Def Jam 25: ?uestlove Talks The Roots Joining Forces With Def Jam & Jay-Z

(From BET.com)
Judging by ?uestlove’s commentary, Young H.O. is a man of his word….For anyone that’s been hiding under a rock for the last 3 months, Def Jam is celebrating 25 years of hip-hop excellence (I don’t know if all 25 years were excellent, but a majority of them were, lol).

Ooops, I forgot to mention that XXL’s November issue is paying homage to Def Jam’s 25 years of building hip-hop to what it is today (that’s the point of this post).

And since it’s that time of the month (XXL Magazine secret newsstand bootlegging time), protocol’s entails that I scour through 130 pages of fresh content for the most interesting tidbit.

The XXL staff did an extraordinary job in wrangling some of DJ’s most prominent personnel and gutting them of their favorite memories.

From Rick Ross’ first album release party at Club Mansion in Miami to Scarface putting his mother on the phone with LL Cool J at his signing party at Time Hotel in NYC, DJ had some awesome times.

Today’s DJ 25 memory belongs to The Roots’, ?uestlove. ?uest sat down with Rob Markman or Bonsu Thompson (one of the two did it, it doesn’t say tho) and disclosed the day Hova revealed to him that a Def Jam Records takeover was in the works and their “convenience” would be returned to them in a timely fashion.

?uestlove on The Roots signing to Def Jam with Jay-Z’s help…

“The Fade To Black taping was a two-week period. We did two dummy shows with Jay-Z up in Boston before we did the MSG show, practicing. Me and Jay were choppin’ it up, and I kinda told him that it was frustrating being on Interscope, because we’re used to the label being in proximity of Philadelphia. He says, “Okay, I’ll see what I can do about the situation.” I say, “What do you mean?” He’s like, “Can I trust you? I’m about to make a move”. I say, “How long is this gonna be?” He said, “It’s gonna take a second.” Then it just became a back and forth. We had one more album left on our Interscope contract, and we had an option to extend it for an additional four album. This was November 2003. Jay-Z basically said, “Hold off on that. I’m going to get your convinence back.” I guess he was saying he was about to takeover the label.”