Raising Hell

by Ronin Ro

  After the show, D wanted to leave the band. Run told him not to fret. They’d fine-tune the act. D went home gnashing his teeth, vowing, “I’m gonna take all these kids out!”

  Within days, he saw Run in a black blazer and matching Lees. Run told D to get a solid-color jacket. D made his all blue, wore it with black Lees and black-striped Adidas. Run then said, “You got to wear a hat!” D reached for a Kangol Applejack. They decided that plaid jackets weren’t the best idea.

  They settled into wearing black sweatshirts and matching jeans onstage, and Russell liked their no-nonsense look until he picked Jay up for a show one night, saw Jay emerge from his home in a Godfather hat, black leather suit, and unlaced white-on-white Adidas, and realized that Jay’s everyday street-tough regalia would make for a memorable image. Russell told Run and D, “Y’all not gonna have a uniform, but that’s what you’re gonna wear there.” They’d still wear sweatshirts and jeans for some shows, but if they were going to play a bigger theater, alongside some of the genre’s most popular stars, or if they learned reporters would stop by to interview them about their single, D remarked, “we’d put the leather suits on.”

  Russell booked them to play the Fun House downtown on August 5, 1983. Run mentally prepared for another run-in with the old school. “Back in the days, people didn’t really let him get on the mike,” said Hurricane. “So that ignited the flame. Then once he got on, he had to deal with the Bronx.” In the audience that night were numerous members of Zulu Nation, a former street gang from the South Bronx that had turned into a large, loosely knit, and unofficial association composed of members from every borough who enjoyed break dancing, spray-painting graffiti, or creating rap music. In the dressing room, Run and D worried about whether the Zulu Nation members in the audience would jeer them as the crowd at the Fever had. Russell had already stopped by the Roxy to hand Roxy DJ Afrika Bambaataa (leader of Zulu Nation and creator of “Planet Rock”) a copy of Run-D.M.C.’s single and to tell Bambaataa, “It’s a lot like your record ‘Planet Rock.’” Russell was cool with Bambaataa and Zulu Nation, but Run and D were nervous about performing their new routine, “Here We Go,” patterned after a phrase they’d seen in a children’s book (“Dum ditty dum ditty-ditty dum-dum”). Everyone who heard it enjoyed the song, but D noticed Run was anxious. “You know, the competition,” said D. “He was always nervous though. Cats used to call Run ‘nervous nipple.’ In a way, he was schizo, whatever; this motherfucker was fucked up.”

  D was also anxious. He sat with a fifth of Southern Comfort, chugging it down quickly, hoping to find confidence in it. Behind the curtain, Run and D bickered over who would go out first. “You go out there,” Run said.

  “No, you go out there!”

  Without warning Run shoved D through the curtain. D was suddenly onstage so he improvised: “One, two, three in the place to be.” He swaggered across the stage as Run quietly emerged and stood behind him. “He is DJ Run,” D said while pointing, “and I am D.M.C. Funky fresh for 1983!”

  Run was in awe. “D had the courage to go out there like that. Him doing it with all the lights on was amazing.” Jam Master Jay started cutting up Billy Squier’s “Big Beat.”

  As more stations started playing “It’s Like That” and “Sucker MCs,” Run-D.M.C. performed in other states. Many concerts were for radio stations that wanted a free show in exchange for more airplay, but Run-D.M.C. didn’t mind: they liked seeing new places, staying in hotels, riding in fancy cars, and performing for fans. “It was fun,” D.M.C. remembered. “A bag of weed, a couple of forties, and a car, and we were happy.”

  Russell soon had Run-D.M.C. flying on planes to open for major-label funk acts the Bar-Kays, Cameo, the Dazz Band, the Gap Band, George Clinton and Parliament, Midnight Star, and Zapp. From the beginning, some funk acts took exception to them being on the tour. Many were used to touring with rappers like Kurtis Blow and DJs like Grandmaster Flash, who were grateful for the slot on the bill and emulated them, dressing up before hitting the stage. Run and D wouldn’t change for anyone—they wore sneakers and basic black leather suits (no rhinestones, shoulder pads, or fringe sleeves like those favored by the funk stars or the rappers who toured with them and emulated these groups), and kids seemed to love Run-D.M.C. “Let’s just say, Bar-Kays,” Run explained. “They have five thousand hits. The place is packed. They’re headlining. We only got two records. We come. We gotta go on early, get a small portion of the stage. We perform. All the kids go crazy and scream and we do well and then they gotta go on and it’s not as exciting ’cause they’re on their way out and we’re on our way in.”

