The increasing importance of rap as a part of multicultural popular music was confirmed when Run-D.M.C.’s album Raising Hell sold more than one million copies.
Rap music originated in the inner cities of the United States as a new voice for the frustration and hopelessness of ghetto life. A continuation of African American musical culture, rap drew from oral traditions and the rhythmic drumming and syncopation of black music. It was also influenced by the Jamaican “sound system” disc jockeys of the 1960’s and the political jazz of Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets. Emerging in New York City during the mid-1970’s, early rap was performed almost exclusively for black audiences in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the South Bronx. Rap remained a predominantly race- and class-specific form of expression until 1986, when two young rappers known as Run-D.M.C. released the album Raising Hell. This platinum hit crossed cultural boundaries and firmly established rap as an important part of popular music.
Raising Hell combined metallic rock, rhythm and blues, and rap into a popular mixture that jumped up the pop music sales charts to number three. The album included a collaboration with the hard rock band Aerosmith on a remake of Aerosmith’s classic “Walk This Way,” which was also released as a music video that received heavy play on the Music Television (MTV)
Prior to 1986, rap was not completely unknown to the music world. In 1979, songwriter Sylvia Robinson released “Rapper’s Delight” by Harlem’s Sugarhill Gang. This rap hit was the first to make a mark on national music sales charts. It was soon followed by “The Breaks” and “125th Street,” by Kurtis Blow, and by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s graphic protest “The Message.” Rap concerts drew increasingly larger crowds, and the record industry began to take notice.
It was at this time that a young man named Joseph Simmons began developing his own rap style. The son of a civil rights activist and poet, Joseph grew up in the middle-class neighborhood of Hollis, Queens. His elder brother Russell managed Kurtis Blow and sometimes allowed Joseph, a glib fifteen-year-old, a few minutes onstage to do his own thing. Nicknamed “Run” at the age of twelve because of his tendency to run off at the mouth, Joseph was enrolled in college, studying mortuary science, when he teamed up with Darryl McDaniels, his best friend since kindergarten, to form Run-D.M.C.
Run-D.M.C.’s first album, It’s Like That,
Run-D.M.C. followed up on the record’s success with the Raising Hell national tour. The group sold out twenty-thousand-seat arenas across the United States, but the tour was devastated by violence at concerts in at least six cities, including rioting in Pittsburgh, New York, and St. Louis. In Long Beach, California, gang members tore through the arena before the concert, injuring more than forty people. Although rowdiness at concerts was nothing new, the magnitude of the violence in these cases attracted the attention of the watchdog organization the Parents Music Resource Center.
RUN-D.M.C. (from left to right): Joseph “Run” Simmons, Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels, and Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell.
Simmons argued that he was serving as a role model for inner-city youth: “They listen to me because I act tough and cool. I got a lot of juice with them. . . . So when we say don’t take drugs and stay in school, they listen.” One music critic described Raising Hell as “highly moral,” and others pointed to Run-D.M.C.’s history of social involvement, including an appearance at the Live Aid concert and participation in public-service announcements aimed at discouraging drug abuse and the risky behaviors associated with exposure to sexually transmitted diseases. After the Long Beach incident, Simmons went on the radio in Los Angeles to urge people to calm down. “I told the gangs,” Run said, “if you’re listening to me—you’re stupid.”
The next significant crossover hit was inspired when Russell Simmons teamed up with heavy metal producer Rick Rubin to form Def Jam Records.
When Run-D.M.C. went platinum with Raising Hell in 1986, rap became an undeniable force in the popular music industry. “Walk This Way,” the hit collaboration with Aerosmith, broke the precedent that rap was created by black musicians only for black youth only. Rap’s increased popularity with a racially mixed audience provided incentive for artists of different ethnic backgrounds to experiment with this musical form, and rap diversified and flourished. The impacts of rap were not limited to the music world alone. Heated debates regarding the violence associated with rap concerts and the obscenity, sexism, and hostility prevalent in the lyrics of “gangsta” or “hard-core” rap raged in the media, the courtroom, and the classroom.
Although “gangsta” rap was the most visible because of its controversial nature, a variety of distinct approaches to the genre developed, each with its own stars and audience. “Pop” or “bubblegum” rap, pioneered by M.C. Hammer, was characterized by its repetitive musical samples and innocuous lyrics. Acts such as Hammer, Heavy D. and the Boyz, Sir Mix-a-Lot, and Kris Kross, as well as white rappers Vanilla Ice and Marky Mark, were popular with the media because of their inoffensive style. Pop rap received airtime on MTV, and advertising campaigns targeting teenagers utilized such hits as Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” (1990), Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” (1990), and Kris Kross’s “Jump” (1992).
