group formed in 1999 when Universal Music Group merged together two of its daughter companies, Island Records and Def Jam Recordings, to create a super label. Island Def Jam is the largest label in the world with 400 artists on the label. Also incorporated into the venture was the staff, roster, and back catalog of Mercury Records, which was then dismantled. (It was revived in 2007). The Island and Def Jam imprints, meanwhile, continue to operate as their own respective labels underneath the larger IDJMG umbrella. The company also encompasses Lost Highway and formally Stolen Transmission.[1]