Rumo
Rumo ,Rumo
Recent reports that Snoop
Doggy Dog of Dr. Ore & The
Deathrow Inmat w killed in
a car accident are fal e. He i
alive and kicking. Snoop per­
formed at the Atlanta Freak­
Nik. Look for hi album
"Doggy Style" by mid- ummer.
Snap
Check out Paul Mooney'
"Race" if you have a conscious
bone in your body. M ta
Ase' "Slaughter House" and
Yo-Yo' "You Better Ask
Somebody" are sma h hits.
Das EFX 1ft'e in the tudio
working on there next album .•
Cypress Hill's new single is set
to hit teres in early July.
Bacdafucup
It was good day inthe 'hood'
when Onyx was leaving Chung
King studio in lower Manhat­
tan in early April. The sun was
shining, the birds were singing
and Onyx was ridi ng high on
the success of their #1 hit single
"Throw Ya GUIlZ, " but the mood
would not last long.
Three member Qf OilY
(Sticky Fing ro Starr
and suave) m t! n
nal street in New York and
potted a bootlegger selling
counterfeit copies of their debut
album "Bacdafucup".
Onyx overturned hi wares
and began to crush as many
tapes as possible. The bootleg­
ger resis ted and was dealt a
beatdown. Police arrived and
hauled everyone in sight to jail.
They were detained at the
5th precinct for the afternoon.
After consideration the police
released Onyx and the bootleg­
ger. No charges were filed.
Don't buy bootleg material.
The good,
the bad &
the ironic
Things have surely got to be
looking up for Hammer, who
- if all goes as planned will
star in his own TV series this.
fall.
Still not all is peachy. A 23-
year old female employee won
a mixed judgement against the
former superstar rapper. (How
soon we forget).
It was in 1990 that the
woman charged she was gang
raped by members of Ham­
mer's entourage in a Los Ange­
les hotel room. However, the
jury didn't ee it that way.
They did however, award the
plaintiff 166,000 for 10 t
wages, medical expense and
other damage du to get this -
xual harassment in the work­
pi ceo Isn't that a twist?
By the way
Ro ie Perez has igned on to
play Nicolas Cages' wife in
"Cop Gives Waitress $2 Million
Tip". Production for th .-r:riS-.
tar feature, about a transit cop
and waitres who hare a win­
ning lottery ticket, gets under­
way thi August in New York.
Bridget Fonda also tars. Para­
mont has' yet to get started on
"Beverly Hills COl! 3"?
It would be hard to overstate
Run-DMC's influence on popular
culture during the decade that has
elapsed since they released "It's
Like That/Sucker MC's.
As the first and the greatest of
hip-hap's superstars, Run­
DMC's mission has always been
(in their own word) to "crash
through walls, go through floors,
bust through ceilings and knock
down doors." They have suc­
ceeded beyond anyone's wildest
dreams - their own included -
by embodying for the world the
endlessly creative ubculture of
young Black New York.
They were the first rappers to
earn a gold album (for Run DMC
in 1984), the first to earn a plati­
num album (for King of Rock in
1�, the first to 0 multi-plati­
num (for Raisin R II in 1986),
the first to have their videos
played on M1V, the tirst to appear
on tt American Bandstand," and
the first to grace the cover of Roll­
ing Stone. Nothing that Run
DMC does indeed "hold a fistful
of rap firsts," Rolling Stone's Rob
Tannenbaum recently wrote, "it's
hardly surprising that it's now the
first rap group to come back from
the dead. This may be its most
impressive achievement, given all
the hip-hop heroes who've gone
out like Hoffa." .
OF COURSE, Run-DMC's
impact cannot be measured by
musical milestones along. Run­
DMC have been responsible for
the introduction of new dances,
new Iashicns, new language, new
energy. They have been largely
responsible, in short, for nothing
less than the hip-hop-ification of
popular culture. It is not for noth­
ing that Bart Simpson and Barney
Rubble rap, the Madonna grabs
her crotch, that Spike Lee in­
vented Mars Blackmon, that
George Bush and Bill Clinton
both thought it necessary to attack
rappers during the election cam­
paign of 1992. It was not without
justice that Details named Run­
DMC one of the four biggest fash­
ion influences of the Eighties.
Not bad for a trio of 28-year-olds.
Still, the greatest aspect of
Run-DMC's triumph is that it has
come from the ground up. "I'm
not saying we invented hardcore,
I'm just saying we did it on record
before anyone else," Run told
New Musical Express. "It was
our life: there was no image to
form. We were just ourselves and
we took that to people." Or, 'as
Scott Poulson-Bryant put it in
Spin: "Run-DMC managed to be
our turnable heroes, around-the­
way superstars, selling us back to
us with Lee-clad bravado and
beat-chic minimalism."
