Steve Rifkind

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During his 25 years in the record business, Steve Rifkind has always had one foot in the street and the other in the corporate boardroom. One of the earliest rap entrepreneurs, the 44-year-old founder and Chairman of his current SRC (Street Records Corporation) label recognized the crossover potential of hip-hop at the very beginning as the originator of the Street Team concept of grass-roots marketing. That approach led him to form the groundbreaking Loud Records label, where he discovered and helped break such acts as Three 6 Mafia, Wu-Tang Clan, Big Pun, Raekwon and Xzibit. Bucking the current industry doldrums, Rifkind’s Universal-distributed SRC label has broken three artists in its first three years with the multi-platinum David Banner, Akon and Remy Ma "My head has never been in a better place," raves Rifkind. "I've teamed up with some incredible partners. You cant believe how energized I am."

Rifkind’s latest project is Kids Block, which he describes as an educational puppet show with an Urban flair, Sesame Street and Schoolhouse Rocks on steroids, aimed at 2-10-year-olds and developed by noted rap producers Jean-Claude Poke Olivier and Samuel Tone Barnes. Rifkind has produced 22 episodes for the direct to DVD release, which will be distributed to retailers as well as given to inner-city schools, backed by a comprehensive TV direct marketing campaign. His partner is Jordan Zimmerman, whose Omnicom Group company Zimmerman Advertising is one of the U.S. Top 20 agencies, with major clients like Office Depot, Wickes Furniture and Musicland. "We're taking our hip-hop mentality and applying it to promoting the program," says Rifkind. "The response we've been getting from educators is phenomenal. This project reminds me of how we made the first Wu-Tang album in the basement of RZA’s house."

Raised on Long Island, Rifkind was exposed to soul and R&B music early on by his father, Jules Rifkind, who ran the urban label Spring Records with his brother Roy, Steve's uncle. "I never listened to rock growing up," says Steve. "The car radio was always on WBLS because that was my father's business."

Spring Records was also the home of arguably the first rap record ever, the Fatback Bands King Tim III (Personality Crisis). A young Russell Simmons also had an act signed to Spring, Jimmy Spicer, with the early rap record, Dollar Bill Yall. Upon graduating high school, Steve hit the road to promote the records, often talking to Program Directors three times his age. "That's when I had the idea to go to colleges and talk to the students, my peers," says Steve. "I didnt even see it as grass roots marketing at the time. It was just the natural thing to do meet girls, play some ball, talk music." It was a concept he'd develop into The Street Team more than 20 years later in 1989, when he started his marketing consulting firm The Steve Rifkind Company after launching campaigns for early hip-hop legends Leaders of the New School, Brand Nubian and Tone-Loc. With The Street Team, Rifkind's SRC branched into corporate America, landing clients like Home Box Office, T-Mobile, MGM Pictures, Adidas, Quiksilver, Ariel Capital, DreamWorks and the Vans Warped Tour. "It helped me find acts that were happening on a street level," says Rifkind. "That's where I first learned about New Edition, whom I ended up managing."

Rifkind started Loud Records in 1992 as the first bicoastal hip-hop label, bringing in brother Jonathan and childhood friend Rich Isaacson to help run it. The label's impact was immediate, with Wu-Tang Clan and Big Pun leading the way.

Rifkind started up Street Records Corporation (SRC) label at Universal Records in 2002. His very first release, David Banners Mississippi: The Album, went on to sell one million worldwide. Akon's debut album sold three million world-wide and Rifkind promises his sophomore album will easily top that. His latest find, Remy Ma, has just come out with her debut, "There's Something About Remy: Based on a True Story", which Rifkind predicts, will be the biggest solo female rap album of all time.

Rifkind has just started another label, now dubbed SRC2, though he'd like to call it Soul Kitchen, through a production and distribution deal with Universal. Artists on the new label will be marketed aggressively through the brand associations and retail relationships generated his partner, Jordan Zimmerman, who has also taken over the day-to-day operations of Z Magic, the latest incarnation of Rifkind’s Street Team concept, which includes former Laker great Earvin Magic Johnson. "The record business might not be selling product like it did in the mid-to-late 90s," says Rifkind. "But to be independent like we are, and partnering up with the right brand, you can still make money. Music is special. Its appeal will never go away."

Rifkind's passion for music and how to market it has never been stronger. He's already inked two more talents to follow in the footsteps of Wu-Tang, David Banner and Akon in a Chicago youngster named Magic Massey, whom he describes as Ron Isley meets Marvin Gaye and a young diva named Melissa. "These arent rappers," explains Rifkind. "They're crossover pop-soul records. You have never heard voices like these. I haven't been this excited since I was a kid." For Steve Rifkind, whose accomplishments at such a young age are impressive enough, thats saying something.

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