Exactly eighteen years ago on this date, the word DEF was officially laid to rest. It was that day when Rick Rubin - who initially was a part of Def Jam but later broke away and set up his own Def American Records label, which in turn morphed into American Records -- supposedly officially layed the dated hip-hop slang word to rest. This he did via an extravagant funeral service and even went so far as to get a legal death certificate, buy a real life size casket, secure a plot at the Hollywood Cemetery (which is still there to this day), and hold a faux solemn, funeral ceremony with Rev Al Sharpton acting as officiator.

Rap music industry vet and author Dan Charnas worked for Rick Rubin at Def American's headquarters in LA at the time and in his recently published book, The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop, he dedicates some space to the topic of the death of "def." This week I caught up with Charnas via phone from his New York home office to ask him about this date back in 1993 when the word "def" was laid to rest.  Charnas, who had already been working a couple of years for the brilliant (but oft quirky) Rubin, recalled how, back as early as 1991, his boss had told him, "Eventually I am going to change the name of Def American to just American. And eventually I am going to bury it. I am going to have a funeral." Charnas said that then Rubin asked with a laugh, "And then what's Russell gonna do?"  Charnas recalled of Rubin, "It struck his Bud Abbott-esque need to prank Russell [Simmons of Def Jam]," and that the death of def was combined with other factors. "It was the fact that he wanted a divorce from his past. The fact that there was some consumer confusion. The fact that he could prank Russell a little. The fact that the word was very much out of style," said Charnas. "So he wanted to do a grand piece of performance art."

While recently digging in my hip-hop archives (circa 2000) I found the offbeat advertising picture (left) of Rudy Giuliani from the long defunct, short-lived but most promising Russell Simmons' website 360hiphop.com. The image, which was used as one of the advertising shots by the website, whose offices were on 10th Avenue in New York City, was a deliberately unflattering one of Giuliani. Released in 2000, it was long before Rudy would even think of running for president and when he was still mayor of New York City. It would still be over a year until 9/11, when Guilianni, long despised by many New Yorkers who perceived his clean-up tactics as facist-like, would redeem himself with the leadership qualities he displayed in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

The print ads, which were also stickers (one in a series of "I Am Not Hip-Hop"), were overseen by Russell Simmons whose website never really got off the ground despite an amazing amount of research work and online postings that its hardworking staff of about 100 passionate hip-hop heads put in -- not to mention the fact that it had gotten major investments dollars from both SONY and Universal and was later snapped up by BET. At the time, the hip-hop mogul & Def Jam mainman told New York Magazine that "Hip-hop people wouldn't lock up homeless people. They believe in freedom of expression. They're compassionate. They talk about education," in  a direct dig at Giuliani's mayoral tactics, adding that Giuliani should react in a positive way to the ad campaign. "He should be happy about it. He should look at this and think, 'Great! I'm not hip-hop.' "