My uncles were very powerful already at that time. When we came in the game, we were on that rebellious vibe. SWIZZ BEATZ (producer): We came and disrupted it. We wanted to speak for the people that’s not heard. We come from a minority area where everybody’s in a struggle, everybody’s trying to survive. Jay Z had more of a spark of energy to do things.ĭARRIN “DEE” DEAN: Ruff Ryders stood for the streets, the hood, the have-nots. And that’s where Dog came in, to give the label a whole new energy and light. People were asking, “What’s gonna be next, what’s gonna be hot?”ĭAME GREASE (producer): was probably a little confused and didn’t know what the next turn of events was gonna be for the future. JOAQUIN “WAAH” DEAN (co-founder of Ruff Ryders Entertainment): When Pac and Biggie passed away, everyone was dormant.
STYLES P (rapper, member of Ruff Ryders group The Lox): Young black men had an opportunity to make money that they had never made before, so why not be flashy? I’m not mad at the flash. That just wasn’t the representation for the hood and the people who were less fortunate. But they was wearing Versace, all expensive stuff that most people in the hood couldn’t afford. Our aspirations were to shine a light on the plight and experience of the inner cities of America.ĭARRIN “DEE” DEAN (co-founder of Ruff Ryders Entertainment): You had Puff and Biggie, and they were supposed to be the definition of hood. Cosmetic fronting was not part of the ethos of our get down.
#RUFF RYDERS ENTERTAINMENT FOUNDERS FULL#
LYOR COHEN (co-president of Island Def Jam Music Group, 1998-2004): Hip-hop had become overly aspirational and shiny, full of vivid technicolors. It was a rebirth, trying to get out of its box. Hip-hop was picking its way out of something. GOOD (music journalist): It was a good year for expansion. The 1998 release of It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot filled a void in rap, which, in large part, had become defined by the get-money mindset of Bad Boy and the brass-knuckled bravado of Death Row.
1 albums in the same year, and cemented him not just as a crossover success but a conflicted messiah whose grimy truths resonated with people living at the margins.-JASON PARHAM It made DMX the first rapper to drop two No. Blige, Jay Z, rock oracle Marilyn Manson, and labelmates The Lox, and released just three days before Christmas, the album was a platinum-selling success.
The result was Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, a throbbing testimony that found the rapper running face first into the murk of his past. With producers Swizz Beatz, Dame Grease, DJ Shok, and P. It was a test of faith - of DMX, and of the Ruff Ryders crew. With momentum on X’s side, Island Def Jam Music Group co-president Lyor Cohen proposed a high-stakes wager: finish another album before the year’s end and he’d award DMX a $1 million bonus. Heavy D’s prophetic counsel proved true: the industry was now all ears. It didn’t just have hits, it had moment-altering anthems. Even before he’d released his first album, he cut through cold New York City winters on songs like “Make a Move” and Mase’s “24 Hours to Live.” Once he was blessed by Def Jam A&R Irv Gotti’s Midas touch, he became a breakout mainstream success with the 1998 release of his critically adored, warrior-spirited debut, It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot. In the decade that followed, with his brother Darrin and sister Chivon, he founded Ruff Ryders, a management company turned music imprint under Interscope, and signed DMX, a rapper with the kind of folkloric talent that comes along once in a generation.ĭMX had flow, bite. In 1986 at Shabazz Restaurant in Mount Vernon, New York, the satin-tongued rapper Heavy D gave Joaquin “Waah” Dean some advice: “I ain’t guaranteeing you nothing or promising you anything, but what you do is you make hits and the industry comes to you.” Dean, a Bronx-born entrepreneur, was trying to make his way into the music business, and he took D’s advice to heart.
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