  When promoters in certain towns had them headline (since local radio played their record day and night), some funk acts were even more resentful. “We used to go out onstage and bust they ass!” D told writer Bill Adler. “After we finished, the crowd didn’t want to see these jerks jumping around with jheri curls, singing and playing the drums.”

  Some nights, however, self-doubt threatened to overwhelm Run. “Run used to be extremely nervous, damn near used to throw up before shows,” said Profile label mate Spyder D, who also performed as an opening act on these tours. “I used to be like, ‘Run, you the hottest motherfucker in Kentucky,’ or wherever we were.” But Run hid this when funk players scowled at him. If one of them muttered, “Y’all niggas ain’t shit,” road crew member Runny Ray recalled, Run’s attitude was: “We ain’t shit? All right. Whatever. Wait till we go on then, when we get off you tell me about it.”

  After their show—Run and D running around onstage performing “It’s Like That” and “Sucker MCs”—the same spiteful funk guy would wait right near the entrance to backstage. “Yo, you niggas was hot,” he’d say. “You niggas are def!” Soon, some funk groups refused to follow their set. “Niggas were like, ‘Damn, I don’t even want to go on after you,’” Ray explained. “‘These niggas done rocked my damn crowd! The crowd’s on their dick now! They done did “Sucker MCs”! Yo, I don’t even want to go on after that. Yo, let me go on first and then they go on.’”

  Chapter 9

  Rock Box

  In late autumn 1983 Profile Records wanted another song, so Russell and Larry told Run-D.M.C. to come to Greene Street Studios. This time, Run called Jay. “Bring the turntable.”

  In the studio, they wondered how to follow “It’s Like That” and “Sucker MCs.” Russell told the group, “Take ‘Hard Times’ and do it up-tempo.”

  Russell had contributed lyrics about current events and Larry had helped write music for the previous “Hard Times” in 1980. But they felt Kurtis Blow’s carefree delivery made it sound like a “Breaks” sequel. Kurt’s version went largely unnoticed, but Russell still wanted to foist it on Run and D now. “We needed another single real quick,” D explained.

  Run felt a bit disenchanted with his former mentor. Runny Ray remembered him saying, “We hot, Ray! Yo, he’s terrible!” Since Run-D.M.C. had achieved success, the feeling seemed to be mutual. It was a small industry and almost impossible not to hear Kurt was unhappy with them. As Kurt told it, the group originally asked him to produce “It’s Like That,” and he told them he was too busy promoting his album Tough, which at the time had sold a mere 300,000 copies. Kurt wanted to prevent the Sugar Hill Gang from stealing his audience. If they’d wait until he regained his status, he claimed to have told them, he’d gladly produce the song. But they did it without him and used his band, Orange Krush, so Kurt felt left out of the group’s success, after having helped start Run off in the business.

  Run and D didn’t understand what Kurt’s anger was about. Kurt had mixed “It’s Like That” and never given any indication of being upset with them. They chalked it up to jealousy and had no interest in covering his material. “Run didn’t like it that much,” said Ray. “He knew he was busting Kurtis Blow on his ass.” Regardless, they recorded “Hard Times,” setting their shouted tag-team vocals over another intimidating drum track and a few more crescendos from a synthesizer, delive
ring a reliable “It’s Like That” rehash to satisfy fans of the original.

  For their B-side they returned to beats and rhymes. D wanted to tell backbiting has-beens the feeling was mutual with a new lyric he started writing after the crowd at the Fever jeered. “The good news is that there is a crew. Not five, not four, not three, just two.” The rap would cause beef, but D didn’t care. “Not the Furious Five, not the Cold Crush Four, not the Treacherous 3, us two are the best,” he said. “If you go back to every record back then I was talking about all them motherfuckers. ‘The good news is that there is a crew’ and ‘all things won’t be the same.’ I was battling them!

