EPMD’s Erick Sermon Gets Into The Home Decor Business With Def Rugs

If you want to adorn your place with a bit of that 80’s hip hop aura, look no further than Def Rugs, brought to you by EPMD’s Erick Sermon, The Network Journal reports.

Sermon, one half of the groundbreaking hip-hop group, is immortalizing the “golden era” of hip hop — Big Daddy Kane, NWA, Rakim, to name a few — and launching a custom-designed rug business for nostalgic hip-hop enthusiasts. The Crossover rapper explained how he came up with the idea:

“One of my friends, who is a producer, asked me to do him a favor regarding an LP he was working on. I agreed to help and when he offered me payment, I told him he didn’t need to pay me. So, he said he was going to find a way to re-pay me. He came to my house with a rug with the EPMD logo on it. An idea sparked in my brain and three years later, here we are,” Sermon told TNJ.

According to the article, De00f Rugs has received a warm welcome with Fabolous and Pharrell Williams showed interest in Sermon’s venture. The 46-year-old New York City native said the rugs gained traction when it was unveiled by an NWA member at an industry event. Since then, the rugs have been met with “instant popularity,” TNJ said.

“We even get orders from younger artists because they want a piece of that time in hip-hop that was so special and so original. What we had was genuine. We call it the golden era for a reason. That’s why the rugs are doing so well,” notes Sermon.

Of course, like many  hip hop lovers, Sermon expressed a little distaste for today’s hip-hop era, which is indirectly influenced by social media. “We come from an era of no tweeting,” he said. “Ignorance is at a high. In the 80’s, everybody just did their thing.”

(Separately but worth noting, Sermon has also expressed some rather narrow opinions about Bruce Jenner and his interview announcing he’s transgender. You can watch that here.)

According to TNJ, Sermon is now working on a documentary called 88, which talks about the power of the 80’s era. It’s slated to hit the market in September.

If you want some of that 80’s hip-hop essence in your spot, expect to shell out between $200 to $1,000 for a Def Rug of your own.

Thoughts?