The VH1 Hip-Honors returned for the sixth year to honor Def Jam records. The annual Hip-Hop awards show spotlighted the founders of what was once the most important label in Hip-Hop; launching the careers of LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, DMX, Redman, Ludacris and even non Hip-Hop acts like Slayer, Ne-Yo and Rihanna.
.jpg?1255556490)
Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons started the label inside a dorm room at NYU. Russell was the businessman, already managing artists like Kurtis Blow, while Rick was the musician working with artists like T La Rock. Later others would join the Def Jam staff like publicist Bill Adler and future Def Jam President, Lyor Cohen. The awards show also spotlighted later members of the Def Jam executive staff including Bill Stephney, LA Reid, Julie Greenwald and the dude that wrote songs for Milli-Vanilli.
.jpg?1255557040)
The format of the show has not changed much over the years. Tracy Morgan continues to do a good job as host while combining comedy bits and characters in to the show. In addition to Morgan; Chris Rock, Brett Ratner (yes the Rush Hour guy), Jimmy Fallon and Anthony Anderson also presented. The Roots served as the house band for much of the show while Ed Lover handled the off air DJ'ing and DJ Jazzy Jeff dj'd for several of the acts.
The interview segments (shot in black and white) included staffers and former Def Jam artists like the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J who told the story of his signing to Def Jam. The most interesting segments included co-founders Rubin and Simmons who talked about some of the seminal moments in the history of the label.
One footnote to the history of Def Jam Records, is that most of Def Jam's biggest acts have long since left the label, including most recently the bedrock of Def Jam, LL Cool J. Def Jam’s first full length album release was LL’s “Radio” in 1985 and James Todd Smith stayed on the label for the next 23 years.
The show as a whole was just ok, it was more odd than exciting. The last ten minutes of the show appeared to be a Lightning Round where they packed most of the remaining artists in to one verse blocks, which made Ja Rule and Ashanti’s two song performance seem excessive by comparison.
The most surprising part of the show was not who performed, but who did not. Where was Slick Rick, Young Jeezy, 3rd Bass (MC Serch was there) or Jadakiss. Also missing was pretty much the entire Carter Administration; No Jay-Z, Nas, Kanye, Rhianna or any of the Roc-A-Fella or Dipset artists.
Head to page two for photos and highlights of the performances from the 2009 VH1 Hip-Hop Honors.
