—DAVE BRY
1. This is also a good indicator of how, only three years after “Rapper’s Delight” had exploded into popularity, rap had firmly and irreversibly shifted away from the DJ and toward the rapper.
WHAT THIS SONG IS ABOUT
It’s about Run-DMC getting discovered, and also about how cool and good they are at rapping and how uncool and not good sucker M.C.’s are.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
“Sucker M.C.’s” marks dual points in rap’s evolution, and the two things coalesce, as they often do in situations like these. It’s when rap parted itself between old and new (or uncool and cool, really) for the first time, and it’s also the first time a rap song could be described as a “battle rap” song, even if the antagonist was a general idea and not a specific foe.
When Run-DMC became a thing, a trio, that’s when rap aggressively separated into classes. That’s a big thing, and it all started with “It’s Like That” and “Sucker M.C.’s.” There’s a fair amount to unravel here, so the rest of the chapter is broken up into a Q&A format.
When did Run-DMC release “Sucker M.C.’s”?
“Sucker M.C.’s” was the B side to Run-DMC’s first single, “It’s Like That,” which was released by Profile Records.1 So, picture—you’ve got a vinyl record. There are two songs on that record, because you can fit two songs on it. “It’s Like That” was to be the marquee song on the record; the group’s first official song that was recorded and properly released. “Sucker M.C.’s” was basically the filler on the backside of the record, except it ended up being way more than that.
How is “Sucker M.C.’s” more important than “It’s Like That” if “It’s Like That” was Run-DMC’s first true song?
I think it might actually make more sense to talk a little about why Run-DMC was so important before we get to why “Sucker M.C.’s” was so important, because even though the two ideas are kind of similar, they’re not the same.
Most all of the key figures in the early chapters of this book were the first to do things, none more so than Run-DMC. They were the first rap group to be nominated for a Grammy, the first to have a gold album (and then platinum album and then multiplatinum album). They were the first to perform on American Bandstand. The first to have a video on MTV. The first to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. They were—
You’re telling me a lot of important accomplishments but not anything about how they were important.
I’m getting there. Chill.
They were the first to do a whole bunch of things, but really they were the first to establish a distinction between the first group of rappers that preceded them, and then the group that came after them. In effect, they marked the beginning of rap’s second generation.
How?
Much of the early rap—actually, basically ALL of the early rap—was strongly influenced by the R&B rhythms and disco atmospherics that had preceded it. It was all very lush and rhythmic and sometimes ornate and usually big. Run-DMC, when they showed up, they went the opposite direction. It was easy to see the difference—Afrika Bambaataa used to dress like he was some bizarro future space alien; Run-DMC settled on all-black outfits that proffered much more aggressive imagery2—and it was even easier to hear the difference.
Run-DMC stripped away all of the instrumentation and replaced it with drum machines (and then later they pushed it even further and melded it together with hard rock guitars and histrionics), which made it feel more real, more visceral.3 They were shout-rapping their rhymes, alternating words during lines, sneering and being very confrontational. All of a sudden, the party rap records that had been operating as the spine of rap sounded foolish and childish and all-the-way outdated. And there you have the separation. On the one side, you had the people who were still for party rap. On the other side, you had the people who were for this new thing, this more aggressive thing, this thing that wasn’t acquiescing, that wasn’t compromising any of its jaggedness. That’s where rap went after Run-DMC.4
Kurtis Blow was cool when he started rapping, sure, but he was cool the way that people who are nice and handsome are cool, which is to say nonthreatening cool. LL Cool J, a direct-line descendent of Run-DMC, he was cool when he started rapping, too, but he was cool the way people who are truculent and handsome are cool, which is to say the most overwhelming and intoxicating version of cool.
Rick Rubin did a lot of that early production you’re talking about, right? He did a lot of that rap-rock-style stuff at Def Jam.
No. I mean, yes, he did stuff like that at Def Jam Records, but he didn’t work on anything for Run-DMC until 1986’s transcendent Raising Hell.5 Russell Simmons helped work on Run-DMC’s earliest music, and he and Larry Smith produced “Sucker M.C.’s,” but it wasn’t as part of Def Jam.
