Russell Simmons

American entrepreneur who co-founded Def Jam Records with Rick Rubin — building the most important hip-hop label of the 1980s — and later expanded into Phat Farm clothing, Rush Communications, and other ventures, making him the prototype of the hip-hop entrepreneur.

Co-built Def Jam as the first major hip-hop record label — establishing the commercial infrastructure for hip-hop as a business — and then demonstrated that hip-hop could be the foundation for a broader brand empire, pioneering the artist-as-entrepreneur model that Jay-Z, Diddy, and others later scaled.