Steve Rifkind

Record Executive

Steve Rifkind is no ordinary record executive. He is a hip-hop pioneer who founded the legendary rap label Loud Records, home of the Wu-Tang Clan, and coined the term "The Street Team" (which he holds the patent on) for his innovative grass-roots marketing approach to breaking records (and movies, clothes, cell phones, sneakers, etc.). The concept of creating a regional buzz that mushrooms into a national, even worldwide, story has now increased virally with the digital age, proof of Rifkind's foresight.

During his quarter-c...

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Steve Rifkind

Record Executive

Steve Rifkind is no ordinary record executive. He is a hip-hop pioneer who founded the legendary rap label Loud Records, home of the Wu-Tang Clan, and coined the term "The Street Team" (which he holds the patent on) for his innovative grass-roots marketing approach to breaking records (and movies, clothes, cell phones, sneakers, etc.). The concept of creating a regional buzz that mushrooms into a national, even worldwide, story has now increased virally with the digital age, proof of Rifkind's foresight.

During his quarter-century in the music business, the 44-year-old exec and fan has always had one foot firmly planted in the street and the other in the boardroom of corporate America.

Rifkind was introduced to rap when he hit the road to promote seminal records like the Fatback Band's "King Tim III" and early Russell Simmons client Jimmy Spicer's "Dollar Bill Y'All" for his father Jules Rifkind's R&B label, Spring Records, in the early '80s.

Traveling to local colleges to spread the word about his acts, Rifkind developed the revolutionary guerilla marketing concept he'd launch almost 10 years later as The Street Team under the banner of the Steve Rifkind Company, creating comprehensive campaigns for clients like Home Box Office, T-Mobile (Sidekick), MGM Pictures, Nike, DreamWorks and Quiksilver.

Rifkind founded Loud Records in 1992, launching such acts as the Wu-Tang Clan, Big Pun, Mobb Deep, Raekwon and Xzibit. Branching into other areas, he made deals with a film studio (Dimension/Miramax) and a talent agency (Mosaic Media Group) to further the Loud, SRC and Street Team brands.

Since Loud was absorbed into Sony Music, Rifkind formed the Street Records Corporation (SRC) with Universal Records in March, 2003, and has had three breakout acts in his first three years with David Banner, Akon and female rapper Remy Ma.

His latest project is Kids Block, a 22-episode "educational puppet show" that he describes as "Sesame Street and Schoolhouse Rocks on steroids," an Urban take on children's programming developed by noted music producers the Trackmasters. Among his partners is Jordan Zimmerman, head of the Omnicom Group company Zimmerman Advertising, the 17th largest agency in the U.S., with clients like Office Depot, Wickes Furniture, Musicland and the Vitamin Shoppe. Zimmerman and former Laker great Earvin "Magic" Johnson are also Rifkind's partners in the marketing company Z Magic, the latest incarnation of The Street Team.

Steve Rifkind has always had his finger on the pulse of youth culture, able to anticipate the trends and develop business strategies to take advantage of that. Find out what's coming next from this creative entrepreneur, who is equally at home finding new talent and marketing it for success. 

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Hank Shocklee

THE BOMB SQUAD 

by Thaddeus Wawro

In the early 1980s, hip-hop music experienced a revolution. The creative hub of the genre moved from the inner-city streets of Harlem and the Bronx to the suburbs of New York City. Out of Long Island came a new, angry sound--a rebellious noise that would change hip-hop music forever. Hank Shocklee was one of the key architects of that noise. As a founding member and producer of the incendiary rap group Public Enemy, he helped develop the distinctive, multilayered sound that became the group's trademark and...

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Hank Shocklee

THE BOMB SQUAD 

by Thaddeus Wawro

In the early 1980s, hip-hop music experienced a revolution. The creative hub of the genre moved from the inner-city streets of Harlem and the Bronx to the suburbs of New York City. Out of Long Island came a new, angry sound--a rebellious noise that would change hip-hop music forever. Hank Shocklee was one of the key architects of that noise. As a founding member and producer of the incendiary rap group Public Enemy, he helped develop the distinctive, multilayered sound that became the group's trademark and influenced an entire generation of rappers. In addition to his work with Public Enemy, Shocklee added his unique production approach to recordings by acts ranging from Dr. Dre, 3rd Bass, and Bell Biv DeVoe to such pop and rock artists as Ziggy Marley, Paula Abdul, and Anthrax.

