Hive Five: Tales From the Def Jam Frontline [Words by Phillip Mlynar]

The birth of Def Jam records is one of hip-hop’s most cherished tales: Run out of a ramshackle New York University dormitory by Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons, the label’s first wave of releases by artists like T La Rock, the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J defined an a good portion of ’80s hip-hop. A quarter of a century later, the label still exists; though corporate ownership might have changed hands, this year’s biggest rap record, Jay-Z and Kanye West‘s Watch the Throne, is still stamped with the Def Jam logo.

Appointed the label’s first director of publicity in 1983, Bill Adler saw Def Jam’s growth from the front-lines. Now he’s co-authored an oral history of the label, Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years Of The Last Great Record Label (out this week) in tandem with one-time industry A&R guy Dan Charnas. So what sticks out? Adler recalls for us his five fondest moments from the label’s formative years. [MTVHive]

Carve Jay-Z, Kanye West, Azealia Banks, Danny Brown and Action Bronson Pumpkins (via @MTVHive)

This Halloween, step up your pumpkin game with Hive’s exclusive hip-hop pumpkin stencils. It’s easy and a fun way to give your porch some street cred during the scary season. Tweet us @mtvhive your finished products and we’ll pick our favorites and send you some Hive swag. Simple enough, right? Follow these simple five steps and you’ll be the talk of your neighborhood.

1. Print out your favorite artist. Choose from Jay-Z, Kanye West, Azealia Banks, Danny Brown and Action Bronson.

2. Carefully cut out the white parts.

3. Place over pumpkin and using a Sharpie, draw the stencil onto your pumpkin.

4.Carve out the black-stenciled parts of your pumpkin.

5. Don’t forget a candle!

Illustrations by @SheaSerrano

Download Action Bronson x ‘A Christmas Story’ Wallpaper (via @MTVHive)

If there is a surefire way to trigger the warm rush of holiday nostalgia, A Christmas Story might be it. From Ralphie’s fateful visit with an overbearing Santa to the arrival of his father’s fra-gi-le lamp, every scene sticks out like a little boy in a pink bunny-eared onesie. This year, Hive decided to insert some of our favorite musicians into the films’s most iconic scenes for a collection of digital wallpapers and limited-edition postcards. For this first installment (of 6!), we find Queens rapper Action Bronson with his tongue stuck to that fateful flagpole.

Illustrations by @SheaSerrano

The Five Best Donald Byrd Samples in Hip-Hop (via @MTVHive)

The music world lost a great earlier this week when 80-year-old jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd passed due to unspecified causes. Byrd’s talented jazz chops saw him craft a career that included acclaimed work with genre greats John Coltrane, Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk, but it was his late-’60s and ’70s recordings for Blue Note that endeared him to a new generation of musicians with hip-hop producers finding his increasingly funky grooves irresistible sample sources. (Byrd seemed to appreciate the rap world’s endeavors, and appeared on the first of Guru’s Jazzmatazz albums in 1993.) Here’s hip-hop’s five most effective samples of Donald Byrd’s music. [Read More…]

Words by @PhilipMlynar