by Ronin Ro
Back from touring, D and Jay headed to Russell’s apartment on Fourth Street to discuss the happy resolution of the minor misunderstanding with Profile (which was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, since the group continued recording a new album). Run was supposed to meet them there, but he was late, so they walked over to Broadway to buy carrot juice. On the way, D saw a woman on the street, walking with her friend. He was instantly drawn to her. The friend noticed D and Jay and cried, “Oh, you know who that is? That’s Run! That’s Run!”
D was nervous but walked up to the woman anyway. He asked her name and she said Zuri. Zuri was from Hartford, Connecticut, and had previously thought Run-D.M.C. was white—since they rapped over metal guitars. She preferred the music of L.L. Cool J (who had been including hit love raps on every album since Russell first encouraged L.L. to rap over ballad-styled music for his 1987 pop hit “I Need Love”) and the R & B group New Edition. All this made D like Zuri even more. He asked her, “Are you married?” She wasn’t, so D asked for her phone number. Five days later, the twenty-nine-year-old rapper took her to City Island for seafood.
Zuri was ten years D’s junior and had danced on the short-lived TV series Club MTV. They got close, and D found himself wanting to marry her. Jay said, “Yo, D, you gonna have problems.” Jay had by now separated from his son Jason junior’s mother, Lee, the reasons for which he never discussed. Since then, Jay had remarried, to a woman named Terri, six years his junior. “You definitely gonna have a problem because your wife’s younger than you,” Jay went on. “So you got to be ready for that.”
In the studio, D rapped about Zuri on “What’s Next,” and sure enough, they were engaged and soon after married.
When they finished recording songs for Still Standing, D played every new song and told himself, “My rhyme about ‘G-O-D’ on ‘Down with the King’ saved this album.” The new songs were enjoyable, a notable improvement over Back from Hell that found them sharing sentences, eschewing R & B, discussing familiar subject matter, and steering clear of cursing; but it was still a far cry from their milestone Raising Hell. “We could have had five or six more hits but Jay tried to put a lot of that Onyx influence on it,” said D.M.C. “Like that song ‘one little, two little, three little Indians.’” They had also adopted an Onyx-like image: all-black outfits and bald heads.
They ended Still Standing by recording D, without any music, saying, “For the past decade, the last ten years… many reps were made… many debts were paid! Some crews, paid dues; others refuse to lose, and that’s all the news!” They called this piece “For 10 Years.”
The final step was officially naming the album. After hearing D’s verse on “Down with the King” (where he yelled, “And the G-O-D be in me ’cause the king I be”), Russell said, “We’re gonna talk about y’all being ‘born again’!” Run-D.M.C. saw the album title change from Still Standing to Down with the King.
At Profile and Rush, some executives were reluctant to release the gentle “Down with the King” as lead single, but “Jay fought hard to get that record made and for it to be the single,” said D.M.C. Jay knew that rap fans loved producer Pete Rock’s sound—heavy on beats and echoing horns—and that “Down with the King” would attract Pete Rock’s loyal following to their own album.
After Profile agreed to release “Down with the King” as the first single from the new album, Run-D.M.C. then met with Profile’s publicist to discuss how to market the album and the group. Tracy Miller then learned about Russell and Run’s plan for a new “born again” image—mentioning God a lot and claiming that D’s lyric about “G-O-D” was gospel-inspired, and not just D letting people know he felt Chuck D was “God on the mike,” but also felt he was just as talented as Chuck. Miller didn’t believe Run was sincere about the spiritual image, though she did consider D’s belief heartfelt. “He got caught up in [the religious image] and believed it. Almost like he was, I wouldn’t say duped, but D’s the kind of person that never would think anyone had an ulterior motive.” Still, Down with the King wasn’t bad, and the new look (solid black) “was kind of cool,” she added. “It had a hard-core edge to it.”
Label president Cory Robbins did not think the new spiritual image would have any effect on sales. “I mean the previous album had sold so poorly that I don’t know that I was really worried about it,” he said. “I don’t know what our expectations were for Down with the King because Back from Hell was such a failure. But Down with the King did turn out to be fairly successful. Not like their previous days in the eighties, but at least it was a respected album and it had a Gold single.”
