T La Rock

Origins

T La Rock was born Terrence Keaton on September 16, 1961. Born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx, he came from a rap family: his younger brother Special K was a member of the Treacherous Three, alongside Kool Moe Dee, and another brother, T.O.N.E.-z, also rapped. T La Rock developed a dense, vocabulary-heavy style that set him apart from the party chants common at the time.

"It's Yours"

His breakthrough came through Jazzy Jay, the Zulu Nation DJ who was mentoring a New York University student named Rick Rubin. Rubin produced "It's Yours" as his first rap record, cutting it quickly at Power Play Studios in Queens; according to Cornell University's Def Jam archive, members of the Beastie Boys were on hand for the session. Credited to T La Rock & Jazzy Jay, the 12-inch was released in early 1984 through Partytime, the hip hop imprint of Arthur Baker's Streetwise Records.

The record carried the first Def Jam logo, even though Rubin had not yet partnered with Russell Simmons; Simmons came aboard after hearing it, and the label's first official release as a joint venture, LL Cool J's "I Need a Beat," followed later that year. With its booming drum machine, heavy scratching and T La Rock's wordy flow, "It's Yours" became a New York radio and club staple and a blueprint for the harder, stripped-down sound Def Jam would soon make famous.

Later Career

T La Rock kept recording through the late 1980s, releasing Lyrical King (From the Boogie Down Bronx) on Fresh/Sleeping Bag Records in 1987, which reached No. 64 on Billboard's R&B albums chart, followed by On a Warpath in 1989. In 1994 he suffered a serious brain injury while trying to break up a fight, and he spent the next couple of years in treatment and recovery. An archival set, The Lost Tapes, arrived in 2000, and by 2021 he had returned to recording and performing internationally.

Legacy

"It's Yours" has been sampled or quoted by Public Enemy, Nas, the Beastie Boys, Wu-Tang Clan and Todd Terry, and it later appeared on the soundtracks of Grand Theft Auto IV and V. Def Jam licensed it for a 30th-anniversary vinyl reissue, a nod to its place at the very start of the label's story.