11 Things We Learned From Lyor Cohen on The Breakfast Club
11 Things We Learned From Lyor Cohen on ‘The Breakfast Club’
Source: Power 105 / Power 105
For the millennials that don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about the history of Hip-Hop music, Lyor Cohen is one of the few quadruple OG Hip-Hop executives in the game. And with 37 years into the game, he’s still going strong.
Today (Aug. 1) the founder of 300 Entertainment did an extremely rare radio interview when he dropped by The Breakfast Club and shared the wisdom he’s accumulated over the decades with the morning trio.
Talking with DJ Envy, Charlamagne Tha God and Angela Yee, Lyor Cohen gets into a bevy of subjects such as his early days at Def Jam, and what happened the day he took that infamous picture with Kanye West.
1. Rookie Year
When Lyor Cohen came to New York in 1983 his very first job was to take Run DMC on the road. Before that, he was working as a financial analyst at the National Bank of Israel. It wasn’t until he threw a show with The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Run-DMC amongst others that he made it on Russell Simmons radar and got an invite to Def Jam in NYC.
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Source: photo: WENN
2. Who’s House??
Lyor Cohen says he came up with the phrase “Who’s house? Runs house!” If you don’t believe him he says there’s actual footage of a Run DMC, LL Cool J and Beastie Boys rehearsal back in 1987 when he came up with it.
3. Label Practices
Lyor Cohen believes that labels who hand out million dollar deals to artists based off of one social media hit are going to be the end of Hip-Hop culture. He calls it “day-trading” and says that labels need to get back into artist development.
Source: photo: WENN
4. Drake
As far as the rumor that he had Drake in the bag when he was independent, Cohen confirms that Drake shook his hand in agreement to sign to Def Jam before he made his way to Cash Money Records. Cohen says he didn’t have his feelings hurt because “[Drake] didn’t stop the party.”
Source: Twitter/@kanyewest / Twitter/@kanyewest
6. Kanye West
Lyor Cohen says he “didn’t see the [MAGA] hat” that Kanye West had in that now infamous picture. He said he was lost in the moment of Kanye West having invited him to listen to some music and was too “honored to be there” to notice the tomfoolery. He said it wasn’t until people at the airport were shouting at him and his phone blew up with people asking about the hat that he noticed it.
Source: Power 105 / Power 105
7. Junkie Rappers
Lyor says that he’ll tell any rapper with a cup of lean that “they’re a junkie and they’re hooked on liquid heroin.” He feels like he has to because he doesn’t want to give up on people. Speaking of which, he says he put DMX up in Lake Pearl and that X would stay fishing on the dock for “hours and hours and hours.” That being said he says he’ll sign an artist with a problem because he’ll take “talent over issues.”
Source: Djamilla Rosa Cochran / Getty
8. Dame Dash
When Charlamagne brought up Dame Dash, Lyor replied with “Who’s Dame Dash? I don’t even know him…. I don’t know him. I really don’t.” Thanos must’ve erased the late 90’s and early 00’s when he snapped his fingers too. As for the rumors that he broke up Roc-A-Fella Records, he says to ask Jay, Dame, and Biggs about that.
Source: WENN / WENN
9. Public Enemy
Lyor remembers that every Jewish executive he knew told him to drop Public Enemy and not work with them. In turn, he took Chuck D to the Holocaust Museum.