Shocklee's early involvement in music was as a student at New York City's Adelphi University. In the early 1980s, he worked as a promoter and deejay, setting up shows and parties in and around Long Island. At Adelphi, he met Carlton Ridenour, who would later take the name Chuck D and become lead rapper for Public Enemy. Ridenour shared Shocklee's interest in hip-hop, and it wasn't long before he was emceeing Shocklee's parties. Shocklee and Ridenour went on to form a deejay collective they called Spectrum. This collaboration--which would grow to include rappers Flavor Flav (William Drayton), Keith Shocklee (Hank's brother), Carl Ryder, Eric Sadler, and DJ Terminator X (Norman Rogers)--laid the groundwork for Public Enemy.

In 1983 Shocklee and Ridenour attracted the attention of Bill Stephney, program director for WBAU, Adelphi's campus radio station. Stephney asked them to host a hip-hop show on Saturday nights. The duo agreed and the Super Spectrum Mixx Show--one of the first programs to feature rap and hip-hop music--hit the airwaves. The show was so far ahead of its time that Shocklee and Ridenour had difficulty filling a three-hour time slot because of the relatively few rap and hip-hop albums commercially available at the time. To solve this problem, they began recording their own rhythm tracks, rapping and mixing live on the air.

"The original Public Enemy sound was created on-air," Shocklee explained in Option magazine. "We were sampling stuff, taking a beat, pausing it up and doing a rap over it. This was still at a time when most of the other rap records were using a lot of live instruments. We were doing stuff without any live [instruments]. When we got the choruses, there would be nothing but scratching ... absolutely no instruments ... none! It's the only way we could do our music on the radio.... Even for sampling effects, we'd just have Chuck repeating his vocals. He would go something like 'Public Enemy Number One... One- One-One... One...' because we didn't have any sampling machines at the time."

The multilayered "noise" of those homemade recordings was something entirely new to rap and hip-hop. Over the next three years, Shocklee and Ridenour recorded hundreds of songs and gained a large cult following. But in 1986, one particular song put them over the top and set the stage for the birth of Public Enemy. As Shocklee recounted in Option, "Chuck had brought in Flavor Flav, and there was this one particular thing we did where at the beginning Flavor goes: 'Yo Chuck, man, brothers think you can't rhyme...,' and then, 'Yo, why don't you show these suckers how to do it.' It was just another one of those battle raps called 'Public Enemy Number One.' That record was the number-one smash hit on WBAU for three months or so. Out of all the stuff we were playing--even the new records that were coming out--that was the number-one song."

The success of "Public Enemy Number One" did not go unnoticed by record companies. Rick Rubin offered Shocklee and Ridenour a recording contract with his newly formed rap label, Def Jam Records. They refused, believing that rap artists were targets for victimization by record companies. Rubin continued to pursue them, until finally, in 1987--after Bill Stephney joined Def Jam--Ridenour (now Chuck D), Flavor Flav, and DJ Terminator X signed with Def Jam and officially became Public Enemy. To produce the album, Shocklee put together a production team he called the Bomb Squad, which included former Spectrum members Carl Ryder, Eric Sadler, and Shocklee's brother Keith.

From the beginning, Shocklee wanted Public Enemy's sound to be distinct. But he also wanted it to grab the listener's attention in a way that would play off Chuck D's raw, pointed raps and immediately identify it as a Public Enemy song. "We wanted to make something obnoxious," Shocklee told Lewis Cole in Rolling Stone. "When people are asleep, you have to take drastic means to wake them up." He elaborated further in Spin, "We wanted to put certain hooks in the sound so that when you heard it coming out of a car, you knew what record it was on. It was Noise [with a] capital N.... We wanted to submerge you in sound, a thunderstorm of sound. And Chuck's voice would come out of it like the voice of God."

The result was Public Enemy's first album, 1987's Yo! Bum Rush the Show. Shocklee's chaotic rhythm tracks and mixes, which Detroit Free Press music critic Gary Graff described as "an aural assault of buzzes, sirens, knife-edged guitar riffs, turntable scratches, and a bass-drum attack that pummels like uppercuts to the chin," were the perfect foil for the aggressive, often militant, political raps he wrote with Chuck D. The album was an instant hit, selling more than 400,000 copies without the benefit of radio airplay. Almost single-handedly, Shocklee and Chuck D created a new form of rap. Unlike the "party-music" rap that preceded it, this new genre was loud, angry, and provided a forum for serious social and political commentary. It gave people something to think about as well as listen to, and it would inspire both late 1980s rappers like Run-D.M.C. and L.L. Cool J. and the "gangsta" rappers of the 1990s.

