Mr. Ossé came of age in New York in time to see the rise of hip-hop from a local phenomenon to a worldwide craze. Working as a lawyer at Def Jam, an institution as important to rap in the early 1990s as Andy Warhol’s Factory was to art and music in the 1960s, he crossed paths with Jay-Z, Puff Daddy and other early rap royalty before they were famous.
After walking away from the entertainment industry, he reinvented himself when the social web was in its infancy. He worked as a blogger under the pseudonym Combat Jack, then used the name as a podcaster in 2010.
As with Marc Maron’s candid conversations with comedians on his podcast, Combat Jack was able to coax hip-hop luminaries into revealing parts of themselves that they had never shown in public.
“The amazing thing about Combat Jack’s life is that he had two successful runs in the hip-hop business,” said Peter Rosenberg, a D.J. with the New York rap station Hot 97. “One, as an entertainment lawyer back in the…