How many albums did Run-DMC release when they were with Def Jam?
None, actually.
Wait, but so then why does it seem like they’re always connected?
Because they were, and because they are. Russell Simmons, who helped cofound Def Jam Records,6 is the older brother of Joseph Simmons. Joseph Simmons is the Run in Run-DMC. Russell is why Joseph felt compelled to wiggle his way into rap. Joseph actually served as a DJ for Kurtis Blow for a short while (Russell managed Kurtis), which maybe you know because you read it in one of the (many) books about Russell or Def Jam or Joseph or Run-DMC, or maybe you know it because you watched Krush Groove7 and remember the scene near the end where Kurtis confronts Joseph about ditching out on Russell to sign with another label and reminds Joseph of how he got his start.
Isn’t Krush Groove the best?
It really is. The third best thing about Krush Groove is Kurtis Blow in it. He’s probably the all-time most likable rapper. He’s like a human hug. I want to marry his smile, and if his smile is already married to someone else, then I want to marry his eyebrows and eyes. They’re remarkable. Nobody’s ever made better use of his or her eyes and eyebrows as a rapper than Kurtis Blow.8
The second best thing about Krush Groove is that Run, one of the movie’s main characters, is still a (semi-) hard-charging rapper in it. Run has been varying shades of famous since the early ’80s, but he’s been definitely famous since 2005 as a reverend, attributed mostly to his role in the MTV reality show Run’s House. I mostly only knew Run from the show, which means I mostly only knew him as a reverend. And watching a reverend cuss and try to have sex with Sheila E. is a fun thing.
The first best thing about Krush Groove is that Blair Underwood was cast as Russell Simmons in it. Russell Simmons casting Blair Underwood to play Russell Simmons has to be the most bold catfish move that’s ever been pulled off.
Since we’re here, what’s a fun Russell Simmons story?
Before Russell Simmons helped turn Def Jam Records into a company he’d eventually sell his portion of for nearly $100 million, he sold fake cocaine to make money. What’s smart about that is, if he got picked up by the police, he was generally okay because he was only selling fake cocaine to people and not real cocaine to people. What’s dumb about that, though, is I can’t imagine people who like real cocaine are very happy when they’re given fake cocaine.
Can you get back to Run-DMC now, because you still haven’t answered my first question: How is “Sucker M.C.’s” more important than “It’s Like That” if “It’s Like That” was Run-DMC’s first true song?
“It’s Like That” and “Sucker M.C.’s” were the first anyone really heard of Run-DMC, so they’re both important for that, because it all led to what we just talked about a little earlier. I don’t want it to sound like “It’s Like That” wasn’t a big moment, because it was. But “Sucker M.C.’s” did a thing that “It’s Like That” didn’t.
What thing?
The first true rap battle is generally understood to be Kool Moe Dee vs. Busy Bee Starski. It happened in 1981 at the Harlem World’s Christmas Rappers Convention. Now, there had been rap battles before then, but the way it (generally) worked was yo
u’d have two rappers and they would take turns working to see who could get the crowd the loudest, the most fired up. Busy Bee, he was probably the top dude of all at this. Nobody could beat him. He was king. And so when Kool Moe Dee was matched up against him, in a brilliant tactical switch, rather than focus all his energies on the crowd, he turned it toward Busy Bee. He called him names, said his rhymes were “bullshit,” made fun of him endlessly. The crowd was uproarious, laughing and shouting with each punch line. You can listen to it now and it’s still electric. In the background, you can hear poor Busy Bee shouting over and over again for Kool Moe Dee to shut up. It’s super sad. I can’t even imagine how hurt Busy was watching it all happen, knowing he was going to be remembered forever for a terribly embarrassing reason. Do you even understand how big of a thing that was? Rap had been a competitive sport up through then. Kool Moe Dee’s surprise bombing turned it into a blood sport. Rap absorbed all of that fury. It was perfect for the genre.
