Def Jam offered Rotterdam Records a licensing deal

Nice little tidbit found in an interview with Mid-Town founder René Bakker about Rotterdam Records:

…we were even offered a contract by Def Jam. But we never signed it because it had too many pitfalls. Otherwise Hardcore would have broken through in the USA.

Think about this for a second. These were the early nineties, the label started by Rick Rubin, releasing mainly hip hop records from the likes of Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and odd one out Slayer, comes across this small hardcore label that’s sampling a lot of Def Jam records. Instead of suing them they offer a contract to license these hardcore records to Def Jam…

The original article is in Dutch, you can find a google translate link here.