‘Is This Supposed to Happen?’: How Matt Dike Dominated Eighties Hip-Hop Music

In August 1989, Tone Loc was trapped inside a giant bottle prop during a performance at the Fabulous Forum, while Delicious Vinyl co-founders Matt Dike and Michael Ross watched from the crowd. The mishap captures the unlikely rise of their Los Angeles label, whose rap hits broke through into mainstream pop at a time when the recording industry largely kept hip-hop out.

Two years earlier, Dike and Ross had started Delicious Vinyl with a $5,000 loan and made records in Dike’s apartment using basic, patched-together equipment. Within 18 months, the label had sold nearly 10 million records worldwide, including Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing” and “Funky Cold Medina”; it also released Young MC’s “Bust a Move” and worked on the Beastie Boys’ “Paul’s Boutique”. Peter Relic’s book traces the label’s beginnings and Dike’s later withdrawal from public life.