As Paul Rosenberg Departs, Def Jam Has A Drill Dilemma

Late last week, Billboard broke the news that Paul Rosenberg would be stepping down as Chairman/CEO for Def Jam Recordings. The longtime Eminem manager and Shady Records lead had held the seniormost role at the historic label for nearly 26 months, having first assumed the position at the start of 2018. 

In response to the story, Def Jam confirmed Rosenberg’s imminent departure and clarified that the outgoing executive would be spearheading a new boutique imprint called Goliath Records underneath the same Universal Music Group parent company. A presumptive narrative behind his exit quickly congealed, centered around the straightforward idea that, with three Eminem albums released in just the past two years, he simply could not continue running the label while his biggest non-Def Jam client was in the midst of a tremendous commercial comeback.

Yet the convenient logic behind that explanation can’t whitewash over Rosenberg’s relatively unremarkable tenure. He admirably sought to reframe Def Jam as a home for rappers again in a deliberate shift from his predecessor Steve Bartels, whose diversification strategy brought Canadian pop artists like Justin Bieber and Alessia Cara under the label’s umbrella. 

But after a signing boom that didn’t produce new rap stars, and just four Billboard 200 chart-topping rap albums (all from Logic and Kanye West) in a time when streaming and bundles sent so many other major label rappers to No. 1, the Rosenberg Def Jam experiment appears very much to have underwhelmed and underperformed, so much so that it may have imperiled the label’s future. According to Variety sources, the inconveniently leaked news of his vacating the job put UMG in damage control mode internally as well as externally. The Billboard story hit on a Friday and prompted an all-hands meeting the following Monday to reassure the imprint’s employees, no doubt rightfully concerned given a round of layoffs there just three months prior. 

Among the faults one could find with Rosenberg’s short tenure at Def Jam is the failure to capitalize upon the Brooklyn drill movement happening in his proverbial backyard. While I’ll give him and his A&R team the benefit of the doubt that they at least attempted to lock in some of the thriving scene’s up-and-comers, those presumed efforts didn’t pan out. 22Gz signed with Atlantic Records, a Warner imprint, while Fivio Foreign went to the Sony-owned Columbia Records. Sheff G and his cohort Sleepy Hallow made arrangements with EMPIRE. And while Rosenberg’s Def Jam missed out on key new drill signings, parent UMG had Pop Smoke (R.I.P.) at Republic and currently has the aforementioned Smoove’L on Interscope.

Def Jam’s history with drill has been historically fraught, as any Lil Durk fan can attest. After a complicated five-year relationship during which the label purportedly tried to make him go pop, the Chicagoan and his Only The Family made an exit of his own, partially citing the Rosenberg regime change for the move. And then of course there’s Lil Reese, who signed with the label but never got to release anything there.

Given the kinds of hip-hop artists Shady Records took on over the years, from 50 Cent to Slaughterhouse to Griselda, Brooklyn drill might simply not have been a priority for Rosenberg. Alternatively, trap and SoundCloud rap’s respective commercial shifts toward becoming the reliable sounds of the mainstream charts may have kept attention there. Perhaps the aggressive NYPD opposition to the city’s drill talents, most publicly manifested in a Rolling Loud concert ban, made the proposition less appealing.

Whatever the reason or confluence of contributing factors, Def Jam lacking a foothold in Brooklyn drill does the long-running label a disservice. One hopes that in the post-Rosenberg period there will be some rectification of that situation, which is far preferable to a legendary label’s reckoning.