In March 1993, “Down with the King” landed in the Top 40 and topped the hot rap singles chart for two weeks. Then in May the album arrived in stores, topped the R & B album chart for a week, and earned Run-D.M.C. their kindest reviews in years. And with better sales, all three group members looked forward to receiving royalties that would help settle a few debts and allow them to rest easier.
Rolling Stone felt Down with the King had “the same infectious enthusiasm and the same in-your-face attitude as Run-D.M.C.’s raw earlier classics,” while Entertainment Weekly wrote that they managed “to sound young, lean, and hungry after 10 years in the rap game.” The Source loved its sound, and Musician announced, “When it comes to hardcore rhyming, they still run rings around the competition.” And their gospel image landed Run-D.M.C. a story in the New York Times, in which Run was quoted saying that once the “Down with the King” single became a hit, “That’s when I knew for sure that God was with me, because he let that be our comeback.”
Some of their friends, however, shook their heads in disbelief. “They were full of shit to me,” Runny Ray felt. “When [Run] got born again he was still drinking, he was still smoking weed.”
Many rap fans had mixed feelings about the group including guest stars on nearly every song. They felt Run-D.M.C. had borrowed the style of whatever big-selling star had produced the particular song. “It’s weird because they were the trendsetters and when they started trying to follow trends that was their downfall,” said the Beastie Boys’ Ad Rock.
Though Down with the King sold a million copies, D.M.C. felt people didn’t like anything but the single with the Hair sample— “Where Do I Go”—and told the others their next album should continue in this vein. But Run and Jay ignored him and, during an interview on a morning radio show in England (after the host asked where they saw themselves being in the year 2000), Run said, “Darryl’s gonna be naked on some mountaintop with an acoustic guitar somewhere.”
Everyone laughed at D. “Including myself,” said Tracy Miller, “because everyone knew the direction D was going in. He was just so ahead of his time.” D wanted to include acoustic guitars on Run-D.M.C. songs. “After that, people started incorporating acoustic sounds into hip-hop. If D had put out the record he envisioned and was playing around with during the early nineties, he would have been at the forefront again with a new sound.”
Chapter 26
You Talk Too Much
In 1994, the name Run-D.M.C. still drew crowds. Fans forgave them for marginal works, and knew that if they were left alone, and inspired, they could easily deliver more classic works. In the industry—a handful of major labels, a few independents, and a couple of rap magazines—everyone had fond memories of when they first heard Run-D.M.C.’s music, and if a project involved Run-D.M.C., some executives were more than willing to take meetings. Even without hit records, Run was able to interest record companies in compilation album projects, and when it was time for meet-and-greet sessions in corporate offices in midtown Manhattan, more often than not he’d reach for the telephone and call D.M.C. But now that D was married, the dynamic between them was changing, D said.
They were both attending Zoë Ministries—Run had in 1994 been declared a reverend by Bishop Jordan, and D was still a deacon—but D was also enjoying married life with Zuri, which his oldest friends noticed made him happier, “calmer, more relaxed,”
said Hurricane. But with Zuri in the picture, D felt a tension develop between him and Run. It was no longer acceptable for Run to call every two minutes to say, “Hey, D, be here” or “You going to be there [at a meeting]? You have to be there, man. You know, you going to mess everything up for me.” But Run kept calling despite the inconvenience to involve D.M.C. in discussions with labels about compilation albums that could monetarily benefit them all. “I had a girl so it was different,” D said.
At the same time, D was concerned with his voice. During the occasional shows they performed (they weren’t touring), it would crack. He asked the bishop for advice about whether to stop performing (since he feared he’d reached the end of his career), and the bishop advised D to “go out there and continue doing the shows. It’s not that they just want to hear you do your record perfect. They want to see that that’s really D.M.C., who they heard on these records and tapes all these years.”
