["Hip-Hop" by Dead Prez playing]
♪ Uh, uh, uh, 1, 2, 1, 2 ♪
♪ Uh, uh, 1, 2, 1, 2, uh, uh ♪
♪ One thing 'bout music when it hit, you feel no pain ♪
♪ White folks say it controls your brain ♪
♪ I know better than that, that's game ♪
♪ And we ready for that Two soldiers, head of the pack ♪
♪ Matter of fact, who got the gat? ♪
♪ And where my army at?
♪ Rather attack and not react ♪
♪ It's bigger than a hip-hop Hip-hop, hip-hop, hip ♪
♪ It's bigger than a hip-hop Hip-hop, hip-hop ♪
[sirens wailing]
[drum beats]
[Shad] Hip hop's story in the 1970s was all about overcoming.
Overcoming poverty, violence and neglect.
But the '80s held an entirely different promise for hip hop:
success.
The early hits turned hip hop into a business,
rappers into stars
and put money in everyone's pockets.
And it was a kid from Queens who would envision hip hop's future
and become its first mogul.
["I Need A Beat" by LL Cool J playing]
♪ I need a beat, I need a beat ♪
♪ I need a beat I need a beat ♪
[music playing]
[intercom] Hello.
Hey, it's Shad for Russell Simmons.
♪ I need a beat, I need a beat ♪
♪ I need a beat I need a beat ♪
[Shad] Thanks for your time, Russell.
I'd love to start by asking you about Hollis, Queens.
I grew up in Hollis, Queens. Um, when I moved in it was
mostly a black neighborhood. There were few white families left,
and the community was a lower middle class
African-American neighborhood.
It quickly became the heroin capital of Queens,
and it destroyed the fabric of the community.
And... and that was right there on our corner.
That corner drew a lot of us to it,
and some of us didn't all sell heroin and take heroin.
Some of us sold weed. I was one of them.
I was fortunate enough to escape. Most of my friends didn't.
Eventually, I got shipped off to City College,
which was a big deal for me going there
to Harlem and discovering the hip hop world.
♪ Grandmaster Caz, you are the Cap ♪
♪ So get on the mic and show 'em you're the lord of rap ♪
[Russell Simmons] About 1977 I saw Eddie Cheba Rap.
And D.J. Hollywood and the Cold Crush Brothers
and Melle Mel and the Furious 5. Them names were fantastic.
I never seen nothing like it.
It was the next generation ushering in a new idea.
Everything was uncharted.
I didn't know what I wanted except, you know, to be cool for that moment.
And the music, I wanted to give it to everybody.
Instead of selling drugs, I started promoting parties,
and that was a real shift. You know, I had aspiration to survive.
♪ You hear my You hear my ♪
♪ You hear my You hear my voice ♪
[Sal Abbatiello] Russell really liked to party.
But in the day, when he was straight,
never got high in the day. He only got high at night.
He wasn't into today. He was into tomorrow.
Russell was always looking forward.
[Bill Adler] Not only was he granted access everywhere,
but he wanted to go everywhere and he was welcome everywhere.
[music playing]
[Russell Simmons] I remember the first party I gave,
Kurtis Blow performed at the Hotel Diplomat.
I brought Grandmaster Flash downtown.
Flash came alone and let Kurtis be his MC.
I remember exactly what he said,
"People in the place they base in the face
you're about to see first place in the rap race.
Sounds you hear so good to ear, have no fear,
Kurtis Blow is here." It was electrifying.
["Christmas Rappin’” by Kurtis Blow playing]
♪ Don't you give me all that jive ♪
♪ About things you wrote before I's alive ♪
♪ 'Cause this ain't 1823 Ain't even 1970 ♪
I met Russell in college. Russell was a promoter.
And so I told him about what I wanted to do,
breaking into the music industry,
make records, then do films and all that stuff.
He looked and he realized, "Wow, this kid is serious."
So, Russell became my manager shortly after that.
♪ Now I'm the guy named Kurtis Blow ♪
♪ And Christmas is one thing I know ♪
♪ So every year just about this time ♪
♪ I celebrate it with a rhyme ♪
[Kurtis Blow] After we made Christmas Rap,
we went out to 22 different labels
trying to sell this record. They said no.
