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In 1981, Tommy Boy was a one-man, singles-only label, riding the first wave of hip-hop and operating from the spare bedroom of Silverman’s Manhattan apartment. A native of White Plains, New York, Tom Silverman attended Colby College in Maine as an Environmental Science major and served as musical director of campus station WMHB, where his disco specialty show countered rock’s hegemony over the airwaves. In 1978, Tom and two college friends began publishing Disco News, a newsletter aimed at the DJ community: Silverman wrote the reviews, created the layout, and sold the ads. It was no way to make a living—“I was earning about $.23 per hour,” Tom recalls—but it put him in the epicenter of the burgeoning hip-hop and dance music movements. Disco News soon mutated into Dance Music Report, a bi-weekly tip sheet that many considered the bible of the dance music scene until it folded in 1992.

With no formal business education or background, Tom learned every aspect of the music industry from hands-on experience. “For articles in Dance Music Report, I would interview people in the business and ask them why this record didn’t happen or that one did,” he explains. “I learned about record distribution by cold-calling distributors on behalf of a dance label called Importe 12. I actually volunteered five hours a week just to learn that aspect of the business.”

With an investment of $5,000 from his parents, Tom Silverman released the first Tommy Boy 12-inch single, “Having Fun” by Cotton Candy, in the spring of 1981. It sold well enough to finance a second Tommy Boy 12-inch, “Jazzy Sensation,” recorded in two versions by both Afrika Bambaataa & the Jazzy 5 and by the Kryptic Krew.

One month later, in December 1981, a dynamic young woman named Monica Lynch answered the help-wanted ad Silverman had run in The Village Voice. “On her first day,” Tom recalls, “she worked a 36-hour shift. Monica threw her whole being into the job and loved everything about it.” Monica Lynch would rise to the presidency of Tommy Boy at a time when there were less than a handful of women in upper-echelon record company positions.

Meanwhile, “Jazzy Sensation” sold 35,000 12” copies and paved the way for the breakthrough hit that would change popular music forever: “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force. Its eye-opening sales of 620,000 proved what Tom had always believed: The new sound emanating from the playgrounds and clubs of the Bronx were the sound of the future.

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Thanks in large part to Silverman’s ability to translate the sound of the street to a larger audience, Tommy Boy quickly developed into the most successful and widely recognized rap label in the world. Its name became synonymous with cutting-edge electronic hip-hop: Afrika Bambaataa, Force MD’s, Stetsasonic, G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid, and Jonzun Crew.

“A Tommy Boy record would get played on like four radio stations, with 80% of our sales in the New York area, and we’d sell a quarter-million albums,” Tom remembers. “It was a new scene, with an incredible burst of interest in this new kind of urban street music.”

In addition to Tommy Boy and Dance Music Report, Silverman was soon committed to a new venture. In 1981, Tom and his partners (Joel Webber and Marc Josephson) created the first New Music Seminar as a new kind of grassroots music industry gathering. From humble beginnings, NMS became the biggest and most important convention in the music industry; its combination of panels, workshops and live showcases became the model for CMJ and South X Southwest, among other followers.

The next chapter in Tommy Boy’s success story came with the signing of acts like Queen Latifah, De La Soul, Digital Underground, House of Pain, and Naughty By Nature—all of whose debut albums went platinum. Tommy Boy proved that rap and dance, once considered fringe markets, could outsell rock and roll in the American mainstream and garner consistent support in the UK and Europe. In addition to unique artists and great records, Tom Silverman’s innovative ideas about packaging, marketing and distribution of music helped separate Tommy Boy from the pack.

“I wanted consumers to view the 12-inch as an inexpensive album rather than an expensive single,” he explains. “We were the first to design album covers for 12-inch singles, the first to add bonus beats and a cappella versions along with the hit. Today, these things are standard throughout the industry.”

In 1992, Tom resigned from the New Music Seminar in order to focus his energy on Tommy Boy and nurture new talent. Soon the label was once again at the forefront of another industry trend: the reinvention of the compilation album. Monica Lynch and Tom believed Tommy Boy could create niche compilations and partner with highly recognized companies like MTV and ESPN to promote them. The first such Tommy Boy compilation, MTV Party To Go, was a huge success with a portion of the proceeds (currently over $14 million) being donated to AMC Cancer Research—one of the many charities that Tommy Boy supports. The Jock Jams series came next, and in conjunction with ESPN, Tommy Boy created one of the most successful compilations ever released.

It was another example of Tom Silverman’s unique ability to find (in his words) “niches that were unoccupied. That goes for Dance Music Report, the New Music Seminar, and the early days of Tommy Boy. That’s how I could get around the power of the major labels—which in those days was a lot less sophisticated than it is today. There were many more individual competitors then, so there was a lot more anarchy and room to maneuver.”

In 1999, the label scored one of the biggest hits in its history with Everlast’s triple-platinum alternative rock album Whitey Ford Sings The Blues and his Top Ten Pop smash “What It’s Like.” That same year, Silverman created Tommy Boy Silver Label as a specialized dance music imprint. His idea paid off when Tommy Boy became the No. 2 dance label of 2001, led by the chart-topping success of resident diva Amber.

In 2002, Tommy Boy returns to full independence ending it’s 15-year relationship with Warner Bros. Navigating the difficult waters of today’s music industry require a non traditional approach which is Tom’s specialty. Enthusiasm and experience, dedication and innovation: These are the qualities that Tom Silverman brings to the task of leading Tommy Boy into its third decade of success.