Joesph Simmons (Run), Darryl
McDaniels (DMC) and Jason
Mizell (Jam Master Jay) grew up
in Hollis, Queen, New York, a
relatively stable, relatively com­
fortable Black community not un­
like hundreds of I others in
America. Friends from child­
hood, they were nurturing vagu
dreams of careers in the music
business when they entered 001-
lege in the fall of 1982. Luckily
for them, Run's older brother,
Russell Simmon, already had a
career in the music business as the
manager of rappers Kurtis Blow
and Whodini.
Luckily for Russell, Run and
his two partners had a ton of tal­
ent. Revolutionary as they were, .
Run-DMC were a smash from the
very start. Unlike both rap stars
and the pop stars of the day, Run­
DMC didn't sing, they didn't
dance, the y di dn' t dress up, and
they didn't smile when someone
pointed a camera at them.
They were hardly the first rap
group, but - a Newsday's Frank
Owen has noted -. they were "the
first rap group that really mat­
tered." Their im pact on the music
was tmmedla nd cataClysmic.
Tne Source's Reginald Dennis
has rittel1 that "just Otrtst
split history into BC and AD, .
Run-�MC forever separa d rap
into the new and old school. "
TEN YEARS LATER all the
history might as well be bunk.
When it comes to the notoriously
demanding hip-hop crowd the
question is always: What have
you done for me lately? What
Run-DMC have done on their lat­
est album, Down With The King,
is no small trick.
They have simultaneously
modernized their sound by open­
ing themselves to outside produc­
ers and stayed true to the pure rap
virtuosity that has always distin­
guished them. Down With The
King features production by such
present-day stars as Naughty By
Nature, EPMD, the Bomb Squad,
, Diamond D, Specialist (Mad Co­
bra), Chyskills (Onyx), Q Tip of
A Tribe Called Quest, Rage
Against the Machine, and Pete
In at least one way, the collabo­
rations represent a dream come
true. DMC's reaction to def jams
by other artists. has always been
the same: "Yo, if I had that track,
I'd rip it!" And time and again on
Down With The King that's pre­
cisely what happens. The aggres­
siveness and virtuosity of
�un-DMC's v als is staggering.
Rock & CL Smooth.
"A year ago my brain wasn't
ready for it," Run confessed to
Rap Pages's Michael Gonzales.
"All of a sudden I had a chill out:
'You can't do it all yourself.
You've got to collaborate and let
CL Smooth try to write a rhyme
with you.'"
In fact, Run-DMC found that
these new-jacks were thrilled to
work with the old masters, on re­
cord and in the video of "Down
With The King".
TOP 1 0 SINGLES
'1. ,"Looking Through' Patient Eyes"
...................................... P.M. DAWN (Gee StreeVlsland/PLG)
2. "I'm So Into You"
.............................................................................. SVI/\/ (RCA)
3. IIThat's The Way Love G�es"
......................................................... JANET JACKSON (Virgin)
4. "The Crying �ame" .
...................................................... BOy GEORGE (SBK/ERG)
, ..' 5. "Who Is It II
..................................................... MICHAEL J.f'CKSON (Epic)
, 6. "Nothln' My Love Can't Fix"
.............................................. JOEy LA�ENCE (Impact/MCA)
7. II Down With The King"
............................................................... RUN D.M.C. (Profile)
8. "Knockin' Da Boots"
......................................................... H-TOVVI'J (Luke Records)
9. II Livin' On The Edge"
............................................................. AEROSMITH (Geffen)
10. IICom Undone"
............... : DURAN DURAN (Capitol)
pers are still vocalists; tone and
phrasing are as important to Run
and DMC as they are to Luther
Vandross or Anita Baker. Rap
may boast better songwriters than
Run-DMC, but no better vocal­
ists. They are the Sam & Dave of
hop-hop." .
TECHNIQUE AND content
have ofte n dovetailed' in Run-
As Geoffrey Himes, writing DMC's music: they rap superbly
for the Washington Post, noted in wel� about being the greatest rap-
1 90, "Rap may dispen with
melody for the most part, but rap-
See KINGS, 85
TOP R&B/SOUL
1. "Knockin' Da Bootsll .
........................................................ H-TOVVN (Luke Records)
2. "That's The Way Love Goes"
, � JANET JACKSON (Virgin)
3. "Down �ith. The King II
................................................................ RUN D.M.C. (Profile)
4. "Who Is It II
........... : MICHAE;L JACKSON (Epic)
5. "Honey Dip"
.............................................................. PORTRAIT (Capitol)
6. "That' The Way �ove Is"
........................................................ BOBBY BROWN (MCA) •
7. "Weak"
.. · · .. ··· S'VN (RCA)
. .
8. II Kiss Of. Life II
... t····· · .. · SADE (Epic)
9. "Good 01' Days"
................................................................. LEVERT (Atlantic)
10. "Every Little Thing U Do"
.......................... CHRISTOPHER WILLlAMS(Uptown/MCA)
, .