I Need a Beat: 40 Years of Def Jam Recordings
Forty years ago, Def Jam Recordings was founded in a dorm room on NYU’s campus. That bit of college student ambition would send shockwaves through music history which are still being felt and still coming to shore. It would help usher hip-hop from an underground NYC music to the dominant form of pop music across the globe.To celebrate the label’s anniversary, VMP has partnered with DJR on I Need a Beat: 40 Years of Def Jam Recordings, a 5-album, 9-LP box set that tells slivers of the Def Jam Recordings story, providing snapshots of the label as it went from dorm room to boardroom to nearly every room on earth.Strictly limited to 750 units, it will never be repressed. Own this piece of Def Jam Recording History now. |
Orders are expected to ship in June 2025. Timeline is subject to change. We will notify you of any shipping updates.
A story told through five albums, featuring rappers who contributed to the Def Jam Recordings story in ways small and big.
The goal with this box was not to try to capture the full scope of Def Jam Recordings 40 years; hip-hop has evolved something like ten times during the label’s lifetime. Instead, we wanted to focus on albums that captured snapshots of the label through its upheavals, high points, and transitions. It covers the label’s emergence from its NYC-centric boom-bap heyday with some of its earliest stars (EPMD and Public Enemy). It continues with the label turning its eyes southward (Scarface) while launching the best New York rapper of this century (Cam’ron), ending with the label’s best young MC on top of his game (Vince Staples).
Mic Check…
VMP Anthology goes beyond the five albums included in your box. Alongside your box and the albums within it, we provide in-depth, original Listening Notes. Featuring an introduction by Jeff Weiss and contributions from Jaelani Turner-Williams, Michael Penn II, and Dylan Green, the booklet will serve as a guide through these albums. VMP Anthology isn’t just a box set that’s supposed to gather dust on your shelves — it’s an immersive and transformative story that comes alive for you to spend weeks (or longer!) inside of. We can’t wait for you to dive deeper into Def Jam Recordings’ history and the albums in this box.
Business As Usual (1990)
Apocalypse 91...The Enemy Strikes Black (1991)
Come Home With Me (2002)
The Fix (2002)
Big Fish Theory (2017)
What's Included
How Was The Audio Sourced?
Lacquers for all of the albums were cut from the highest quality digital sources available by Cicely Balston at Alchemy Mastering.
Listening Notes
Get the full story of Def Jam Recordings through our Listening Notes booklet. The booklet found in your box covers the story of Def Jam Recordings from its inception to its modern era via a roster of four music writers.
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I Need a Beat: 40 Years of Def Jam Recordings
Def Jam Recordings
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