UMG Finally Obtains Def Jam

Universal Music Group has completed the process of assembling the record industry's| largest music conglomerate by finally closing their deal to buy Def Jam Records.

Def Jam had been holding out, demanding the hefty sum of $100 million for the remaining forty percent of the company they didn't already own, which is a great deal higher than the $33 million Polygram (now owned by UMG) paid for the original sixty percent in 1993.

Russell "Rush" Simmons is expected to stay on as Def Jam's chairman, with his CEO, Lyor Cohen, running Universal's urban music dept. As a show of just how important an acquisition this is to UMG, it's been decided that Universal's recently merged Island-Mercury group will now be known as the Island-Def Jam group.

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Song Stories

“The A Team”

Ed Sheeran | 2011

This debut track from the then-20-year-old British singer-songwriter has a dark story behind it. Sheeran says he culls songwriting inspiration from "viewing other people's situations," which, for the heroine in "The A Team," involves drug addiction and prostitution that began as a teen. Sheeran paints the woman's trials with haunting imagery such as "But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries." "I did a gig at a homeless shelter, [and the song] is about one of the women there. It's her story," he said.

More Song Stories entries »

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