Past Talent

Russell Simmons

Russell Simmons pioneered a culture that defined a generation and gave mainstream America a sound it could not ignore.

Russell Simmons didn’t invent rap, but he is, perhaps more than any other individual, responsible for the music’s astonishing success. As a young man, he heard a thriving, vibrant music in battered ghettos and solid middle class black neighborhoods like his own and turned it up loud enough to blast suburban multiplexes and small-town burger joints. If Simmons hadn’t mainstreamed rap, someone else certainly would have – the music was too potent, to smoke without ever catching fire. The point is that Simmons lit the match.

Often deemed by the media as the “impresario” and “mogul” of rap, Simmons began as a fledgling promoter of a new breed of street music, and today is at the helm of a multimillion-dollar entertainment company complete with its own film and television division-which is the largest black owned music business in the United States.

Simmons grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, and as a youth was himself involved with a street gang. It was while he was enrolled in the mid-1970s at the Harlem branch of City College of New York studying sociology that he became aware of rap music and its appeal to young inner-city blacks. He saw rappers as they would converge in parks and on street corners, and then take turns singing rap songs to gathering crowds.

Since its inception, Russell Simmons has been instrumental in bringing Hip-Hop to every facet of business and media: in music with the immensely successful Def Jam Recordings; in film with Simmons Lathan Media Group; in television with HBO’s “The Def Comedy Jam” and “Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry”; on Broadway with the critically-acclaimed stage production “Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway”; in the fashion industry with the red-hot Phat Farm and Baby Phat clothing lines; in magazine publishing with “OneWorld” Magazine; in the financial services industry with the RushCard; in the beverage business with Russell Simmons Beverage Company and its Def Con 3 energy drink; and in the community with Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation and the Hip Hop Summit Action Network.

In 1995 he, along with his brothers Danny and Joseph Simmons (Rev. Run of Run DMC), founded Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation. The organization is dedicated to providing disadvantaged urban youth with significant exposure and access to the arts, as well as offering exhibition opportunities to underrepresented artists and artists of color.

Following the historic Hip Hop Summit Russell organized in June 2001, he founded the Hip Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) to harness the cultural relevance of hip-hop music as a catalyst for education advocacy and other societal concerns fundamental to the well-being of at-risk youth throughout the United States.

Russell and his wife Kimora Lee have two daughters, Ming Lee and Aoki Lee.