Russell Simmons & Rick Rubins - Def Jam Recordings : The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label via NPR ‘Simmons: The radio was listening to, or playing records like Patrick Juvet’s “I Love America” or “YMCA” by the Village People, and that’s what black radio in New York sounded like. It was disco. And there was a rebellion in the streets, and kids played funky records, whether it was a jazz, or a blues, or a rock and roll, or a funky R&B band like James Brown, they would play those backing tracks and they would rap over them and create their own music, something that was a better soundtrack for what they were living. And that was the creation of hip hop as an expression for people who felt locked out of the mainstream.” I also had a complete disdain for what was the mainstream. It was like as a kid I was just rebelling. I didn’t want to hear anything, any instrumentation that sounded like it was already on the radio. I wanted to do something new. And all the records I produced, we made sure that none of the instrumentation that sounded commercial, or were part of the mainstream, were in it. It was kind of like, the producers would come, and musicians would come and we’d just ask them, “let’s create new sounds” or “let’s not use anything but drums.’ Click for entire interview
