Russell Simmons

Real Name: Russell Wendall Simmons
D.O.B.: October 4th, 1957 Jamaica Queens, New York

Label: Def Jam Recordings (Co-Founder)

"You can't understand the journey of this culture until you take the measure of this man." - Nelson George

Russell Simmons is the widely acclaimed "Boss of Hip-Hop", the Godfather of hip-hop business. He is a highly successful entrepreneur. Simmons is the co-founder and former owner of the biggest label in hip-hop, Def Jam Recordings, of which generated the careers of the legendary talents of Run DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, DMX, Jay-Z and a line-up to rival Motown. Outside of records, Simmons' multi-million dollar empire includes, Rush Communications which includes Rush Artistic Management company, Phat Farm clothing label, a movie production house, television shows, a magazine, an advertising agency and the fragrance label Atman.

Simmons sold his stake in the record company for $100 million to Universal Music Group in 1999 and Phat Farm label to the Kellwood Company for $140 million dollars and is now run by his now ex-wife Kimora Lee. The up and coming component of Rush Communications is the sneaker company Run Athletics, a company that produces the Legacy and Arthur Ashe shoes. Russell Simmons is the third richest hip-hop entrepreneur, having a net-worth estimate of $340 million, behind Jay-Z ($547M) and Sean Combs ($358M). Two guys who grew up modelling their own careers off of Russell's. The man has built hip-hop into one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world today.

Russell saw the music as not solely the essence of the hip-hop culture but another by-product parallel to clothes, graffiti and dance. He felt that the dress and overall appearance of hip-hop was perhaps the fifth element. Unlike the Bronx movement whose holy trinity considered the music always a devotional element and heart of the culture. The dress code was the by-product. The business-minded Simmons reaped the profits of these by-products in the coming years of hip-hop and became the foundation of an empire.

The Beginning

Born in 1957, Russell grew up parallel to the emergent hip-hop culture. Until 1965 he grew up in Jamaica, Queens before the family moved to a more affluent area of Hollis, Queens situated between Jamaica and Queens Village. The area was regarded as a middle-class and aspirational. His mother and father were both highly-educated and fully-employed school teachers. Daniel Simmons Sr. was a poetry teacher and public school attendance supervisor who later became a professor of black history at Pace University in Manhattan. His mother, Evelyn was a pre-school teacher back in Jamaica, Queens. The parents met at Howard University where they both attended. Daniel earned a bachelor degree in history and Evelyn, sociology and psychology. Russell's older brother Daniel Jr. lived in the family home's attic where Russell shared a room with younger brother Joseph, who later became the founder of the legendary Run DMC trio. Family life was very wholesome, loving and religious. The father taught black history and civil rights to his sons, Daniel Jr. would become a member of the Black Panther movement, much to his father's delight. Both parents maintained high expectations on education.

Russell attended integrated public schools in the area in search of a better education than that of local community schools. He kept in close contact with friends from the basketball courts in Hollis. It was here where Russell forged relations with gang members from the Queens chapter of the Seven Immortals, linked to the bigger & bad Bronx gangs. He ran with them through his teens, The Queens crew were more of a symbolic gang, never held any real ground or fought with serious violence, but did command respect around the way. By tenth grade, Russell earned the status-title of "Warlord" despite never being considered a street-fighter, this was attained merely through general popularity. Russell would regularly travel up into Harlem, drawn in to the spirit of creative black culture and modern music. It was an historical borough of black culture, unlike the quiet multicultural suburban world of Queens, New York. His dress code was dictated by new fashion, looking fly. Hard to earn the money for the fly lifestyle, Russell wanted to wear the three striped Pro-Ked sneakers and the A.J. Lester clothing label. The quickest and easiest way for an aspiring teenager was to deal dope at the bottom street-level.

Russell Simmons neighbourhood which was beginning to show signs of deterioration. "Our neighbourhood was ruined by drugs. My corner in Hollis, on 205th Street, was the drug trading capital of Queens." Ironically, Russell's first attempt at entrepreneurship would be selling marijuana on that same corner. His older brother Daniel was suffering through heroin addiction, Russell witnessed first-hand the horrors of drugs and steered clear from hard-classed drugs, preferring marijuana and angel-dust. He became embroiled in a robbery of his stash and attempted to shoot the assailant, but missed. he later moved his way out to sucker-selling fake cocaine to unsuspecting chumps. He made the product from crushed coca-leaf incense.
He fronted his hustle by working at a local Juice store in Greenwich Village. Russell was arrested and locked up only for the one incident of smoking marijuana outside a public library on Jamaica Avenue. Here Russell realised there were less dangerous ways to earn a living. "I was very lucky not to have had the same fate as most of my friends. My friends ended up in jail or dead. There came a time in my life where I saw, maybe, a bit of a different route. I think luck played a big part in my survival."