So, we knew that Frankie Crocker
was the number one DJ in New York City, WBLS.
We found out Frankie used to hang out after work
at a club called Leviticus.
Russell said, "Look this is what we gonna do.
We gonna take this record and we'll pay the DJ.
When Frankie comes in and sits at the bar,
gets his first drink, we want the DJ to play the record,
we gonna have a whole college crew
in the house and we just gonna lose our mind
when that record comes on." Russell said, "Now, let's go,"
and the DJ threw on "Christmas Rap."
[singing "Christmas Rap" intro]
♪ Don't you give me all that jive ♪
♪ About things you wrote before I's alive ♪
The crowd went crazy! Whoa, whoa! Whoa!
Everybody's dancing and doing their best move.
Frankie's like...
"What is this?" He got up, went over to the DJ,
he said, "What's the name of that song?"
The guy says, "It's 'Christmas Rap.'
It's the artist right there, Kurtis Blow."
He shook my hand and, "Nice to meet you, young Kurtis."
[Russell Simmons] And on Christmas morning,
Frankie Crocker played the record.
I couldn't believe it. I was upstairs,
I was smoking a joint in the attic.
"Oh, shit." I ran downstairs
and there it was, "Christmas Rappin'" on the radio.
Next thing I know, I was on a plane going to Amsterdam.
The record was playing all over Europe,
and I couldn't believe it. I'd never been on a plane.
I had to get off the plane in Amsterdam,
and it was Kurtis Blow and myself
and it was like, "What do you want, Mr. Simmons?
I knew we made it 'cause they can call you Mr. Simmons.
I said, "I'd like some cocaine and some pussy."
And I knew made it when he said, "Of course."
♪ And the drummer played at a solid pace ♪
♪ And a taste of the bass was in my face ♪
[Bill Adler] Kurtis Blow is the first solo MC
of the recorded era. Here comes a Christmas record
and they're still playing it in February and March.
Kurtis Blow had a lot of pop appeal.
He was good looking, he was well spoken,
he had charisma, but there was nothing about him,
except for the fact that he rapped,
that represented a huge break
with the R&B that had preceded him.
♪ And the guitar player laid down a heavy layer ♪
♪ Of the funky junky rhythm of the disco beat ♪
[Nelson George] Russell's big fight during the Kurtis Blow era.
He was in the studio when they were making those records,
and he kept saying it was too much music.
But he didn't have a lot of creative input.
Russell really wanted to make a record
that really reflected the sound that he heard in his head
from the street.
[music playing]
[train whistle]
[Shad] "Christmas Rap" was Russell Simmons' first hit,
but it wasn't the hit he wanted.
Russell wanted to make hip hop on his own terms.
He wanted to take hip hop back to its roots,
and he'd find the right kids to do this
in his own backyard.
He formed a group that would eventually become known
as the Beatles of Hip Hop.
[heavy beats]
-[Shad] Thanks for the time. -Thank you. Glad to be here, man.
[Shad] I'd love to ask you about the development of RUN-D.M.C.
[Darryl 'D.M.C.' McDaniels] I met Joseph Simmons.
We went to the same elementary school.
Joe was a veteran already.
He DJ'd for Kurtis Blow since he was 12 years old.
He said "Yo, my brother's Russell Simmons," this and that.
Now I knew his brother was managing Kurt
and doing all of that. Then one particular day,
Run found all my rhymes that I was writing
just pretending to be the Cold Crush.
So, he saw that. He was like, "Darryl,
you wrote all these rhymes?" And I was like, "Yeah, it's like
fucking school work. I'm a brainiac. Yes, I'm a genius."
And I remember the day he said, this was ninth grade,
he looked at me and said, "Whenever Russell lets me make a record,
I'm putting you in my group."
It was like he was speaking a foreign language to me.
I said, "What the fuck did he just say?" and didn't think none about it.
[Russell Simmons] My brother Joey was a very good DJ.
He used to cut records in the attic
and he cut so fast he just between the music.
That was an amazing thing to watch him do.
Kurtis would say, "Faster than a speeding bullet from a gun,
my disco son, DJ Run," and he would cut the records.
He rapped also with Kurtis a lot,
so, Joey kept honing his craft until one day
he played me some ideas and stuff,
and I thought maybe he could make a record.
