html "undefined"), a young, white musical wunderkind. The first EP with the Def Jam logo was for a band called Hose, a punk-“artcore” outfit in which Rubin played guitar. Several years later, at a party in downtown New York, Rubin crossed paths with Russell Simmons—an artist manager (and older brother of the Run in Run-D.M.C.) who had helped Kurtis Blow land his first record deal—and Def Jam Records as we know it today was born. Half oral history, half photo portfolio, the coffee-table book [_Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label_](http://www.rizzoliusa.com/book.php?isbn=9780847833719 "undefined") (October, Rizzoli) sketches out the tales of a record label that became one of the greatest forces in American pop culture. That is not an exaggeration. Def Jam spread hip hop music far beyond its black New York roots, pushing it deep into the bedrooms of white suburbia—the one place any music needed to grow a fan base were it to become a late-20th century phenomenon. That it did. Former New York _Times_ music critic Kalefa Sanneh, who writes the introduction for this book puts it simply: hip-hop went from being underground to being “the country’s definitive youth culture.” That arc is made clear through the testimony of those who experienced the rise of Def Jam as well as photos of them. Near the front of the book is a picture of a young, shaggy Rubin in a powder blue puffy coat, wearing sunglasses, holding a drink from Blimpie’s sandwich shop, and a gun (Is it real? Is it fake? Hard to tell). In the back is a shot of Rubin (with his unforgettable Moses beard) and Simmons, tuxedoed out at this year’s Vanity Fair Oscar Party. In between is a visual feast for anyone who’s listened to popular music in the past three decades: early shots of Public Enemy, which remind us how groundbreaking they were and how Flavor Flav was once someone who didn’t look like a clown all the time; LL Cool J in the Ivory Coast, wearing a tank top, gold dollar-bill rings, and a tribal robe; the pirate-patched Slick Rick in a tender shot with his mother/manager; Redman covered in mud smoking a cigar; enough busty photos of Foxy Brown to make you look around and confirm that no one is watching; and enough Jay-Z, Kanye and Rihanna shots to keep the younglings pleased. “Who would have thought, back in the ’80s, that we’d ever see a coffee-table book about rap,” writes former Def Jam chairman Lyor Cohen. Well, here it is, with enough boomboxes, gold chains and Kangol hats to please newbies and devotees alike.  The Roots, New York, 2006 F. Scott Schafer  LL Cool J, New York, 1985 Michael Halsband  Public Enemy, London, 1987 David Corio  Slick Rick, New York, 1989 Janette Beckman  Run-DMC, Aerosmith, Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin, New York, 1986 Lloyd Nelson  The Beastie Boys backstage at Madison Square Garden, New York, June 1985 Chase Roe  Onyx, New York, 1995 Danny Clinch  The Beastie Boys and Madonna on stage at Madison Square Garden, New York, 1985 Ron Galella  DMX, New York, 2001 Jonathan Mannion  Public Enemy, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1989 David C. Lee  Foxy Brown, New York, 1999 Reisig & Taylor  Jay-Z at the the Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, New York, 2002 Jonathan Mannion ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3780916/bring-the-noise-25-years-of-def-jam/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3780916/bring-the-noise-25-years-of-def-jam/"},"headline":"Bring the Noise: 25 Years of Def Jam","datePublished":"2011-09-15T08:00:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:41:23.319Z","description":"What are the names that pop to mind when you think of '80s rap? The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, LL Cool J—all essential hip-hop artists, all signed to Def Jam Records. Half oral history, half photo portfolio, the coffee-table book Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label sketches out the tales of a record label that became one of the greatest forces in American pop culture.","url":"https://time.com/3780916/bring-the-noise-25-years-of-def-jam/","keywords":["LightBox","Jay-z","The Roots","Out There"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt87e0f03ec1789c07/698798bdf887dca232e8b5ce/therootssuits_rgb.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Marie Tobias","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/marie-tobias/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt87e0f03ec1789c07/698798bdf887dca232e8b5ce/therootssuits_rgb.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TheRootsSuits_RGB","caption":"The Roots, New York, 2006","creditText":"F. Scott Schafer","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-lightbox/","name":"LightBox"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3780916/bring-the-noise-25-years-of-def-jam/","name":"Bring the Noise: 25 Years of Def Jam"}}]}] ```