  “When Run put me down,” D continued, “even though I was high and laid back my goal was to get in the middle of the Bronx and battle the whole Furious Five myself, battle the whole Cold Crush Four myself, and battle Kool Moe Dee and the Treacherous Three myself. ‘Run, sit over there. Jay, put this beat on.’ Myself.”

  For the B-side of “Hard Times,” Run also wanted to compete with groups that rapped about their DJs. “Everybody was talking about Flash and his DJing, so ‘Jam Master Jay’ was about what Jay did and that he was the master of the game,” said Larry.

  Jay suggested they re-create musician Cerrone’s disco-era “Rocket in the Pocket,” a favorite at parties with Two-Fifth Down. Run agreed. He also loved Cerrone’s noisy, snare-heavy break.

  At the board, Larry decided to try a few ideas inspired by the Art of Noise’s electronic song “Beat Box.” With the English group in mind, he programmed Jay’s beat on a Roland 808 and Run’s crisper-sounding DMX drum machine. When he finished, Larry asked, “What do you want to do, Jay?”

  Jay mixed the hard-hitting three-note horn blast from the break “Scratching,” followed with the Cerrone vocal chanting, “Rock it,” added other horns from “Scratching,” then dropped the beat and rubbed the cut while Run and D rhymed together.

  He worked quickly, creating a collage that matched anything on Flash’s groundbreaking 1981 single “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel.” But instead of well-known pop riffs and sound effects, Jay used well-timed scratches to make a drum machine sound as funky as an old-school break.

  Russell felt the result—Jay and Larry’s attempt to re-create “Rocket in the Pocket”—was the most peculiar song he had ever heard. He led the group to Disco Fever at five in the morning and had the DJ play it, to see if people would dance to it. When the song started, Russell stepped onto the dance floor. Couples who had been dancing happily felt the song was too aggressive, and left the dance floor. A famous rapping patron lifting cocaine up to a nostril spilled every flake. The coke-snorting rapper griped, “What was that shit?”

  Joey’s new song, he replied.

  “Well, let me know next time you play it so I’ll be prepared.”

  Jam Master Jay was even prouder than Russell. The song after all was about how great Jay was on the turntables, how superior to any other DJ. At home, before heading to the grocery store, Jay told his cousin and fellow DJ, Doc, “I did my first record. There go the tape. Listen to it and tell me what you think.”

  In his absence, Doc played it. “And I kept playing it.”

  Jay returned. “How you like it?”

  Doc gushed, “Yo, this is one of the best fucking records I ever heard! Yo, Jay, you’re on your way, kid. You’re it, man. This is it. This gonna be the hottest record on the streets this summer.”

  Only two months had passed since “It’s Like That” and “Sucker MCs.” In December 1983, Profile released their second single. People were used to their sound now, and liked Run-D.M.C. “It was just an instant success and went right on the radio and people bought it right away,” label president Cory Robbins remembered. “Then I told my partner, ‘We really should make an album with these guys.’ Why not? I mean just a few more songs. Because we already had four.”

  Robbins called Russell, but Russell, he explained, told him, “What? Are you crazy? Rap albums don’t sell!” Russell might have objected to an album because some artists received more money for individual singles than for submitting a completed album to a record label. But Robbins did not elaborate.

  The group was just as opposed to the idea, so Robbins told them, “Look. Maybe it’ll sell something. Maybe it’ll only sell 25,000 or 30,000 copies, but it’s gonna sell something. You’re gonna make these songs anyway. You might as well make an album and let’s see. You know? I know no rap album has ever really sold before, but we’re halfway there already; we have four songs, so let’s just do it!”

  They kept saying, “Oh, no, rap is not about albums. It’s about 12-inches. We shouldn’t do this.”

  “Well it doesn’t really pay not to do it,” Robbins reiterated, “even if it sells only 30,000 copies. It’s worth doing it.”

  Profile gave them a $25,000 advance for an album, Russell remembered. Fifteen thousand went toward recording. The remaining $10,000 was split between Larry, Run, D, and Russell. Whether Jam Master Jay received any payment for this work remains unknown.

