VH1 SALUTE'S DEF JAM FOR THE HIP HOP HONORS!

VH1's well-deserved salute to pioneer hip-hop label Def Jam turns into a good show that might be an even better documentary.
Taped last month at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, VH1's sixth annual "Hip Hop Honors" devotes the whole evening to New York's Def Jam, with major rappers and R&B stars performing some of the tracks that made the label famous and influential.

It also also made founders Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons rich.

Rubin and Simmons are in the house for the performances, alongside other Def Jam stalwarts like Lyor Cohen.

They all sit in the balcony and beam down at the stage, like movie stars at one of those black-tie Hollywood salutes - an image that unintentionally sends an eerie, mildly disorienting reminder: Hip hop has now been around long enough for its original new jacks to have become revered veterans with a soft warm glow.

Def Jam isn't just some old-school memory, since it remains a significant player today. But the absence of several key early artists from the stage underscores how long ago it started to roll.

Public Enemy performs, and it's good to see Flavor Flav with the white suit and the clock again. But the Beastie Boys are represented onstage by guest artists, probably because of Adam (MCA) Yauch's recent cancer treatments, and Def Jam's first marquee crossover group, Run-DMC, hasn't performed since the unsolved murder of Jam Master Jay in 2002.

The show itself quickly becomes feel-good all-star hip-hop television, featuring one-offs like Eminem and DJ Jazzy Jeff on LL Cool J's "Rock the Bells." Having Mary J. Blige and Method Man sing their "You're All That I Need" revival helps ensure that the show feels like 2009.

But while the performances are solid, the most interesting segments come when Rubin, Simmons and others reminisce about the early days, and how all the crazy pieces came together.

While Rubin has often explained how it all started in his dorm room at NYU, the stories are good ones. Even more compelling is to hear LL or Simmons talk about the musical vision in those early days - a vision that still shapes the label now.

It also would in fascinating to see how those first artists looked and sounded back in the day.

"Hip Hop Honors" has a different mission. It wants to create a music-intensive TV show for today's audience, and it does.

In the process, it also whets our appetites.