Rumors Abound That Def Jux Is Not Long For This World

Def Jux, the indie hip-hop empire run by rapper/producer El-P, might be shutting down; how credible you find these whispers depends on how much stock you normally place in a website called shabooty.com. While the label hadn't exactly had a megahit in a while, dense and claustrophobic early-aughts records like RJD2's Deadringer, Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein, and El-P's own Fantastic Damage (those last two have taken to MySpace feuding recently) are pretty undeniable. We've got some calls in and will let you know what comes of it; should this indeed be the end, Byron Crawford, as always, puts it in the proper perspective: "This is like my parents getting divorced, both in the sense that it signals the end of my childhood, and in the sense that it's actually fairly meaningless and will just serve as a convenient excuse for everything that goes wrong from here on out."