Between 1987 and 1990, Shocklee and the Bomb Squad produced two more albums for Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), and Fear of a Black Planet (1990). Credited with masterminding Public Enemy's distinctive sound, Shocklee became a much sought after star producer. Between producing and helping write lyrics for Public Enemy albums, he produced and mixed singles for a wide variety of other artists ranging from Ice Cube and 3rd Bass to Sinead O'Connor and Paula Abdul.

In 1990 Shocklee struck out on his own and formed S.O.U.L. (Sound of Urban Listeners) Records with Bill Stephney. Their goal was to help promote rap and hip-hop by signing smart young acts. The partnership didn't last long: Stephney left S.O.U.L. in 1991 over business differences with Shocklee. Undeterred, Shocklee went on to sign and produce records for a number of artists, including Son of Bazerk and Raheem. Shocklee's only real success, though, came with the Young Black Teenagers, an ironically named, all-white New York City rap ensemble. He produced two top- selling albums with the group, Young Black Teenagers (1991) and Dead Enz Kids Doin' Lifetime Bidz (1993).

Shocklee remained with S.O.U.L. until late 1993. During his time with the label, he regularly did production and remix work for groups both inside and outside of the rap/hip-hop realm. He produced albums for Public Enemy (Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black) and Another Bad Creation, and he remixed previously released tracks by Peter Gabriel, alternative metal band Helmet, and heavy metal group Anthrax.

In November of 1993 Shocklee left S.O.U.L. to form Shocklee Entertainment, a production firm and record label, with his brother Keith. The following year the two brothers served as producers on Public Enemy's release Muse Sick N Hour Mess Age.

An innovator with a purpose, Shocklee remains a driving force in the world of rap. As Public Enemy's producer and co-lyricist, he helped transform rap from party music into a medium for serious political and social commentary. Shocklee summed up his philosophy of rap in Option: "When we started Public Enemy, I had a vision of what I thought music should sound like in the future. We started Public Enemy because we wanted to project this vision and the messages we had in as strong a way as possible. We worked hard on our sound ... because we felt there was a crucial need for that kind of power in rap. We made a decision to go straight to the people, to be our own media, to reach them on our own terms and let them understand that we don't believe things are correct on this planet. And we wanted to be noisy about it.

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Andre Harrell

New Yorker

Founded circa 1987 by an entrepreneur named Andre Harrell, New York-based Uptown records served as the epicenter of New Jack Swing music throughout the era. Legendary New Jack acts such as Guy, Al B.Sure!, and Heavy D were among the label's most successful acts. When the New Jack Era ended, Uptown continued to churn out Hip-Hop/Soul, largely thanks to the efforts of newcomer Sean "Puffy" Combs and the acts he developed, Jodeci and Mary J. Blige. While Def Jam was blazing its trail in Hip Hop (Public Enemy, 3rd Bass, LL Cool J, etc...

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Andre Harrell

New Yorker

Founded circa 1987 by an entrepreneur named Andre Harrell, New York-based Uptown records served as the epicenter of New Jack Swing music throughout the era. Legendary New Jack acts such as Guy, Al B.Sure!, and Heavy D were among the label's most successful acts. When the New Jack Era ended, Uptown continued to churn out Hip-Hop/Soul, largely thanks to the efforts of newcomer Sean "Puffy" Combs and the acts he developed, Jodeci and Mary J. Blige. While Def Jam was blazing its trail in Hip Hop (Public Enemy, 3rd Bass, LL Cool J, etc), Uptown handled the side of "urban" music less likely to cross over to suburban audiences: Soul/R&B

