Russell Simmons combined a street hustler's salesmanship with a love of emerging rap culture to build the Def Jam music empire. But when it comes to managing his money, the godfather of hip-hop is strictly old school.

Simmons, a middle-class kid from Queens, N.Y., attended City College of New York and dabbled in the street life briefly before he heard rap's siren call. He didn't hesitate to follow, and against his father's wishes, first as manager for pioneering rap artists Kurtis Blow and Run-DMC (which included Simmons' older brother Joey "Rev. Run" Simmons), then as founder of Def Jam Records with producer and partner Rick Rubin.

Together, the pair built Def Jam into the Motown of rap on the strength of artists such as Run-DMC, LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. Simmons parlayed Def Jam's musical success into other arenas, launching the successful Phat Farm, Baby Phat, Run Athletics and Def Jam University urban clothing lines and bringing hip-hop to television with his "Def Comedy Jam," "Def Poetry Jam" and the MTV reality series "Run's House."

In his 2007 book "Do You! 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success," Simmons explains how he used time-honored business principles to break new cultural ground.

Now a multimillionaire father of two, Simmons is active in several philanthropic organizations, including the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, the Diamond Endowment fund and Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, named after his street moniker.

Bankrate caught Simmons on the "Do You!" book tour to find out how he "beat the street."

Bankrate: What kind of kid were you? Did you have the entrepreneurial spirit at an early age?

Russell Simmons: I was like most other young people in my neighborhood. I wanted enough money to keep up with the latest fashions -- Pro Keds and silk-and-wool pants -- but I didn't want to work too hard for it. So I tried, with a little nudging from my father, fast food; I worked at an Orange Julius in Greenwich Village, but got fired pretty quickly. I also tried selling drugs, though mainly just fake cocaine, because that seemed like the easiest way for me to keep looking fly. But even though I loved the clothes and toys that hustling brought me, my heart was never in it. I didn't like the drama, the stress. Even when I was pretending to be a hustler, I knew that life wasn't for me.

The first thing that really lit my entrepreneurial spirit was hip-hop. I was incredibly inspired by the music, and since I couldn't really rap, I figured promoting rappers to the world would be the next best thing.