And the first time anyone bothered to put it on an actual, real record: “Sucker M.C.’s.”
Ah. Okay. I get it.
Good.
What sort of things were Run-DMC saying?
Mostly they were just arguing against, and at, people who they thought weren’t good rappers, which was turned into the phrase “sucker M.C.’s.” They’d tell sucker M.C.’s they should “catch a heart attack” and that they were copycats and everyone knew they were fake, and called them “sad-face clown” and also “bad-face clown” and things like that. My favorite insult was when Run rapped, “You’re cheatin’ on your wife,” because cheating on your wife or girlfriend became, like, one of the most important parts of being a rapper within the next five years.
Did you ever consider the idea that the confrontational nature of “Sucker M.C.’s” is also a good indicator that it was a new, youthful thing? Like, maybe it wasn’t just a thing that possibly happened by accident like you mentioned in that Why It’s Important blurb at the beginning of the chapter. Maybe it was actually a buck back against the old school?
That’s a good point. There’s a line in there where Run raps, “Everybody know what you been through,” and it kind of feels like it’s directed at Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message.” And if that’s the case, then it’s even more important, and accidentally prophetic and ironic.
How’s that?
Well, at the time that Run-DMC was doing what they were doing, they could never have imagined rap as it is today. Similarly, their predecessors, and even some of their contemporaries, couldn’t imagine what Run-DMC would bring to the genre. That’s a beautiful thing: the aliveness of the music. How it steals and guts the things around it in other genres, and things from its own past, and then for a brief moment whoever coins that style rises to the top, only to be surpassed by someone who learned and stole from it. And on and on and on.
REBUTTAL: “WHITE LINES (DON’T DON’T DO IT)” GRANDMASTER FLASH AND MELLE MEL
“White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)” isn’t actually antidrug, the argument goes, because the people who made it snorted. That doesn’t matter and it’s way off base—BASS!—anyway, because if it isn’t antidrug, it’s anti the institutions that keep drugs illegal just to arrest the people they want to arrest. And that Melle Mel addresses cogently, birthing street rap’s tradition of stoic resignation along the way, when he contrasts what happens to a “street kid” holding (three years) with what happens to “a businessman” (he is quickly “out on bail and out of jail”). Great moral art always flirts with the devil’s party appeal of the thing it tells you not to do, and the power of powder hides inside “White Lines”’s stuttering, coke-drip percussion and hypnotic, heart-racing bassline—all cribbed from white post-punkers Liquid Liquid’s “Cavern.” So yes, Melle Mel was supposedly doing coke in the studio while recording, but there’s nothing more hip-hop than attempting and not entirely succeeding at reconciling impossible-to-reconcile opposites. Like all the best hip-hop, “White Lines” is both full of it and honest to a fault.
—BRANDON SODERBERG
Sucker M.C.’s
“Dave cut the record down to the bone” (0:30)
“Champagne, caviar, and bubble bath” (0:38)
“So take that move back, catch a heart attack” (0:45)
“I cold chill at a party in a B-boy stance” (0:50)
“Fly like a dove . . .” (0:55)
“You’re cheating on your wife” (1:28)
“You five-dollar boy, and I’m a million-dollar man” (1:54)
“Tryin’ to rap up but you can’t get down” (2:04)
“You don’t even know your English, your verb or noun” (2:08)
“I go to St. John’s University” (2:19)
“I’m light-skinned, I live in Queens” (2:27)
“I dress to kill” (2:30)
“All my rhymes are sweet delight” (2:44)
Comparative, Boastful, Descriptive, Inflammatory, Lifestyle, Confrontational, Sonic
1. Here’s a crazy thing to think about: Run-DMC was paid $2,000 for “It’s Like That”/“Sucker M.C.’s.” The record sold more than 250,000 copies.
2. Another thing it did was make them much more relatable, and another-another thing it did was make it seem like they weren’t trying, which is always cool.
