A rogue record label first to attack the scholarly world (8)
I believe the answer is:
academia
'scholarly world' is the definition.
(world or sphere of scholars)
'a rogue record label first to attack' is the wordplay.
'rogue' becomes 'cad' (I've seen this before).
'record label' becomes 'EMI' (British record label).
'first to' suggests taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'attack' is 'a'.
'a'+'cad'+'emi'+'a'='ACADEMIA'
'the' is the link.
(Other definitions for academia that I've seen before include "schools and universities" , "scholastic world" , "university life" , "scholastic life" , "Educational community" .)