Formed in the New York University dormitory room of punk-turned-hip-hop-DJ Rick Rubin in 1984, Def Jam Recordings has grown to become one of the most iconic record labels on the face of the planet. Rubin and his original partner Russell Simmons have been responsible for releasing some of the most important and influential hip-hop and R&B records ever, moving the needle and helping to grow the genre from the underground street movement it was in the early '80s into the cultural behemoth that it is today. Def Jam also signed Slayer and released Reign in Blood, but that record, masterpiece though it is, is an outlier in their discography, and not one of the five essential albums which tell the story of Def Jam’s evolution.