  Run would tell D to write about a particular subject. D would fill pages in his notebook. Russell would tell D, “Bring your rhyme book to the studio.” In Greene Street Studios, D sat and waited while Russell and Larry thumbed through pages, deciding which lyrics to use. “They would pass over any references to violence, guns, and shit like that,” D said.

  Musically, Larry wanted everything to have the same feel. “Just different lyrics on top.”

  Run, D, and Jay helped create beats, but Jay mostly waited on the sidelines until Larry asked Russell, “Does this song feel like it really needs a scratch?”

  While recording “Wake Up,” Run and D watched Russell and Larry include the sound of a toilet flushing. Like Jam Master Jay, they were also on the sidelines, hearing Larry pitch ideas and Russell intermittently tell his coproducer, “Aw, that shit, that sound weak.”

  After laying their rhymes down, Run and D got out of the studio quickly, but Jay stayed behind, learning from Larry. “We would go in, lay our verses, and break the fuck out,” said D. They were leaving one session and saw Jay with a drum machine, playing one snare drum repeatedly. They returned eight hours later, and Jay was still there.

  Run asked, “What the fuck you doing, Jay?”

  “I got to get this snare right.”

  Run and D weren’t writing songs. When Larry played a beat, they’d get in the booth and say a routine. “We would rhyme over the whole ten minutes and then they would edit,” D recalled. But Russell wanted every lyric to have a hook. Once this was created, he then stayed on them about “staying inside the theme, stay inside the theme, hook, hook,” said Larry. He’d listen to their rap, sensing exactly when they needed to let the music ride. When they left Russell would ask someone to cut the tape with a razor, and paste certain parts in a different order.

  “They were stressing because sometimes you can’t get it right,” said Ray. “We’d get there at 7:00 at night and leave at noon the next day.” If they felt they had a great vocal, Larry would stop the music, and he or Russell would say they could do better. The tape would be rewound and they’d take it from the top, Larry pressing the Record button when they reached a certain word. The group felt this process of “punching in” drained certain songs of spontaneity and life. “They didn’t really like being punched in all the time,” Ray said. “When you’re rapping, then ‘Hold up, we’re gonna punch you in on this.’ They wanted to just flow on.”

  Another session found Russell and Larry telling them to record a song called “30 Days.” An attempt to inject a little sex appeal into the group, the song was cowritten by Run’s father, Daniel, and J. B. Moore of “The Breaks.” Said Moore, “Russell called me up and said he needed something very specific for ‘30 Days.’ It needed some sort of spark to it and I came up with what I think is the best single lyric: ‘I hear they say it’s been raining men / this is a onetime offer won’t be made again.’” Run and D felt the song was
wack but recorded it anyway on the off chance that Russell’s idea might work.

  Another evening, they had to wait for Brooklyn rock band Riot to finish their session before entering the recording room. While hearing this band’s thunderous metal, Russell told Run-D.M.C. and Larry Smith, “We need to make a rock record.”

  Riot left, and they had the studio. D told them, “If we’re gonna do that shit it’s got to be hard.” He pounded his fists against a wall to create the beat. “He knew ‘boom…bap… boom-boom bap,’” said Run. “He would always say that when he was drunk, so we put [the beat] down.”

  After programming the pattern, Larry grabbed his guitar and recorded a chunky bass line. Run said, “Dag, that’s the deffest guitar I ever heard in my life.” Larry then added bells they thought would evoke Bob James’s “Mardi Gras.”

  In the booth, Run and D rapped a routine about ruling the rap genre, humiliating rival rappers, and being just as legendary as rock groups like the Beatles, then went home feeling they’d created another hard-core hit. Russell stayed behind, saying he wanted a metal guitar on the song.

  Larry nodded. “Let me get my friend to play on it.” He called Eddie Martinez, a Hollis resident and one of the better guitarists Larry knew. Recently Larry had helped Eddie land a gig touring with Blondie. Now Larry told him, “Eddie, come play this for me.” Eddie, inspired by Hendrix, could provide the bluesy emotional guitar the song needed, Larry felt.

  While waiting for the guitarist to arrive, Larry told Greene Street owner Steve Loeb about the record.

  “You’re out of your mind!” Loeb said. “How could you possibly do that?”