Record company describes Simpson as an icon (5)
I believe the answer is:
emoji
'an icon' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't tell whether this works.
'record company describes simpson' is the wordplay.
'record company' becomes 'EMI' (British record label).
'describes' is an insertion indicator (describe can mean to form the outline of).
'simpson' becomes 'oj' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'emi' placed around 'oj' is 'EMOJI'.
'as' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for emoji that I've seen is " Graphic expression".)