Dub dot dash

It's like that...
I'm currently reading the new biography on Run DMC by Ronin Ro (author of Have Gun Will Travel: The Spectacular Rise and Violent Fall of Death Row Records - read an excerpt from that book here)

"The year is 1978. Saturday Night Fever is breaking box office records. All over America kids are racing home to watch Dance Fever, Michael Jackson is poised to become the next major pop star, and in Hollis, Queens, fourteen-year-old Darryl McDaniels -- who will one day go by the name D.M.C. -- busts his first rhyme: "Apple to the peach, cherry to the plum. Don't stop rocking till you all get some."
Darryl's friend Joseph Simmons -- now known as Reverend Run -- thinks Darryl's rhyme is pretty good, and he becomes inspired. Soon the two join forces with a DJ -- Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell -- and form Run-D.M.C. Managed by Run's brother, Russell Simmons, the trio, donning leather suits, Adidas sneakers, and gold chains, become the defiant creators of the world's most celebrated and enduring hip-hop albums -- and in the process, drag rap music from urban streets into the corporate boardroom, profoundly changing everything about popular culture and American race relations." Excerpt from Raising Hell over here.

They were the first rap group to break onto MTV, the first to go gold, platinum, and triple platinum, the first rap group to score corporate sponsorship. Saw em at the Powerstation in 1988, one of the best gigs I've ever seen. They were on the last leg of their world tour.

ADDED Chuck D of Public Enemy writes the liner notes for the reissue of Run DMCs album Tougher than Leather. Snip...

"... Occasionally, as I was planning my dibs with Public Enemy, I would catch Run, D, and Jay, --fresh off some tour-- prowling the offices of Rush Productions. They were tight because the timing of their next album (which we now know as Tougher Than Leather) was being thrown off by cat-and-mouse games between Profile (their label at the time) and RUN DMC’s management. RUN DMC was demanding a better deal after the success of Raising Hell. And why the hell not? Not only did they create a super-group, and make a label, but they damn near rebuilt and upgraded the whole genre of music.

You could tell that all this drama was having a twisted effect on the group. In the raging wake of Raising Hell, how could they not feel the pressure? Two years between hits is an eternity for the very radio-conscious rap market. They'd toured that record to the def. Anticipation was high all over. RUN DMC needed to make some noise.

I still consider Raising Hell, to be, simply, the greatest rap album ever recorded--because it raised the bar for all of Hip-hop. To me, that album was like Wilt Chamberlain’s 100- point game. What next? How do you top that? You don't. Instead, you go another direction.

Tougher Than Leather was like coming back to score 97 points in a losing playoff game--a spectacular performance against all odds and expectations.

By the time Tougher Than Leather’s first single, Run’s House hit radio, me and my guys had just wrapped up our second album, It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back. Our first album had been modeled after Raising Hell, but by the time we did this one, we’d had a full year to really find ourselves after bouncing off the influence of Eric B & Rakim, KRS ONE, BDP, and producer Marley Marl. It seemed that RUN DMC had also compiled all these influences. No matter how off-timed the release, the proficiency of Tougher Than Leather was amazing. When Run’s House and Beats To The Rhyme hit—they signified two things:

1.RUN DMC were back 2. They were ready to headline their 4th national tour. By the summer of 1988, Run’s House was not only a song-- but the written theme for all of Hip-Hop, and now, the name of the national tour. Yours truly, and my crew, Public Enemy were chosen to perform on the Run’s House Tour, along with; DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, fellow Long Islanders EPMD, and the all-female West Coast crew, JJ FAD— produced by Easy E & Dr. Dre. I can’t leave out the infamous Hollis Crew: DJ Hurricane , Kool E, Runny Ray, and Davey DMX (who in terms of production skills, instrumentation, and bass playing remain another of hip-hop’s underrated performers).

All in all, this was a powerful package. Run’s House was one of two tours put out by the RUSH Productions rap empire that summer. The other tour, (called the DOPE JAM TOUR) carried what seemed to be every other hot name at the time. To see it on paper, haters and speculators felt that the artists and albums weren’t strong enough to ride through the summer. How wrong they were..."

On a similar theme, B Dot C serves up the Jay Z cover story from the latest Rolling Stone.