Jay-Zs Def Jam Presidency
By: Matthew Spence
The mid-2000s was a wild card of an era for Jay, to say the least. From retiring from music but still giving features, then releases to 2 more alums after his supposed final album, which includes dropping the beloved “Black Album” to dropping 2006s Kingdom Come to mixed polarizing reviews. But, in 2004, Sir Shawn Carter reached a milestone in his career at this point. He was named President & CEO of Def Jam Records, which is the Alpha & Omega of record labels in hip-hop. With this being set in stone, a freshly “retired” Jay-Z has officially established a boss/hustler persona and definitely added to his legacy and his greatness.
With Jay giving this “big boss” in his music, it was time to put his money where his mouth is and head the biggest and important and hip hop history (which is also the label he is currently under at this time) But as he took that job behind the desk, then the rocky presidency began. Under Jay’s presidency, many artists have had their issues with Jay behind the desk. DMX, a couple of years after Jay’s presidency, stated that he lost respect for him once he became president of Def Jam: ”I f*cks with him and had respect for him — until he became the president of Def Jam and I ain’t gonna say too much more about it”…. “Don’t misunderstand me. He is talented but he has no heart behind it. There’s no soul behind it. It’s motivated by money…But I still maintain the respect, because our birthday is in the same month and you know, we have history. But I lost it when he became president of Def Jam, that’s why I left Def Jam”.
Hip-Hop legend LL Cool made his issues with Jay-Z and Def Jam publicly with an interview on MTV in 2007: “Things are not all rosy up there [at Def Jam]. Too many [artists] have suffered: Method Man, Redman, the Roots, Fabolous, Ludacris! The list goes on. Nobody is getting promoted the way they should be promoted…” To LL’s point, a lot of the Def Jam artists didn’t go platinum under Jay’s term. Which many factors may have come into play such as the increase of music piracy and decrease of music sales in the mid-00s. A New York Times piece from 2007 describing the decline in music sales (in particular hip-hop record sales) and stated: “Rap sales fell 21 percent from 2005 to 2006…”. Slim to none Def Jam artists did well, some of the exceptions are Rihanna, Ne-Yo, (A major pro of Jays presidency is that he launched Rihanna & Ne-Yo’s career), Kanye, and Jeezy (Fabolous went Gold). Some artists got pushed back and so on, while, some left the label such as DMX (who had signed in 1997 and left in 2006).
With all that happening it isn’t a good look for Jay when he released two albums while being President and was able to give more promotion for his projects than his artist (which includes former rival Nas, some may say that might be a subliminal payback). But, Jays term only lasted 3 years from (2004–2007) in which he didn’t renew his contract; Did he feel that he wasn’t fit? Did he just want to move on? Who’s to say. That’s left up to interpretation and the only people who know are Jay and those around him at that time. But one thing is for certain, whether you believe Jay did a good job as Def Jam President or not, you can’t knock his hustle (PUN INTENDED), and overall Jay does what’s good for business, cause remember he’s not a businessman, HE’S A BUSINESSMAN.
