Back in the mid-to-late 90s, hip-hop music was abuzz with spiky independent labels putting out material that most majors wouldn't touch or didn't get. Chief among these was Rawkus Records, founded by Brown University graduates Brian Brater and Jarret Myer . . . oh, and their friend James Murdoch.
When I used to travel to New York to visit Rawkus's office, you wouldn't have known Murdoch was involved, so hands-off was he. As contributing editor to British magazine Hip-Hop Connection, I'd walk in to interview actor/musician Mos Def, or the innovative Company Flow, and brush shoulders with graffiti artists and DJs on my way through reception. I remember Myer and Brater excitedly telling me about a hot new rapper guesting on a record – a pre-fame Eminem.
Looking back, Murdoch's behind-the-scenes involvement makes sense: someone had to pay for the prime Manhattan real estate, the staff, the promotion and the artist advances. After all, the record sales weren't doing it.
Myer and Brater were the faces; street-savvy kids who could clearly straddle the urban and corporate worlds comfortably. Murdoch certainly attempted to: he had tattoos (one of a lightbulb on his right arm), pierced ears and eyebrow, dyed hair, a goatee, and a poster of Chairman Mao on his wall in New York – perhaps an attempt to meet any political conversations head-on. He dabbled with cartoons, inking Albrecht the Hun for the satirical magazine Harvard Lampoon, concerning a Hun who doesn't enjoy the raping and pillaging his people indulge in: a psychologist could have a field day. The ease with which he later segued into blue-chip life shows that he perhaps wouldn't have been at home gladhanding grumpy rappers.
News Corporation bought a majority share in Rawkus in 1996. By then, it was seen as a label in mini-crisis: artists complaining about unpaid royalties and lack of support; staff fired just before Christmas. The label limped on, was sold, folded, and re-emerged in the noughties. But Murdoch had already moved on to life in the corporate firmament. How's that working out for you, James?