When I began researching the book that would become The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop, I returned to interview Cory Robbins, the co-founder of the legendary Profile Records, the man who signed Run-D.M.C⊠and the first person to give me a job doing A&R.
âCory,â I began, âwhen you promoted me to A&R coordinator, you called me into your office and gave me some advice. You said, âYou canât know whatâs going to be a hit. You can only know what you like.ââ
âThatâs true,â he said.
I then recounted my own mediocre career in A&Râfirst working for him and then for Rick Rubin at American Recordings.
âI liked everything I signed. So why did you have hits and I didnât?â
âWell,â he said, thinking for a moment. âI like hits.â
Looking back, I have no ambivalence about the artists I worked with, but rather regret about other missed opportunities. You know, like not signing House of Pain because I told Rick I thought âJump Aroundâ was their only truly great record. I was right, but at the same time, oh, so wrong. (Maybe Cory was right. Maybe I didnât really like hits.)
Still, I like to think Iâve made enough mistakes to have a real reverence for the A&R people in hip-hop who had the right instincts and really did it big. Iâve certainly thought a lot about why they were good at their job: an intuition about what makes music timeless coupled with a visceral sense of the moment. With that, Iâd like to present to you The 25 Greatest A&Rs in Hip-Hop History.
A few important notes before we begin.
What the hell is âA&Râ anyway? Itâs actually an old-timey music business term meaning âArtists & Repertoire,â a relic of a time when artists didnât write their own material and their ârecord menâ at the label had to pair them with songs and session musicians. In the hip-hop context, the âArtistsâ part means finding and signing talent to a label; The âRepertoireâ part means not only corralling producers and beats, but working with the act on musical and lyrical direction. Some A&R people excel at one of these aspects in particular. You can have great talent scouts who donât give much input on the finished product; and you have in-house A&R specialists who may not have signed the act but give crucial and timely artistic direction in the creation of an album. This list skews a bit towards the former.
Rankings. For this list, weâve selected folks based on a balance of the above-mentioned skills, and ranked them according to the quantity of successful artists theyâve signed, the quality of their signings, the longevity of their roster, and the endurance of their artistâs work. You will notice in this list a bias towards more established A&R people (a nice way of saying âolderâ). Thatâs because this is the âAll Timeâ list. Here, longevity and consistency trumps several years of hotness. There are also some R&B acts included in these proceedings if those R&B acts were significantly influenced by hip-hop and influenced hip-hop in return (for example, Mary J. Blige and TLC).
Who qualifies? Not every A&R person on this list has actually worked for a record company. Some were primarily artist managers, others were producers and DJs. But the rule of thumb here is that if they didnât hold an A&R title in some place at some time, or work on behalf of their own production company, then they have to manifest some useful service as a talent scout to people with signing power.
Teamwork. The real fact about most creative endeavorsâincluding A&Râis that it's a team effort. Rick Rubin, who signed and produced Def Jamâs first generation of classic artists, had a bunch of folks around him who brought him demos, cajoled him, and reinforced his instincts. And for every star A&R stafferâlike Kyambo "HipHop" Joshua at Roc-A-Fellaâthere's a guy who hipped him to the artist (No I.D., who brought him Kanye Westâs demo) and the guy who bet a small fortune and his reputation on him (Damon Dash). So who gets the credit? In this list, I give more emphasis to the highest person in the chain of decision makers who had substantial involvement in judgements of quality. Success has many authors. So, in cases where work is generally shared, the members of the A&R team will either split the billing or receive a secondary mention.
If this list were a bit longer. Thereâs little difference between the folks who made it onto this list and the ones who are bubbling just below it. So if this list were, perhaps, 10 longer, we might include folks like: Patrick Moxey, founder of Payday Records; Sha Money XL, president of G Unit and the guy who signed 2 Chainz and Big K.R.I.T to Def Jam; Matt Dike and Mike Ross, founders of Delicious Vinyl; Lenny S, another longtime Roc-A-Fella and Def Jam A&R exec; Eddie OâLaughlin, founder of Next Plateau Records; Wendy Day, founder of the Rap Coalition, who never worked for a label but matched artists to labels in landmark deals; Fred Munao, founder of Select Records; Mark Pitts, longtime Bad Boy and Arista alum; Steve Rifkind, founder of Loud Records; and Bryan Leach of TVT Records and Polo Grounds.
Dan Charnas is the author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop (New American Library/Penguin) and the co-author of Def Jam: The First 25 Years of the Last Great record Label (Rizzoli). He worked for Profile Records and Rick Rubinâs American Recordings. He currently serves as Big Payback Officer at ooVoo.
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