Matt Dike, Delicious Vinyl Records

Hip-hop was a rarity on most Top 40 radio stations when the Los Angeles nightclub D.J.s Matt Dike and Mike Ross created a record label, Delicious Vinyl, in 1987. The two were steeped in hip-hop, and the success of East Coast labels like Def Jam inspired them to make records of their own. A year later Delicious Vinyl released its first hit, Tone-Loc’s “Wild Thing,” which sold more than two million copies and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1989. It was the first of several radio-friendly singles released by the label that helped pave the way for hip-hop’s explosion onto the pop charts in the 1990s.