Harrell started his career in entertainment as one half of a rap duo named Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde in the early 80s. Then in 1983, Harrell met Russell Simmons who recruited him for Rush Management, where he helped launch the careers of artists like LL Cool J, Run DMC and Whodini. By 1986, Harell saw a void in how young Black culture was being represented in the marketplace, feeling that the raw street image that Def Jam represented did not fully reflect the young Black experience and lifestyle. Harell felt he could bridge the gap between "street" and upper class, by producing music that reflected the upwardly mobile Black experience – a sound that married the classy aesthetics of R&B to the edgy sounds of Hip-Hop.
No artist fit the aforementioned description any better than Jamaican-born Dwight Myers, who would in a short time become better known as Heavy D. Originally, Harrell wanted to sign Heavy D to Def Jam, but Harrell faced opposition from the label. However, Harrell strongly believed in Heavy D and the upwardly mobile "urban vibe" he represented, so he launched Uptown Records, secured distribution through MCA, and released Heavy D's Living Large album in 1987; it went gold. Not long afterward, Al B. Sure's In Effect Mode would be released next (distributed by Warner Brothers) and his first single "Nite and Day" would reach #1 on the Billboard R&B charts, and #7 on the Billboard Pop chart, making it a certified smash.

Teddy Riley had already been making a name for himself in the music industry – he'd produced Keith Sweat's chart-topping smash "I Want Her," and Heavy D's whole Living Large album. With Uptown Records, Teddy would finally get his chance to get onstage with his group, Guy. With producer Teddy Riley as the chief architect of its sound, Uptown Records was leading the way in urban music by the end of 1988.

Then 1989, Heavy D's Big Tyme album would go platinum, fueled by the hits "We Got Our Own Thang," and "Somebody For Me." Guy was even upstaging New Edition on their own Heart Break tour. The New Jack Swing musical genre was heating up, and established producers like Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis were definitely taking notice, adding the New Jack style to their remixes of New Edition cuts, and Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 album.

In late 1990, Guy returned with The Future, while Heavy D unleashed Peaceful Journey in 1991. Intern Sean "Puffy" Combs had arrived at the label at this time, and was helping to develop Uptown's newly signed acts, (Jodeci, Mary J. Blige) while crafting the look and sound of Father MC. Meanwhile, Andre Harrell was busy producing Strictly Business, a film which featured early appearances by Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson, and Tommy Davidson.

By the end of 1992, Guy had broken up (with Teddy leaving to form Blackstreet at Interscope), Al B. Sure! was experiencing less comercial success as a solo artist, and Heavy D's lighthearted style was being overtaken by gangsta rap. Sensing this however, Jodeci and Mary J. Blige (thanks to Puff?) had incorporated a harder edge to their sound, keeping in step with the changing times. Uptown had also signed artist Christopher Williams, whose "I'm Dreamin" from the New Jack City soundtrack was one of the biggest songs of 1991. Then came 1993.
By the spring of 1993, it was clear that Uptown was once again leading the way in urban music. In many ways as a matter of fact, it was the only record label that was putting out innovative R&B at the time, the suburban backlash of 1991 decimating the R&B rosters at the major labels. While the Who's The Man soundtrack wasn't exactly flying off the shelves, one song in particular made urban heads pay attention: "Party and Bullsh*t" by a new rapper by the name of B.I.G…

MTV (recognizing the impact of Jodeci and Mary J. Blige in particular) taped an Uptown Unplugged special, releasing the session on home video and on CD. It was the Unplugged special that launched Jodeci's cover of Stevie Wonder's "Lately" into a top ten hit on the Billboard Pop chart; the only Jodeci song ever to do so. The Uptown Unplugged special also featured performances by Father (who had dropped the MC at this point), Heavy D, and Christopher Williams.

Around 1994, Sean "Puffy" Combs was fired from Uptown by Andre Harrell. Tension existed between Uptown and its key acts Mary J. Blige and Jodeci because they were being enticed out of their contracts by Marion "Suge" Knight of Death Row Records. Without Puffy's keen vision, Uptown began to suffer, but not without releasing Mary J. Blige's My Life in 1994, and Soul For Real's Candy Rain in 1995.

By early 1996, Andre Harrell was offered the chance to revive Motown Records; he took it, but the label folded despite his leadership two years later. Not long afterwards, Uptown folded when Heavy D decided that running the company was not for him, choosing instead to pursue acting and performing. Looking back, it is clear that for Sean Combs, being fired by Uptown was one of the best things that could have ever happened to him; alternately – that may have been Uptown Records' biggest mistake.

In closing, it cannot be denied that between the years 1987 and 1991, Uptown Records was clearly the musical leader of the New Jack Swing Era. In the early 90s, Uptown Records evolved New Jack Swing into Hip-Hop/Soul, to be emulated by non-label artists such as SWV and R. Kelly. During its heyday, the Uptown sound was an innovation in urban music - period.

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