The pep talk worked. Thirty-year-old D now viewed Run-D.M.C.’s audience in a new light. He had worried that going onstage with a failing voice would be akin to cheating the audience, which he did not want to do. But now he realized that the group’s fans just wanted to see him, bond with him, relive the past, and let Run-D.M.C. know how much their old hits had meant to them. He was feeling this way when Russell called Run-D.M.C. in late 1994 to invite the group into the all-star cast he’d assembled for his documentary The Show.
The Show featured many of rap’s trendiest acts in 1994—the Notorious B.I.G. (also known as “Biggie Smalls”), the Staten Island collective Wu-Tang Clan, energetic crowd-pleaser Craig Mack, and numerous profanity-spewing gangsta rappers—but presented imprisoned storyteller Slick Rick and Run-D.M.C. as examples of what rap music used to be, could still be, and should be.
Modern rappers heaped praise on Run-D.M.C. Chart-topping hard-core hero the Notorious B.I.G. said during his interview, “I grew up to that shit,” and Treach of Naughty by Nature opined, “If you’re dissing Run and them, you’re dissing hip-hop.” Run-D.M.C. was then filmed sitting in the backseat of a car rolling through Hollis. It had become a more violent, drug-infested neighborhood over the past decade, but Jay, who had moved back since marrying Terri, the mother of his second and third sons, Jesse and T.J., was staying put. He was a neighborhood staple, helping friends pay their rent, playing basketball or chess in the park, discovering young Hollis rappers, working with artists in his second-floor studio loft on Merrick Boulevard, throwing Christmas parties, marching in local parades, and hiring old friends at his JMJ label, his studio, or as part of Run-D.M.C.’s ever-growing road crew.
In the car, for the camera, Jay described his early days. “Like the first few years of our career? We were just big, we were just—”
Run interrupted. “God’s plan.”
“God’s plan,” Jay resumed. “We didn’t even see it. We were dazing. Just coming back to Hollis—”
Run interrupted again. Raising his arms, he said, “The blessing overtook us. We didn’t overtake it.”
Jay looked frustrated. “Yeah, yeah, right,” he unhappily agreed.
“It just came and like over-engulfed us.”
For another of the few scenes that would feature Run-D.M.C., the group arrived at a concert venue, a huge auditorium with a stage as large as those during the Fresh Fest and Raising Hell days. After technicians set up lights, a large crowd entered, and Jay and his assistants checked to see that his turntables worked properly. Run-D.M.C. then began their concert for the cameras.
Run was stocky, confident, shrill, and imposing. The youthful cockiness had been replaced with mature self-assuredness. Records and films may have tanked, but he knew, as did the audience, that no one could compete with Run-D.M.C. onstage. Run wore a black denim jacket, matching jeans, and his trademark hat. D, broad-shouldered, gaunt, without glasses, and swaggering confidently across the stage, wore his hat with a baggy black T-shirt and track pants, and looked like someone the crowd wouldn’t want to mess with. Jay and his turntables were on the drum riser. Behind Jay, a huge tapestry displayed a silhouette of their group pose on the Down with the King cover.
Holding a mike during this late 1994 concert for The Show, Run yelled, “I’m a slow it down on a real ill b-boy catch-your-heart-from-back-in-the-day jam and bug your whole life out, make you go home and slap yourself in the back of the head. Put your hands up like this. We’re gonna go side to side. Everybody that’s with old-school hip-hop and know about Run-D.M.C. from way back and know what we gonna do…” He paused. “You don’t even know what we gonna do next. We got so many hits.” He raised his left hand. “Put your hands in the air, everybody, like this…”
D added, “Reach for the sky.”
Run faced him with annoyance, then added, “We gonna do it like this.” Jay scratched his name: “Run.”
“What’s my name?” Run walked toward the turntables. “What’s my name what’s my name?”
Jay kept cutting his name.
Leaning in toward the turntables, hand cupping his left ear, “What did you say? That’s cool.” Then at the front of the stage: “Now put your hands back in the air. Come on! Don’t front on a nigga!”
