Runnin' at the Mouth

And It's Like That...

Run-DMC - "Here We Go" (mp3)

DMC on Fresh Air, 30 August 2005 (follow the link to the WMP link)

Pete Rock's Run-DMC mix (via Run-DMC website)
(purchase the reissues here, here, here and here)

Still trying to find a balance between music y el mundo, so T-days are for droppin' joints... so we can get twice as nice per week?

DMC on Gross? You must be illin'...

Times done changed, dun, and fortunately Mr. McDaniels tells quite a story. And he's just one contributor to NPR's the History of Hip Hop series. Nice for the new jacks, but wonderful trips down the lane for all.

The Run-DMC site has a couple new mixes of the reissues -- greatest snippet-type collages -- so I linked up the Chocolate Boy Wonder's. Complete with drops'n all! This truly NY phenomenon never ceases to amuse me.

"Here We Go" to give you a sense of where I keep my Adidas. Just tagteam rhymin' over a Big Beat. Jay fouls up, Run's a lil' hard to understand at times, but it's no wonder why J5 kicked off their career by cribbing this joint.

I just finished a piece on the Run-DMC reissues for Popmatters. I used storytelling as the theme, but my initial idea was to compile first impression-type stories. I was unable to use the responses I culled, so I reprinted portions of them below. Now, I'd like to open the comments section to all y'all:

1) Which Run-DMC album/song is your favorite and why? (I'm not asking which you think is the best; I'm asking which album do you LIKE BEST)

2) Where were you when you first heard that album/song and what was your initial impression?

• Michael, Engineer/Producer, Sound Advice
  "Raising Hell... I have a lot of memories of listening to it everyday on the drive to summer camp in the van with the other 15 kids. Initial impression was that it was very fun and easily accesible. Didn't understand why my dad hated it."
  
  
• Alon, Musician
  "Raising Hell... Live instrumentation mixed with good sequencing and Rick Rubin is still in his pre-fat weird rabbi mug days [Ed. he's kidding]... Rock and rap are directly related, because they are both rooted in African-American cultural soundscapes. This album took the highest common denominator of both genres [Ed. !!], and the rough rugged raw hybrid is greater than the sum of all it's parts. Their records before RH were good, but this one has direction, a clearer voice, and blazed a path. Unfortunately, that path has led to utter shit in the modern rock/hip-hop popular music world, but that is probably George Bush's fault [Ed. kidding. again.]. This record to me is like any great old-school Afro-Cuban album: you can tell what's African vs. what's Cuban, but none of that matters. You get the best of both worlds for the price of one!"
  
  
• Oscar, Teacher/Musician
  "Run-DMC... i believe i was in elementry school when i first heard [it]. i remember the cool kids talking about them and the beastie boys and me not being cool enough to talk about it or hear it. Rap was still dangerous back then like kids couldn't really or weren't supposed to listen to it."
  

I'll link up to my article when it goes up. In the meantime, what do you say?

Update: Popmatters posted the piece here.