This is an ongoing series taking a look at the Rawkus Records catalog year by year.

You know Rupert Murdoch? The guy who founded FOX? Well, Rupert's oldest son James co-founded Rawkus Records with two of his Horace Man prep schoolmates.

Myer and Brater were the faces; street-savvy kids who could clearly straddle the urban and corporate worlds comfortably. Murdoch certainly attempted to: he had tattoos (one of a lightbulb on his right arm), pierced ears and eyebrow, dyed hair, a goatee, and a poster of Chairman Mao on his wall in New York – perhaps an attempt to meet any political conversations head-on. He dabbled with cartoons, inking Albrecht the Hun for the satirical magazine Harvard Lampoon, concerning a Hun who doesn't enjoy the raping and pillaging his people indulge in: a psychologist could have a field day. The ease with which he later segued into blue-chip life shows that he perhaps wouldn't have been at home gladhanding grumpy rappers.

News Corp would invest directly into Rawkus sparking its first run of major releases. It's kind of nuts to think of the Murdoch Family backing Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and Pharoahe Monch, but that's who wrote the checks.

1997

Funcrusher was an 8 track EP that Company Flow released independently in 1995 that moved a surprising amount of units. After a bidding war, Company Flow landed on Rawkus Records where they dropped Funcrusher Plus which is Funcrusher... plus 11 more songs. It's the debut LP for El-P. Stone cold classic.

EL-P: When the Rawkus thing happened, Rawkus didn’t have any real identity. Rawkus had been putting records out, they had tried some rock records, they had tried some dance records, they tried a couple of hip hop records.

We went with Rawkus, because Rawkus was willing to give us the type of deal that we wanted. In our minds, we had cracked the code, we had found out how to get money while doing the music we wanted to do and not kissing anyone’s ass, and not having to deal with anyone and not having to f***ing play the game. At the time that was a little bit unheard of. There wasn’t really an independent hip hop label, really. Like, no new breed, you had your old school ones and s***, but they were based on a major label model. So, we were probably one of the first groups in indie hip hop to be like, “Alright, we’re gonna do a 50/50 split, we gonna own the masters, or f*** off.” And Rawkus were the ones that, when we held our terms up, they were still there.

Soundbombing is the first of many Rawkus compilations showcasing a whole community of talent. It's a mixtape comprised of various singles Rawkus put out from the likes of Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and RA The Rugged Man. Even Kool Keith stops by.

DJ Evil Dee: Well I was on Hot 97 at the time and Rawkus Records was one of the labels that I played on my show because I like what they were doing, and what happened was my boy introduced me to Jarred from Rawkus. Me and him started talking and he said he wanted to do a mixtape with me for a convention that was coming up. They wanted to make a sample tape of the stuff that's coming out on the label. So we went into D&D. I brought my 4-track up to D&D and we made a mixtape, a regular New York street mixtape for Rawkus records. Jarred listened to it and liked it so much that he decided to sell it. The tape was “Soundbombing 1.” The reason that tape is cool is because it wasn't made to be sold. It was made for people to hear what was coming out of Rawkus. I didn't make that tape from a sales point of view because I didn't know it was gonna be sold. Had I known it was gonna be sold, I wouldn't have spoke on it really.

El p was a mad man. a genius behind the boards.
Was.

Great thread, love to see it

Was thinkimg of doing a similar retrospective on G-Unit Records 2002-2010, actually.

Classic album

kids these days don’t know about the 8 steps to perfection

are you gonna update this thread
i wanna keep up with your report
how do i follow threads on here?

I always thought the Murdoch connection was lowkey an indictment on El P in particular with how he presented himself as so independent

Original chance the rapper vibes and no one really ever mentions it

When that other no flow having rapper Sole brought that s*** up in a diss I thought it was a heavy shot at his credibility. People say El P won after that but not convinced those aren’t all fox bots

Dope thread though very interesting history

lmfao sole

lol everything about rawkus records reminds me of being 14 and feeding myself an insane an amount of hip hop content everyday

sign to rawkus?

Just realised that's meant to be Em in the bottom row with the green cap lmao

1998

Lyricist Lounge, Volume One is Rawkus capitalizing on the phenomenon of the Lyricist Lounge which was a small venue Danny Castro and Anthony Marshall founded. It was basically their hip-hop version of Studio 54 with a battle atmosphere. It was a wildly diverse spot with plenty of female representation. Marshall says they went with Rawkus because they had Murdoch money. They were moving the scene because they had resources. Later, Lyricist Lounge would become a variety show on MTV.

DANNY CASTRO: The first album came about because at the time we had an office over at the New Yorker Hotel on 34th Street and 8th Avenue and right next door John Forte had a studio. He used to come to the Lyricist Lounge. Even before that we met up with Marc Ecko and he was a big fan of what we were doing and he asked us to executive produce these promotional mixtapes he was giving away with every t-shirt he sold. So we did the mixtapes called Underground Airplay and being that John used to come and was familiar with the mixtapes, he told us about this new label called Rawkus.

Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star is the album we've been building towards talking about. The music speaks for itself. As for background, the interview below with Talib is all you need.

Mos was a fancy lad with an acting career who would frequent Washington Square Park and spots like the Lyricist Lounge. He was the only guy with money and would buy dudes Big Macs. Rawkus approached all of these guys in 95 or 96. Once Rawkus got the Murdoch money, they could actually get them to the table. Kweli was already in Reflection Eternal. Mos Def was already in Urban Thermo Dynamics and Medina Green with his brother DCQ. Rawkus were the ones who wanted to hitch Kweli to Mos. The rest is history.

@young_frank @Bad_Finger_Boogie @WRU @Crossroader @proper @2words @He_who_Slaps_Butt @sentient_sherm_bag @Notmyfirst @KodakSpice

That first lyricist lounge

Body rock

rock!

whoa had no idea mos was already acting before he was in blackstar always thought he started after his rapping career

Peep the interview. It sounds like rap was kind of Mos' side hustle cause acting was paying his bills until Rawkus came along.

Incredible sophomore year