Album: Raising Hell
Artist: Run-DMC
Artist: Run-DMC
Born: Queens, New York
Released: May 1986
Genre: Hip Hop
Influenced: Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, De La Soul, Wu-Tang Clan, N.W.A., Kanye West
Hip Hop music had been bubbling up throughout the 80s but Raising Hell, for me, is the first great hip hop record. With much of the innovation in pop music during the late 70s and early 80s happening on the other side of the Atlantic, it was alt-country and hip hop that would revive American music. Def Jam was the instrumental label in this new genre and put out its first records in 1984, at a time when the first wave of rap music (including Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Flash) was declining. Hip hop was born in the Bronx, New York in the 70s, but Run-DMC steered the genre away from its block party roots to a more minimal, hardcore, rock sound. This new muscular style swapped electro for beat boxes and samples and, by the end of the 80s, it would come to dominate pop music. Run-DMC were the trailblazers, starting out as a 3-piece -- Run (Joseph Simmons) and DMC (Daryl McDaniel) as the first great MC team, aiming their sights at inferior "sucker MCs", and DJ Jam Master Jay scratching the records. They lost the disco samples and colourful suits of first wave hip hop, dressing in all black and pioneering a minimal sound consisting of drum machine, guitar / synth snippets and vocal sparring. Run-DMC's ability to trade lines (about urban violence and poverty) first came to fame with It's Like That (the 1998 remix was a huge hit and No.1 in the UK). So in terms of production (using rock samples like My Sharona on It's Tricky), themes and attitude, Run-DMC set a new hip hop template.
Def Jam (co-founded by Rick Rubin & Run's brother Russell Simmons) convinced major label Columbia of hip hop's crossover appeal and signed a million-dollar deal ahead of Run-DMC's third album, Raising Hell, which blasted them into the mainstream. The song most responsible for this success was Walk This Way, which had already been a 1976 hit for Aerosmith. It had political resonance (see cheesy video of different races, musical styles coming together) and got MTV's stamp of approval, but you get the sense it's just another example of major labels co-opting an underground scene and ending up making it bland. Raising Hell captures Run-DMC before this process started, and from the infectious Peter Piper (including the brilliant inventive style of Run and DMC finishing each other's lyrics) to B-Boy anthem My Adidas, from Hit It Run to Proud To Be Black (a James Brown reworking), the album is full of what's now considered to be classic old school hip hop. While the songs may not be as hard-hitting as The Message, the lyrical inventiveness is impressive, especially You Be Illin' and its piano line that sounds like a cartoon theme tune ("Drunk as skunk you illin' punk and in your left hand was Bacardi / you went up to this fly girl and said 'Yo, yo, can I get this dance?' / She smelt your breath and then she left you standin' in your illin' stance"). Run-DMC would soon be surpassed by a new wave of hip hop stars, but this is the album that inspired them all.
Hip Hop music had been bubbling up throughout the 80s but Raising Hell, for me, is the first great hip hop record. With much of the innovation in pop music during the late 70s and early 80s happening on the other side of the Atlantic, it was alt-country and hip hop that would revive American music. Def Jam was the instrumental label in this new genre and put out its first records in 1984, at a time when the first wave of rap music (including Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Flash) was declining. Hip hop was born in the Bronx, New York in the 70s, but Run-DMC steered the genre away from its block party roots to a more minimal, hardcore, rock sound. This new muscular style swapped electro for beat boxes and samples and, by the end of the 80s, it would come to dominate pop music. Run-DMC were the trailblazers, starting out as a 3-piece -- Run (Joseph Simmons) and DMC (Daryl McDaniel) as the first great MC team, aiming their sights at inferior "sucker MCs", and DJ Jam Master Jay scratching the records. They lost the disco samples and colourful suits of first wave hip hop, dressing in all black and pioneering a minimal sound consisting of drum machine, guitar / synth snippets and vocal sparring. Run-DMC's ability to trade lines (about urban violence and poverty) first came to fame with It's Like That (the 1998 remix was a huge hit and No.1 in the UK). So in terms of production (using rock samples like My Sharona on It's Tricky), themes and attitude, Run-DMC set a new hip hop template.
Def Jam (co-founded by Rick Rubin & Run's brother Russell Simmons) convinced major label Columbia of hip hop's crossover appeal and signed a million-dollar deal ahead of Run-DMC's third album, Raising Hell, which blasted them into the mainstream. The song most responsible for this success was Walk This Way, which had already been a 1976 hit for Aerosmith. It had political resonance (see cheesy video of different races, musical styles coming together) and got MTV's stamp of approval, but you get the sense it's just another example of major labels co-opting an underground scene and ending up making it bland. Raising Hell captures Run-DMC before this process started, and from the infectious Peter Piper (including the brilliant inventive style of Run and DMC finishing each other's lyrics) to B-Boy anthem My Adidas, from Hit It Run to Proud To Be Black (a James Brown reworking), the album is full of what's now considered to be classic old school hip hop. While the songs may not be as hard-hitting as The Message, the lyrical inventiveness is impressive, especially You Be Illin' and its piano line that sounds like a cartoon theme tune ("Drunk as skunk you illin' punk and in your left hand was Bacardi / you went up to this fly girl and said 'Yo, yo, can I get this dance?' / She smelt your breath and then she left you standin' in your illin' stance"). Run-DMC would soon be surpassed by a new wave of hip hop stars, but this is the album that inspired them all.
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