“Together Forever” played and the entire crowd swung their hands and cheered. D swaggered across the stage. Run stood at its center, in profile, bending and extending his knees, yelling, “Louder, louder, louder.” But throughout the song, D’s voice kept cracking. Before another number, Run crossed the stage. “Now check this out,” he snapped. “I’m ready to go to the next level. You all ready to go to the next level? We gonna do it like this.” He grabbed D’s T-shirt, pulled it toward him. “D, what’s this right here?”
“Yo, this my black shirt. You mess around, you get hurt.”
Run lifted the bottom of his shirt. “What’s this under here?”
“Yo, this my black belt. I whip MCs and I give them welts.”
Run leaned over. “What’s this on your leg?”
“Yo, these my black pants. I’ll beat you down if I get the chance.”
Run nodded. “Do me a favor.”
“What?”
At full volume: “What the fuck are these, man?”
D yelled, “My—”
“Uh…”
“Didas!” Both leaped in place to thunderous applause.
During another segment for The Show, however, Run—self-appointed leader of Run-D.M.C.—and Jay engaged in a conversation that hinted at tensions in the group. First, Jay was filmed in a black tank top and shorts, entering an outdoor basketball court. Joining a group of black teenagers, he said, “What’s up, nigga, what’s going on?” to one. Then, “What’s up, man?” Shaking another kid’s hand in introduction: “Jay.”
Someone said, “He’s gonna play with us. He’s good.”
After the game, Jay sat next to Run, who had been watching the game in the crowded park. Run wore a black Adidas jacket. His eyebrows were raised, his face purposefully soft while crooning Def Jam artist Warren G’s lyric to Jay: “‘Its kind of easy when you listen to the G-dub sound.’” He sat up. “Why would he even say the word ‘easy’? You know what I’m saying? When you say ‘easy,’ you think of easy listening.” He shook his head. “This music is ill.” Tapping his knee. “But what makes it the most interesting to me about the whole thing is he’s [best-selling West Coast producer] Dr. Dre’s little brother.”
Jay quickly answered, “It’s like you and your brother.”
Run looked toward his own lap. “Yeah, but that’s…”
“That’s how people were seeing it,” Jay said, refusing at his age to placate Run with the answer. “How you gonna have Russell Simmons managing all these people and Run being down as the main rapper?”
Run tried to back out of it. “Yeah, I ain’t worrying about how Dre—”
Jay kept talking. “Dre—”
Run now tried to leave behind the subject of nepotism. “Dre is Warren G’s older brother—”
“Yeah,” Jay said expec
tantly.
“And I got Russell doing what he do,” Run said, showing Jay and the film crew that he too had matured, and was more than willing to let bandmates express differing opinions.
“There you go,” Jay said happily.
D.M.C. meanwhile conducted his interviews for the film not with his overbearing bandmate Run around, but at home, near a sun-filled window. As he spoke, D.M.C. struggled to maintain Run-D.M.C.’s image of unity and brotherhood. D.M.C. told the film crew, “To this day if we weren’t making records we’d still have to get together and go in Hollis Park and throw a party. You know, I’d still be writing rhymes.” But he hinted that the group might not last forever. “If I were working at the post office,” D continued, “I’d have a book of rhymes.”
Much of The Show was also devoted to Russell Simmons, Run-D.M.C. noticed. The media had already spent a decade describing Russell as the “mogul of rap.” The media credited Russell for the band’s look, for the beat on “Sucker MCs,” for the 1986 endorsement deal, for creating Def Jam Records.
Now, The Show presented Russell at fashion shows, hanging with models, exercising on the treadmill in his office while berating a Def Jam employee via speakerphone, and adding a few L.L. songs to a greatest hits compilation. He was also filmed telling fashion models about his friend, label owner Sean “Puffy” Combs, and in a chauffeur-driven car, going to visit rapper Slick Rick in Rikers Island prison.
Jam Master Jay was distressed, and looked it throughout the filming of The Show, partly because his project with Russell—his label JMJ—was in trouble and partly because tax bills and other debts were getting him down. Over the past five years, Russell’s RAL labels had continued to churn out single after single, but Doctor Dre said, “There wasn’t anything there. They were trying to put out quantity rather than quality.”