Joey brought his man, D.M.C. Well, he's a great rapper.
And this DJ Jam Master Jay,
and he convinced me that they would make a record.
And we did.
[heavy beats]
[Russell Simmons] When we made "Sucker M.C.'s," everybody's saying,
"Uh, okay then, tomorrow we put the bass and guitars in."
"No, man, we ain't fucking with no bass and no guitar, it's done."
And they were like, "It's done? There's no music."
I said, "Yeah, it's done." And at the time,
no one, no engineer, no one understood.
I said, "No, it's done. Why would it not be done?
It's dope, right?" "Yeah, it's dope."
"Well, what the fuck, what do you want to do it?"
-♪ Now scream! ♪ -[audience] Oh!
♪ Two years ago a friend of mine ♪
♪ Asked me to say some MC rhymes ♪
♪ So I said this rhyme I'm about to say ♪
♪ The rhyme was Def-Jam Master Jay ♪
[Russell Simmons] So doing that, without music,
without anything but the scratch on it,
it seems like a pretty simple thing to do,
but at the time it seemed like a very hard thing to do.
♪ And Jay cut the record down to the bone ♪
[Darryl 'D.M.C' McDaniels] Everybody's perception was,
"Nobody's gonna wanna listen to...
empty beats with a dude rhyming about chicken
and collard greens and St. John's University."
♪ I'm D.M.C. in the place to be ♪
♪ I go to St. John's University ♪
♪ And since kindergarten I acquired the knowledge ♪
♪ And after 12th grade I went straight to college ♪
♪ I'm light-skinned From Hollis, Queens ♪
♪ And I love eatin' franks and pork n' beans ♪
♪ I dress to kill ♪
Run-D.M.C. did what we was doing in the parks.
That was hip hop to me. All the other stuff was just,
you know, on records they would take the hot R&B song
and put some rhymes over it. It wasn't "The Message."
It wasn't "Planet Rock." It wasn't a sample of a hot R&B song,
and so, to the hood, it was like, "That's that shit,"
'cause it's familiar. It was different to the commercial, live...
No, it was different to the civilized world.
And to everybody uncivilized, it was that familiar thing.
That's why it worked.
♪ Huh ha, one, two ♪
[DJ Premier] When "Sucker M.C.'s" came out,
it was just a new sound, period,
like, most things were instrumentations, you know,
all the Sugar Hill records were bands,
and even the Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five records
all that stuff was bands. But when it came down to,
you know, Run-D.M.C. and Jam Master Jay,
like, it was just a drum machine.
To just hear that, even that drum roll.
♪ Boom-da-da-da-da-da-da-da ♪
[music playing]
It just sounded big.
It sounded like your shoes were oversized
and every time you walked the Earth shook.
♪ We have, we have, we have ♪
♪ A whole lot of superstars on this stage here tonight ♪
♪ But I want y'all to know one thing ♪
♪ This is my house ♪
[Russell Simmons] Run-D.M.C. did things that made them pop
by sticking to their roots.
You know, the whole idea of keeping it real
was something that Run-D.M.C.
did because people dressed like where they were being accepted,
and they were accepted and loved
by the people who just were from the street
and loved it because it was their music.
♪ Ah, once again, my friend Not a trend for then ♪
♪ They said, rap was crap But never had this band ♪
♪ Till the ruler came ♪
[Russell Simmons] Their costume was the hood uniform that they wore.
The letter suits, the black velour hats,
the shell toes, all that. That was Hollis, Queens.
That was Brooklyn.
You know, and so it resonated as a real outfit.
[Nelson George] Russell had an innate understanding of that stuff.
You know, the most important thing
he might have done in his whole career
was to get Run-D.M.C. out of those jackets.
They were wearing those check jackets on stage.
You see the pictures of them at The Disco Fever.
Put them in the Adidas stuff and make them more street.
That was a game-changer.
[Kevin Powell] All of a sudden, you have a group that comes along
who dresses the way you dress.
You know, we were all wearing Adidas
or Puma sneakers with fat shoelaces or no shoelaces.
We were wearing Kangol hats and Lee jeans or, you know,
jean suits as you called them back then.
