Simmons, Russell

Russell Simmons' career has taken him from the streets of Queens to the heights of the music business and beyond. Starting out as a fledgling hip-hop producer, Simmons has gone on to build an empire that includes music recording and publishing, clothing, movies as well as Broadway. Simmons' name is synonymous with success, and he shows no signs of stopping.

Born in Jamaica, Queens, New York, in 1957, Simmons' parents were active in the arts and in the civil rights movement. His father, a schoolteacher, frequently wrote poetry, and his mother was a recreation director for the New York City Department of Parks and was also a painter. At the age of eight, Simmons' family moved to the Hollis neighborhood of Queens, where the adolescent Simmons became involved with drugs and joined a street gang called the Seven Immortals. His time as a gang member ended a few years later, following the murder of one of his fellow gang-members by a rival group.

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