Rayan F. Azab

Born and Raised in Jeddah Saudi Arabia. Coming up from a humble poor/medial class family with the growing love of Music and Entertainment. Rayan used to always listen to music trying to see how he can fit that love to his life but it’s seemed impossible.

The love of the music grew big in Rayan's heart dreaming of living in the birth place of hip-hop he moved to USA in '95 where he lived for years going to school and understanding the culture during his stay. He came up with an epiphany thinking, "I can make this part of my life" by booking and managing artist’s.

In 2006 Rayan met he's future business partner James DeFina through a mutual Friend (P J Ross founder of Werkout.com) and came up with AZDEF Production Group and the rest is history.

AZDEF now manages over 5 artists and producers and do events nationwide and internationally from New York to Dubai you will find AZDEF doing Events, Festivals, Fashion shows Etc. This is just the beginning of an everlasting successful Brand.

James R. DeFina

Born in Pittsburgh Pa. At a young age James was introduced to music from his father who is a musician and guitar collector. At the age of 7 he received his first acoustic guitar and later an electric guitar. While receiving huge influences from rock music he also grew to love hip-hop and electronic music and starting wanting to become a DJ.

At the age of 14 got his first internship at the Pittsburgh hip hop station WAMO and thus began his love of the music industry. He received his first pair of Technics 1200s at a young age and soon enough started getting into music production and purchased his first of many MPC's. During the summers home from college he attended music business classes at NYU which then got him an internship at Jellybean Music Publishing in New York City which was started by super producer Jellybean Benitez who was responsible for discovering Madonna and James grew his knowledge of the business behind the music industry.

Later after building a friendship with New York Hip Hop legend Lord Sear who got his start from the famous Stretch and Bobbito show got James an internship at Shady Records where he worked with industry mogul Paul Rosenberg and leading A&R executives including Riggs Moralas and others and learning how a record label works.

After graduating from George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia with a business degree he decided to further his technical music knowledge by attending engineering school in New York City at SAE(school of audio engineering). There James furthered his knowledge of Music and the art of recording Music.

After SAE he began working at Bennett Studios in Englewood NJ as a studio intern/assistant and later started working with renowned mixing engineer Rich Keller who has more than 40 gold and platinum records for working with such artists as DMX, Lyfe Jennings and many other hip hop, rnb and pop artists. James furthered his audio skill. With his combined knowledge in music business and recording he was able to compliment Rayan’s strengths to create AZDEF and start their own journey into the music industry.