They dress like you, they talk like you,
and it was explosive.
♪ Well, my name is D.M.C. The all-time great ♪
♪ I bust the most rhymes in New York state ♪
♪ Reporters claw Producers die ♪
♪ They want to be down with the king! ♪
When I first seen that they did that, I was like,
"Why the fuck would you do something like that?"
You know, we had, like, thousand-dollar leather outfits.
We had a tailor. You know, you know, no leather, no knee-high boots
'cause we wanted to compare our self
to what was going on, you know, to Rick James
and Cameo, the Bar-Kays, Con-Funk-Shun, Zapp.
You know, we wanted to compare ourselves to that,
and then when it just got down to the point,
okay, you just got on a Kangol and some sneakers and shit
it's like, "Come on, man, you-y'all, you just fucked the game up."
[Grandmaster Caz] They didn't invent anything.
They just dressed the way we dressed
before we get on the stage.
We were trying to be superstars, you know, with a fox tail
hanging around your neck with seven belts,
two chains hanging from your shit,
two pairs of panties on this shoulder, right,
and a patch over your eye with a fucking cowboy hat on, ya.
A'ight? It was like, "Okay, I think we've gone a little too far."
♪ Who's house? ♪
♪ Run's house! ♪
♪ Run, Run, Run, Run, Run ♪
-♪ Run ♪ -[vinyl scratching]
We going to wear Adidas 'cause that's what we always wore.
They got all the colors and all the styles.
Black and white, white with black stripe.
♪ The ones I like to wear when I rock the mic ♪
[Nelson George] At some point they realized,
"We're selling a lot of sneakers for Adidas.
Maybe there's a way for us to make money off this."
[Bill Adler] Russell understood what these sneakers meant
and how emblematic they were of the culture at large,
so, he suggested to Run and to D that they make
a song called "My Adidas."
[Nelson George] And they got some representatives
from Adidas to come to a concert at Madison Square Garden.
And they asked the audience to hold up their Adidas sneakers.
♪ Come on, put 'em up in the air ♪
[Darryl 'D.M.C.' McDaniels] Madison Square Garden,
packed, 20,000 people.
Hold it up. What is that?
♪ My... ♪
♪ Adidas! ♪
♪ Walk through concert doors ♪
♪ And roam all over coliseum floors ♪
♪ I stepped on stage at Live Aid ♪
♪ All the people gave an applause that paid ♪
[Darryl 'D.M.C.' McDaniels] Everybody had on new Adidas.
It was nothing but three stripes in there
and that made Adidas say, "Yo, we giving y'all a deal."
♪ My Adidas and me Close as can be ♪
♪ We make a mean team My Adidas and me ♪
♪ We get around together We're down forever ♪
♪ And we won't be mad when worn in bad weather ♪
♪ My Adidas ♪
♪ Yo, what's the name of this jam? ♪
[Darryl 'D.M.C' McDaniels] It was the first time a non-athletic entity
got an endorsement from an athletic apparel company.
♪ Got blue and black 'cause I like to chill ♪
♪ And yellow and green when it's time to get ill ♪
[Kevin Powell] Run-D.M.C. was the first group
to show the power of branding.
They actually influenced how kids talked, walked,
what they dressed, what they eat, everything.
[music playing]
[Shad] With the success of Run-D.M.C.,
Russell Simmons was beginning to realize
his vision for the future of hip hop.
Keep it street and make the masses come to you,
and he would find an ally in the unlikeliest of characters.
A white punk rock college kid from Long Island
who became obsessed with this new sound
coming from the New York clubs.
[scratching beats]
[music playing]
[Jazzy Jay] I used to play at Danceteria every Thursday.
Danceteria was-was one of those clubs
that had a crazy atmosphere because it was multi-racial.
You had blacks, Hispanics, whites,
and I was the weekly DJ on the Thursday,
and every week this big white dude
just comes and stand in front of the booth.
I mean, every week he'd stand there in front of the booth
from the time I'd get there until the end.
Then one day he came up and introduced himself.
He said that, you know,
he wanted to break into the music business,
that he wanted to produce.
He had a song that he wanted to do,
so he invited me and T La Rock to help him do it.
Me and Rick kind of programmed the beat,
got it tight, I did all of the orchestration,
putting everything together and choo.