3. Run makes mention of this on the first verse, saying they “cut the record down to the bone.”
4. Another thing to mention here is that Run-DMC was also the first prominent rap group to come from the suburbs, and you can tie that to the way they connected with their white fan base any way you want. To be thorough, Jam Master Jay, the group’s DJ—he was a street tough. Run and DMC, though, they were not. The best example on “Sucker M.C.’s” is when DMC shouts, “I’m DMC in the place to be / I go to St. John’s University,” and a fun thing to mention is, in 2004, Wu-Tang released Legend of the Wu-Tang that had a cover of “Sucker M.C.’s,” and Ol’ Dirty Bastard raps, “I’m ODB in the place to be / Didn’t go to St. John’s University.”
5. Rick Rubin’s version of this was for sure the best version, even if it wasn’t the first. Another thing that ended up happening with Rubin and Russell pushing their artists in this direction was that rappers started making albums that existed as projects instead of just songs plus songs.
6. This is actually only sort of true. Technically, Rick Rubin started Def Jam while he was still a student at New York University. He’d released one song before Russell Simmons showed up.
7. Krush Groove is a 60-percent-true musical based on the beginning of Def Jam.
8. Ice Cube is a close second, though he used his very differently.
WHAT THIS SONG IS ABOUT
Friends.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
By this point, there had been some rap songs that had gotten popular enough that they’d become seen as pop songs. When Whodini made “Friends,” it was the first time a rapper or rap group tried to make a pop song on purpose.
It’s very likely that you know Whodini’s music—“Friends,” “Freaks Come Out at Night,” possibly “One Love,” and, depending on the kind of company you keep, even “Five Minutes of Funk”—but do not know Whodini, and that makes sense because that’s how it went for all but the most iconic figures from 1980s rap. And while the group Whodini—two rappers, Jalil Hutchins and John Fletcher, and DJ Drew Carter—was fun enough,1 it’s what they did that’s had a lasting impact.
There was a short article in the December 1984 issue of Billboard called “Whodini Makes ‘Friends’ at Radio, Retail.” It was about Whodini and the success that “Friends” was experiencing,2 but really it was about how in the little more than five years since “Rapper’s Delight” had wandered its way onto the radio, rap music had gone from something to aspiring toward something. There were two quotes in the story that I’m going to use right now that, reading them today, seem especially profound, though I suppose that shouldn’t be all that surprising given that two especially pro
found people gave them.
This first one is from Larry Smith, who, by then, had coproduced Run-DMC’s radical first album and all of Whodini’s Escape.3 He was talking about Whodini’s record company trying to steer them toward sounding a certain way. He said, “They wanted the whole thing to be more like Run-D.M.C., but I didn’t want to do exactly that. Whodini’s a bit more adult, I think, and rap’s not just for kids anymore.” I suspect he meant this literally, as stems of rap music had already begun to grow a bit salacious (Whodini had a song called “I’m a Ho,” and on it they admitted to playing a game called Tag Team Sex4), but I also suspect he meant this figuratively. Rap album sales were increasing at a tremendous rate. Escape was actually the first rap album ever to go platinum, an easy indicator that the stakes were getting higherHigherHIGHER.
This second one is from Barry Weiss. At the time, he was the manager of artist development at Jive Records. However, if you know his name it’s likely because he was one of the key figures behind the careers of Britney Spears, ’N Sync, and the Backstreet Boys, and if your brain is telling you, But those are all pop acts, not rap acts, that’s sort of exactly the point, my dude. He told Billboard, “The rap market’s moving from novelty to mainstream R&B, and with ‘Friends’ there is a very concerted effort to capture the older, sophisticated demographic5 and to open them up to rap.” This would seem like commonplace thinking, but that’s only because we know that this is exactly what ended up happening. In 1984, rap was still years away from merging fully with mainstream R&B and more than a full decade away from the most perfect version of it.6 “Friends” helped introduce the idea of a more conventional sense of melody to rap, de-emphasizing rhythm as an end in itself. It directly predicted the rap and R&B trend. It probably started it.
The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song from Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed Page 5