Run DMC: Raising Hell
40 years of hip hop magnificence
I was the perfect age.
Forty years ago today Run DMC released one of the most important and influential rap albums of all time. I had it on cassette, and listened on my little Alba cassette player whenever I could. I can remember every sound even 40 years on.
Their third album, it was the first Platinum and multi-Platinum rap record and it signalled a sea change in rap music, blowing away everything that came before it. It forged a remarkable crossover with rock music, bringing in guitars to join with Jam Master Jay’s incredible DJ work and the stunning drum machine beats and it influenced a plethora of rap artists over the next few years.
Describing the recording process DMC said, “We did that album in like three months. It was so quick because every rhyme was written on the road and had been practiced and polished. We knew what we wanted to do. Rick was all music and instruments. Jay was music and DJing. And me and Run was lyrics. We definitely had a game plan”.
This record proved that rap could be an “albums” genre and forty years on it is as remarkable and as exciting as it was when I listened to it in my bedroom on that tiny cassette player.
The cover
Even the cover is cool. A purple tinted photo of Run and DMC, hands in pockets, hats on heads, slightly blurred and slightly angled. They just look like the coolest guys in the world, and it was even cooler to have them in their strange hats and DMC proudly wearing his glasses. I soon had two new heroes.
Side one
The side explodes into life with their cool take on the nursery rhymes of their youth with Peter Piper. The vocal interplay between Run and DMC is magnificent as they rap of Jam Master Jay’s talents with his decks. Jay slips in a cool sample from Take Me To The Mardi Gras by Bob James. Jay twists and turns the turntables with perfect cool as Run DMC rap over the top, spitting out words relentlessly.
Taking the guitar from The Knack’s My Sharona and creating a strange twist on Tosi Basil’s Mickey gives us It’s Tricky, a bouncing, funky rap track full of blistering energy and endless fun. The Knack ended up suing Run DMC for the sample which is a shame because this song shows how to use a short portion of a track to create new art.
They follow this up with the even more stark My Adidas, with Run and DMC yelling their words, celebrating their footwear over an utterly fabulous, stuttering drum machine beat. Jay scratches and bends time with his decks as the songs grooves. It’s glorious fun, full of neat rhymes
And I walk down the street, and bop to the beat
With Lee on my legs and Adidas on my feet
The beat rolls on at the end before it morphs almost imperceptibly into Walk This Way. This crossover track with the then almost forgotten Aerosmith is quite incredible and one of the most important tracks of its time. It brought rap into everyone’s home, it reminded everyone that Aerosmith existed and they would go on to have huge success again after this. I certainly bought Permanent Vacation the next year because of this. It hit the top 5 in the US and the top ten in the UK, becoming a trailblazing rap track. Mixing their drum machine beats and decks with live guitars made it sound like nothing else, and everyone plays their part to perfection. Joe Perry adds some scintillating guitar lines and Steven Tyler screams to his maximum as Run and DMC spit out the words. Perfection.
On Is It Live the band have great fun using a stylish groove for their rap, a cool beat clanging in the background. They sing of their talents but it never sounds big headed or annoying, it’s delightful fun and delightfully daft:
And I’m the wizard of words, the ruler of rap
Not soft, not a sucka’, could never be a sap
Although it is somewhat spoiled by lines of misogyny at the end.
The side ends with some solid straightforward rapping by Run and DMC about DMC’s Perfectionist streak with some utterly great lines that shouldn’t work but do:
I got prescription glasses and my eyes are correct
Two times every year I go to have them checked
The beat is relentless and hard, just bouncing along, ready to dance to, and full of funk.
Side two
This side opens with an echoing, yelling voice from DMC as Hit It Run explodes. It is an absolute energy blast, DMC just blowing his words out with incredible force and Run throws out a cool beat box groove after each verse. JMJ is solid behind the decks, throwing out a sample from Rocket in the Pocket by Cerrone. The whole track leaves you breathless, and leaves you wondering why DMC isn’t breathless at the end of it as he hammers out the words. It ends with a yelled “Run-D.M.C. and Jam Master Jay” before Rick Rubin’s guitar (allegedly) cranks up and we move into the title track.
Raising Hell is a superb track, full of anger cranked up by the rock guitar that blasts through it. Like Walk This Way it was another example of rap and rock crossing over and creating a new sound, one that would be borrowed and stolen by thousands of other bands. It’s metal rap, and it rocks so hard. Can you imagine going to listen to someone like the Red Hot Chili Peppers after hearing this?
The band’s third single was with deliciously fun You Be Illin’. It is a great slice of silliness as the band rap about mixing up football and basketball, accidentally eating dog food and having bad breath. It funks over a cool piano line accompanied by some great horns. It’s clear the band are having great fun here, adn Jay throws out some incredible beats, especially in the middle.
A song called Dumb Girl is clearly of its time and it’s also the weakest musically as well as being stuffed with clumsy imagery and nasty ideas. I could try and come up with a clever defence of it but I won’t, it’s clumsy and nasty.
It is followed by the short and brilliant Son of Byford, 30 seconds of DMC rapping about himself as Run throws out his beat box.
I was born son of Byford, brother of Al
Bannah’s my mama and Run’s my pal
It’s McDaniels, not McDonald’s
These rhymes are Darryl’s, those burgers are Ronald’s
Short, sweet and brilliant.
And then the record ends with the incendiary Proud to be Black. This track is incessant and relentless but rarely angry. It celebrates the power of Black Pride pulling on history and personal anecdotes from the band. The beat flies, just wonderful, and the energy is all thrown out to the listener. The song is amazing and an incredible way to end the record, Jay scratching with perfect rhythm, adding a cool groove to the beat. It ends with a clear clarion cry:
What’s wrong with ya, man? How can you be so dumb?
Like Dr. King said, “We shall overcome”
After 40 years perhaps only those clumsy moments of misogyny hold the record back. Otherwise it is a relentless, powerful, revolutionary and influential record.
Like what you read? Buy me a coffee!
About me
I have a radio show, Single Minded, on Radio Alty, every week on Wednesday at 8pm (UK). Listen here:
The most recent show can be heard by clicking here:
I have also written a book about the great singles of the 1960s which can be found on Amazon:
There was a moment in the mid-80s when music stopped politely asking permission and just kicked the damn door off the hinges. *Raising Hell* was that sound. Three guys in Adidas and fedoras marching straight through the wall separating “rap music” from “American culture” while the rest of the industry stood there blinking like they’d just witnessed a bank robbery in broad daylight.
And on vinyl? Forget it. This thing doesn’t play, it detonates. “Peter Piper” sounds like Jam Master Jay hijacked a block party and wired it directly into your nervous system. The bass rattles the furniture, the scratches cut like broken glass, and Run and DMC bark through the speakers like street prophets with zero interest in subtlety.
Everybody talks about “Walk This Way,” but the deeper magic is that the album never feels calculated. It feels dangerous. Sweaty. Loud. Like somebody spilled beer on the control board and accidentally changed music history.
Fantastic piece. This is exactly the kind of album that reminds you vinyl isn’t nostalgia, it’s evidence.
When I go back and listen to Run and LL and some of the others of this era it’s always as hard and heavy to me as much of the metal I loved. So much attitude and power.