The Bushnell Goes Hip-Hop
`Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam' Hits The Road After Success On HBO, Broadway

By Jeff Rivers - The Hartford Courant

Russell Simmons speaks in the rhythmic rasp of the small-time street hustler he once was.

But the Queens, N.Y., native's words tumble through the telephone with the precision of the big-time hip-hop mogul he's been since the 1980s.

The traveling show of "Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam," the hip-hop impresario says, has something to get your mind toe-tapping whether you come wearing wingtips or Timberland boots to tonight's 7:30 performance at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford.

Simmons says all the hip-hop nation needs to know about the poetry fest he helped bring to Broadway is that it's "Def Jam," a brand that has been associated with leading rappers, comedians and poets for more than a decade.

Others contemplating seeing tonight's show at Mortensen Hall, or on subsequent stops along its 32-city tour, should be made aware that it "won a Tony [for 2003 best special theatrical event], and the blue-haired women loved it," Simmons says.

Critics loved it, too. Writing for the New York Daily News, Isaac Guzman hailed the play for showcasing "audacious new voices - outrage tempered with humor, bleakness leavened with joy."

The road show, Simmons says, "is even better."

Most of the original multiracial cast is in the road show. The performers - whom The New York Times said "flaunt their words the way [Bob] Fosse dancers flaunt their bodies" - have become sharper and more polished, Simmons says.

Simmons tells the story of how "Def Poetry" came to the stage as if he were a rap emcee, dropping the needle into a favorite groove.

The stage production, he says, came out of the hit HBO TV series "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry," which Stan Lathan ("Hill Street Blues," "Moesha" and "Eve) directs.

Simmons says the TV show, which bowed December 2001, grew out of poetry being performed in small clubs in cities throughout the country.

The poetry show drew its name from the record label Def Jam, which Simmons sold for about $100 million.

Before the poetry show, the Def Jam brand had also been used in a series of comedy specials on HBO that helped the careers of Jamie Fox and Chris Tucker, among others.

Besides his artistic ventures, Simmons started Phat Farm clothing, which generates annual revenues or more than $200 million.

His other enterprises have sold or marketed everything from a soft drink to debit cards for low- and moderate-income people.

It was his older brother Danny, a writer, who worked on Simmons for two years to get the hip-hop businessman to allow his brand name to be used on a TV showcase for young poets.

Simmons lauds HBO for taking a chance on the Simmons brothers' vision, adding that the network's executives had no idea the series would prove so popular.

Buoyed by that success, Simmons, Lathan and their collaborators took the show to cities such as Phoenix and Boston before landing on Broadway in November 2002.

From the first workshop to the present, Simmons says, the show has maintained a freshness and vibrancy that continues to delight him.

Above all, Simmons says, he's drawn to the honesty of the young poets with names such as Black Ice and Lemon. Simmons says he looks for truth in expression, and he's found it in everything from "scripture to 50 Cent."

Simmons, who's gotten rich without having to die trying, says "the beats change" in various forms of expression "but not the melody," a word he uses to mean honesty and truth.

At 46, the husband and father of two says new responsibilities have come with his wealth and a growing sense of social consciousness.

"I used to think all I was supposed to do was make hit records," says Simmons, who started promoting shows by seminal hip-hop performers such as Kurtis Blow and Run-D.M.C. in the late 1970s and went on to work with everyone from Public Enemy to Ja Rule. The Rev. Run is Simmons' younger brother, Joseph.

He's given away thousands of dollars through the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, which his brother Danny helps to run.

Simmons has sought to register young people to vote. He's called for a softening of New York's tough drug penalties. He's protested cuts in educational funding. The vegetarian has castigated KFC restaurants for inhumane treatment of its chickens.

He's assailed the American government for "governing out of fear and anger rather than love." He cites the $87 billion earmarked for rebuilding Iraq as an example of the nation's misplaced priorities.

Simmons believes the war in Iraq was possible only because the American people, in their anger over 9/11, made a dubious connection between that nation and the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

If the people were more concerned about the truth, "they couldn't allow this to happen, " Simmons says.