In the space of two decades, hip-hop has risen from being dissed as too black, too aggressive, too your-parents-are-going-to-hate-it, to dominate not just popular music but movies, television, dance, fashion and language. Two of the words in the language of hip-hop also signify the genre's best-known and most successful record label: Def Jam.

Def Jam 1985-2001: The History Of Hip-Hop, Volume 1 (Def Jam/UTV Records/UME), released February 27, 2001, compiles 17 of the label's, and hip-hop's, classic hits, each digitally remastered. The album, available in both clean and explicit versions, also features a 24-page booklet highlighted by an extensive history of the Def Jam Recordings and detailed notes on each of the featured tracks.

The History Of Hip-Hop, Volume 1 includes the genre's greatest artists, and their seminal and essential tracks, beginning with LL Cool J's momentous and anthemic "I Can't Live Without My Radio." Def Jam also launched the Beastie Boys, whose "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)" from Licensed To Ill, the biggest-selling album in Def Jam's history, brought rap to the suburbs. On the other side of the tracks, Public Enemy, "the Black Panthers of rap," earned unprecedented respect and notoriety with "Fight The Power," written for Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing."

The album spans the gangsta funk of Oran "Juice" Jones with "Rain" and Warren G with "Regulate," and what may be the most soulful love song in the history of rap, the Puff Daddy Mix of "I'll Be There For You/You're All I Need To Get By" from Method Man and Mary J. Blige. The History Of Hip-Hop, Volume 1 brings together the East Coast with Jay-Z Featuring Amil (of Major Coinz) & Ja Rule on "Can I Get..." and the West Coast with Domino and "Getto Jam," Wu-Tang Clan with Def Squad on "Da Rockwilder" from Method Man & Redman, the hardcore black punk-rap of Onyx ("Slam") with the white anti-pop of one-hit wonder 3rd Bass ("Pop Goes The Weasel"), the sexy seductiveness of Foxy Brown (the Teddy Riley co-produced "Get Me Home") with the ghetto storytelling of Slick Rick ("Children's Story").

From EPMD's "Crossover" to Ja Rule's "Holla Holla," Nice & Smooth's "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow, Sometimes I Rhyme Quick" to DMX's "Party Up (Up In Here)," Def Jam 1985-2001: The History Of Hip-Hop, Volume 1 tells the story of a record label which continues to speak to a new generation and which has changed more than simply music.