sadgit's Full Review: Run-DMC (1st LP) [Remaster] by Run-DMC
Ladies and gentlemen, the annual Hip-Hop Appreciation week is upon us. This is a time to sit back and reflect upon the state of hip-hop culture, to bask in the glow of talent generated from the true lyricists and to curse the massive negativity generated from the many "gangstas" that populate our artform. With this in mind, Madtheory has sent us all a mission: Make Hip-Hop respectable again. This years write-off theme? Responsibility.
This album is a perfect view of the type of Rap music that was typical back in the innocent Old School era. Despite Hip-Hop's current reputation for violence, drugs, misogyny, homophobia or even subtle racism, these elements were never part of Hip-Hop at the beginning.
Hip-Hop music began in the mid-1970's in the Bronx, New York. Clubbing violence had increased to the point where a lot of clubs had closed down. As with many inner city areas, the Bronx had crime problems- gang activity, murders, drugs, although like many black urban communities at the time it had suffered terribly to the crack explosion which had increased gang-related murders, wrecked families with addiction and destroyed the sense of community there.
Hip-Hop started with ideas and innovations as people in the community tried to divert the youth to positive social events like house parties, after all there was little in the way of youth centres or entertainment. Kool Herc was the main host of house parties where he would dig out a huge set of speakers, stereo equipment and a few old but still energetic James Brown records.
His parties became very popular and he started to experiment with playing a medley of 60's R'n'B instrumental breaks back to back. This introduced the art of sampling the instrumentals of existing music to create a new sound. It also gave birth to a series of kinetic and aerobic dances which became known as Breakdancing.
This was so popular in the community that Kool Herc began to hold block parties this way- typically going to a park and pulling out the wiring of a lamp post to get the power for the stereo. So did competing imitators and soon the Hip-Hop style began to ferment as Masters of Ceremonies began to give shout-outs to the crowd (to appease the local gangs who attended the concerts), and this developed into long speeches and eventually into spoken word rhymes.
Typically masters of Ceremonies, or MC's would rhyme or rap about their street cred, their fame, sexual prowess, or tell fantasy stories. They hardly ever even referred to their Ghetto society hardships or crime, much less glorified them. Hip-Hop parties, particularly done by Afrika Bambatta and the Zulu Nation were about regeneration-the money made from the parties went to community self-help projects. The negative view of the black community and of New York in general was already highly popularised in films of the period such as "Taxi Driver" (1976) and "Escape From New York" (1981).
And the whole idea of regeneration of an area is to make people in a troubled community care about the place and see its potential. For these Rappers to draw further attention to the negative elements of their community was counterproductive to regeneration, it would have spoiled people's confidence and faith in the area.
The first Rappers to get a record deal in the late 70's were the SugarHill Gang and Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five under Sugarhill Records. However in the mid-80's Run-DMC were the first to make a mainstream success of their music. With their fusion of Rap and Rock music and their later collaboration with Aerosmith, they began to appeal hugely to white middle-class kids.
The band were made up of two rappers- Joe "Run" Simmons and Daryl McDaniels ("DMC"), two very charismatic and enthusiastic rappers with a great chemistry behind their double act which was great for moving the crowd and building a spirit of celebration. They were backed by their DJ, the late Jam Master Jay whose musical input gave the main party song here, "Rock Box" it's infectious Rock'N'Roll sound through well chosen samples. The water trickling sound effect he invokes in "Wake Up" is nice and sensual. His record scratching throughout the 9-track album and particularly on his solo tracks "Jam Master Jay", and Jay's Game is both spontaneously danceable and wafer thin and easy on the ears.
On the lyrics side there's nothing too remarkable but this album presents a refreshingly positive view of life. "Hard Times" and "It's Like That" draws very subtle but refreshing attention to urban unemployment at a record high and the need for money, to poverty and war and disillusionment, and racism on both sides of the race fence. Their vibe is totally positive and dedicated to encouraging people to be strong-minded, hard working, but above all to be optimistic and not to let thoughts of prejudice or suicide get the better of them.
"Wake Up" is a very simplistic song of a utopian dream of a perfect world where there are no weapons or wars or racism, where people work together to fight starvation and the President actually listens to the voice of the working classes. A song that kind of makes blatant Run-DMC's poppyness and certainly isn't as deep or cutting to the real sharp bone of these issues as many other Hard Core Rappers, but at the same time what they say never goes over listener's heads or makes them uncomfortable, which is good because the song actually does succesfully cover all the bases. Furthermore the echoing tagline "Wake-up" adds to the songs motivating quality to encourage the listener to do their bit to make a better society.
They also convey a very chivalrous view of relationships on the song "30 Days" where the group professes themselves as perfect boyfriend material for the object of their affections who they refer to as "the lady of the 80's". Nothing deeply romantic on the level of LL Cool J's later Rap ballads, they just go over their credentials which make them the right man for her- they'll share everything with her, they'll entertain her and above all they won't force the issue- "If you find out that you don't like my ways//then you can Send me back in Thirty Days". Again nothing deep, but still a positive example of a group who have basically combined the style of Rap and Rock music and yet totally rejected the misogyny of both genres.
However since Run-DMC's heyday, Rap music has become seemingly synonymous with violence and negativity, both in its occasionally violent lyrics and the real life violent deaths of Hip-Hop artists like Scott LaRock, 2pac and The Notorious B.I.G. And sadly Jam Master Jayhimself was murdered by a still unidentified gunman late last year. A violent incident which not only wrecked Run-DMC as a group, but has continued to convince the general public of the negativity surrounding Hip-Hop music, which is a terrible misjudgement since Jam Master Jay and Run-DMC never put a gun threat or b*tch-slap on a record. Their music was so clean you could play it for your kids.
Fortunately Hip-Hop's underground scene- Mos Def, J-Live, Jurassic 5, Krs-One is producing positive Hip-Hop music again for music fans who are now largely tired of the sophomore gun-talk. To move Hip-Hop music forward and really make a positive difference, and to lyrically lambasts all the gangsta MC's and send them running, and rid the artform of its negativity.
But that's another story....
Links to my second and third pieces of this Write-Off are below:
Make sure you read the entries of these other participants:
andrewtarr, anthony06511, bigd99999, brotherman, cletta1201, ekidd911, heirograffiti, matthos, mrjulius, PacManY2J, paulyoungotti, roheblius, konspirator01, boffie, speeddemon531, sun_tzu, youngchinq
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