I was In the first semester of my senior year In high school. It was 1986 and “Walk This Way” was on the airways. I found myself really enjoying this “Rap” song by this group Run-D. M. C.. I would later find out that it was an Aerostatic song re-made. At the time I didn’t and couldn’t believe it because I had never heard of Aerostatic before or any of their songs. I actually had heard of “Sweet Emotions”, but l, at that time, had never known who sang that song.
I had already been listening to rap music for a few years. I only knew of the groups my friends knew and later would Finn out that Run-D. M. C. Had mad two albums before the Raising Hell album which “Walk this Way” was on. Over the next couple years I learned more about this group from hearing previous albums like King of Rock which I ended up buying later on down the road. I also saw the movie Crush Groove which featured many rap artists like Curtis Blow, L L Cool J, and the Fat Boys. This movie came out a few years earlier but I was one the wiser back then. Run-D.
M. C.. From Hollies, Queen, NY, featuring Joseph “Run” Simmons. Darryl “D. M. C. ” McDaniel, and Jason “Jam-Master Jay” Micelle, hit the scene as a group in 1984 with their first album Run-D. M. C. Under the label of Profile Records which featured such songs as “Jam Master Jay’ and “Hard times”. Another song on that album was “Rock Bow which was a fusion hard rock and hip hop. This would become the groups signature sound and carry a new sound of rap into the ass’s. They were also the first group to drop the glam style that the rap artists before them were wearing.
Those early artists wore extravagant clothes which mirrored the disco style. Run-D. M. C. Only wore jeans and Aids without shoe laces. This was Missile’s own style that the group adopted. Run later said: “There were guys that wore hats like those and sneakers with no shoestrings. It was a very street thing to wear, extremely rough. They couldn’t wear shoelaces in Jail and we took It as a fashion statement. The reason they couldn’t have shoelaces In Jail as because they might hang themselves.
That why DIM says ‘My Dallas only bring good news and they are not used as felon shoes. ” This style would define hip hop fashion over the next 25 years. The next album was King of Rock which had such songs as the title track “King of Rock”, “Can You Rock It Like This” and the first hip hop/danceable hybrids “Roots, Rap, Reggae”. “King of Rock” was the first rap video to alarm on MET. Their third album, Ralston Hell, which I started out with, featured songs “Walk This Way”, “It’s Tricky’, and successful album of all their albums.