Talib Kweli So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you’re talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent. – Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli People consider Black Star a great album, and I think it’s a classic album. But the fact is, both me and Mos Def have made better albums since Black Star. – Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli I met Mos Def around that time but I didn’t hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18. – Talib Kweli
Saffron Burrows I play the guitar. This year at the Sundance film festival, I joined the band from ‘The Guitar’ on stage. We warmed up for Patti Smith, and then the director Michel Gondry got on the drums to play some songs from the soundtrack to his film Be Kind Rewind with Mos Def. It was pretty mad. – Saffron Burrows
Rza When Def Jam wanted to sign Method Man, they wanted to sign Method Man and Old Dirty. And Old Dirty wanted to be on Def Jam – everybody, that was like the dream label. But if I had Old Dirty and Method Man on Def Jam, that’s two key pieces going in the same direction, whereas there’s other labels that needed to be infiltrated. – Rza
Ryan Phillippe Look at music: I’ve always loved hiphop and rap, and now there’s this whole progressive movement, with De La Soul and Mos Def, Common. It’s some of the best stuff around. – Ryan Phillippe
Rico Love AC/DC, Def Leppard, Alice Cooper – I learned stories of all these guys. That’s when I fell in love with Queen, which is one of my favorite bands of all time… I started paying attention to what made music good. I started paying attention to why I liked it. – Rico Love
Rick Ross When I first came to Def Jam, in ’06, all we ever did was win, put up big numbers. – Rick Ross
Rick Rubin I’ve always been an outsider. When I did magic, I was the only kid. When I worked with Johnny Cash, I was completely out of place in Nashville. And when I started Def Jam, I was the only white guy in the hip-hop world. – Rick Rubin
Rick Allen But the irony is that because the band isn’t the focus any more, it allows me the chance to enjoy being a member of Def Leppard much more. – Rick Allen
Redman When I appeared in EPMD’s ‘Hardcore’ song and video that was just crazy. Def Jam had these little virals back then on VHS tape. Q-Tip was another very important person to my career. He had me in A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Scenario’ video when I was first coming out. – Redman
