23 Facts About Lyor Cohen

Lyor Cohen was born on October 3,1959 and is an American music industry executive and entrepreneur.

Lyor Cohen has been actively involved in hip hop at various record labels for more than 30 years.

Lyor Cohen started by managing rappers for Rush Productions, then led Def Jam from 1988 to 2003.

In September 2012, Lyor Cohen resigned from Warner and started his own independent label, 300 Entertainment.

On September 28,2016, Lyor Cohen was named YouTube's Global Head of Music.

Lyor Cohen was born in New York City, in 1959, to Israeli immigrants.

Late in 1984, after promoting a pair of rock and rap shows at The Mix Club in Hollywood, Lyor Cohen moved to New York to take a job at Simmons' Rush Productions.

Steve Stoute, in The Tanning of America, credits Lyor Cohen with "[believing] early on in the cultural melting pot that was being brewed for and by the younger generation".

Lyor Cohen began transitioning from artist management to the label side of the music business in 1989, when he and Simmons formed Rush Associated Labels.

In 1994 Lyor Cohen teamed up with Simmons to negotiate Def Jam's departure from Sony for a new home at PolyGram.

Lyor Cohen worked with a brand-new roster of successful rappers, like Redman, Method Man, Jay-Z, DMX, Ja Rule and Ludacris.

Concurrently, Lyor Cohen oversaw custom label deals with Roc-A-Fella Records, Murder Inc.

In 2001, Lyor Cohen was involved in Island Def Jam's purchase of Roadrunner, a heavy-metal label, as well as the deal to distribute Rick Rubin's American.

In January 2004, Lyor Cohen left Island Def Jam for a position with the Edgar Bronfman Jr.

At Warner, Lyor Cohen oversaw the merger of the Atlantic and Elektra labels into Atlantic, and placed Julie Greenwald, his protegee, into a top executive position there.

In 2009, Lyor Cohen elevated Greenwald to chairman and chief operating officer of Atlantic, a promotion that established Greenwald as the highest-ranking woman executive at an American record company.

In September 2006, Lyor Cohen oversaw an agreement with YouTube that allowed the site to show videos by Warner artists in exchange for a share of YouTube's advertising revenue.

In 2011, Lyor Cohen oversaw an agreement on behalf of the Warner roster with Spotify, the digital music service.

Lyor Cohen stated the company would be part record label, part marketing company, part distributor, with major backing from Google and Atlantic.

In September 2016, Google's YouTube announced Lyor Cohen would be joining the organization as Global Head of Music.

Lyor Cohen wrote a public letter stating some of his goals and aspirations for his new role.

In 2005, Gotti was acquitted of all charges, as was Lyor Cohen, who had testified.

The suit alleged that Lyor Cohen tried to hinder the production and release of an album by Ja Rule's group, the Cash Money Click.