Female rappers assumed a more dominant role with the 1986 release of Hot, Cool, and Vicious
Another female rapper, Sister Souljah,
Criticized in its early days for nihilism and lack of utopian vision, rap experienced a resurgence of optimism and ethnic identity common to black music. Combining spiritual and mystical lyrics with the rhythmic textures sampled from 1960’s music, P. M. Dawn’s Of the Heart, of the Soul, and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience united those alienated by other forms of rap. Along with P. M. Dawn, De La Soul, Arrested Development, and A Tribe Called Quest met with great success in the mainstream, receiving acclaim for their work in such popular publications as Rolling Stone, Spin, The New York Times, and the Village Voice.
As early as 1980, rap was used by educators who took advantage of its retainability. Douglass “Jocko” Henderson, a radio personality of the 1950’s and 1960’s, formed Get Ready, Inc.,
Rap music flourished in the decades after Run-D.M.C. caught the public’s attention in 1986, as many artists unique in music and message came on the scene. Rap also influenced American culture more widely. The controversial nature of some rap music encouraged people who had never listened to it to hold strong opinions about it nevertheless. The effect of explicit rap on society (and vice versa) could not be ignored, and rap music contributed to debates concerning censorship and restrictions on material that could be presented to children.
The controversy surrounding the graphically violent and sexist lyrics of 2 Live Crew’s
As Nasty as They Wanna Be
Rap continues to extend the tradition of African American music. It is the honest voice of a diverse set of people, espousing divergent viewpoints and encompassing many attitudes. Run-D.M.C., the first rap group to enter the limelight of popular music, opened the door for a segment of society that had been shut out for too long.
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Blauner, Peter. “The Rap on Run-D.M.C.: The Kids from Hollis Strike Gold.” New York 19 (November 17, 1986): 62. Describes Run-D.M.C.’s rise to fame and fortune. Gives the background of Joseph “Run” Simmons and follows the group’s development under the management of Simmons’s elder brother Russell. Includes quotations from fan interviews and criticism by old friend and fellow rapper Kurtis Blow. -
Chin, Brian. “Rap Hits Home: The Biggest, Brashest, Freshest Breakthrough of the Decade.” Billboard, December 27, 1986, Y8. A brief history of rap from 1979 to 1986 by a music expert. Chin rejoices in rap’s freshness and free expression, which he attributes to a lack of acknowledgment by the “overground” music industry. -
Dyson, Michael Eric. “Rap Culture, the Church, and American Society.” In Sacred Music of the Secular City: From Blues to Rap, edited by Jon Michael Spencer. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1992. A professor at the Chicago Theological Seminary depicts rap as the continuation of black oral culture. Analyzes rap for both its positive and its negative influences. -
_______. “Rights and Responsibilities: 2 Live Crew and Rap’s Moral Vision.” In Sacred Music of the Secular City: From Blues to Rap, edited by Jon Michael Spencer. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1992. Thoughtful essay defends 2 Live Crew’s right of expression according to the First Amendment and also criticizes American society for producing such violent and sexist attitudes. -
Manuel, Ruth Dolores. “The Three R’s: Reading, ’Riting, Rapping.” Essence, April, 1984, 56. Profile of Douglass “Jocko” Henderson, radio personality turned educator, who created rap records on such subjects as black history, drug abuse, and career-preparation skills. -
Ogg, Alex, with David Upshal. The Hip Hop Years: A History of Rap. New York: Fromm International, 2001. Uses interviews with more than one hundred rappers, music producers, and others in the music industry to trace the history of rap. Includes photographs and index. -
Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Excellent scholarly account of the history of African American musical forms provides both background and important detail. Places the rise of rap music within a larger context. Includes critical bibliography and extensive index. -
West, Cornel. “On Afro-American Popular Music: From Bebop to Rap.” In Sacred Music of the Secular City: From Blues to Rap, edited by Jon Michael Spencer. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1992. Interesting commentary on music’s function in black society places rap in the broad historical context of African American music. Includes discussion of bebop, gospel music, jazz, soul, Motown, and technofunk.
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