♪ Commentating, illustrating ♪
♪ Description giving, adjective expert ♪
[Russell Simmons] Rick, he had made a record that was,
"It's Yours," was so dope and I remember, "Commentating.
Illustrating, description giving, adjective expert,
analyzing, surmising, musical myth-seeking people."
I remember that shit like, "Holy shit."
Must have smoked a lot of dust while listening to that record
'cause I remember that shit. It was a phenomenal record
and it was the only thing on the radio at that time
and it wasn't mine and that record,
I-I assumed it was a Sugar Hill record.
I started calling around and Jazzy Jay told me what it was.
♪ DJ Jazzy Jay, Jay, Jay ♪
[Jazzy Jay] Russell came into Danceteria,
begging to get his records played
like he usually do back in those days,
and Rick was like,
"That's Russell Simmons." I'm like, "Yeah."
"Think you could introduce?"
"Hey yo, Russell. This is my boy, Rick.
Yo, Rick, Russell Simmons."
Russell can't believe that Rick is white
because he was sure that the person who made that record
was black, but they hit it off very well.
[Jazzy Jay] They sat at the bar. They talked.
By the end of the night they was friends.
He invited Russell down to the studio.
[Russell Simmons] Rick had a drum machine full of hits.
Drum machines were fairly new.
Nobody had a drum machine full of hits.
He did. And he was a member of the band,
the Beastie boys. He's DJ Double R,
and he's just a kid who loved hip hop
and who had really good-good ears
and was talented beyond belief.
And he had the best logo I ever seen in my life.
[Dan Charnas] Rick proposes that they throw in together
and Russell doesn't want to do it.
He doesn't want to be in business with some college kid.
He's trying to get a big distribution deal from a major label
like EMI, right?
But Rick is very persistent.
So, he brings in the demo for LL Cool J.
♪ There's no-no glo-glory ♪
♪ For this story-story ♪
♪ It-it rock-rock in any territory-tory ♪
[LL Cool J] What's up, my man? Thank you.
Pleasure. Glad to be here, man.
Can you tell us that story of hooking up with Def Jam,
-calling Rick? -[LL Cool J] Every day?
-Every day. -You know, I went to the store.
Um, I bought a song, um, "It's Yours" by T La Rock,
um,
and Rick Rubin's number was on it.
His number in his dorm. 212-420-8666.
So, I took a drum machine,
and I went over to my man Frankie's house
and we created this demo, sent it in to Rick.
Um, I called Rick every day, every day, every day
to see if he'd heard it. He hadn't.
Finally, one thing led to another and somehow
Ad Rock from the Beastie Boys, it piqued his interest.
He listened to the demo and then he let Rick hear it,
-and then Rick called me back. -[Shad] And then you go
and you meet Rick for the first time.
What was that experience like?
When he first walked out I was like,
"Oh, I thought you were black." He said, "Cool," you know,
then we walked upstairs, went to his dorm
and started immediately working on a song.
We went over crosstown to Russell, played it for Russell.
He was like, "Ah, it's the same old thing."
Me and Rick went back in the studio and made "I Need A Beat."
[music playing]
[Jazzy Jay] Rick used to listen to it upstairs
and if he didn't like it, he would come downstairs,
pop the cassette in the car.
I had a 1979 Chevy Caprice Classic.
I had this sound system in there that was ridiculous.
[heavy beats]
[Jazzy Jay] It was like a block party on wheels.
If he played it in my car and it sounded right to him,
he was good. He played it in the car
and it didn't meet his standards,
he'd go back upstairs and keep on mixing it
until it sounded right inside my car,
I kid you not.
♪ They hear me, they fear me They hear me, they fear me ♪
♪ I'm improving the conditions of the rap industry ♪
[Russell Simmons] When I first heard "I Need A Beat,"
it was amazing.
I had a deal blooming already to go at EMI,
based on the success of Run-D.M.C. and other groups.
You know, I enjoyed working with Rick more
than I thought having a second company made sense,
so, I threw it all in with Rick and Rick and I went to work
and we built Def Jam.
♪ When Gangbangers fighting You'll be fighting with six dudes ♪
-♪ Don't fight, play fair ♪ -♪ They don't fight by the rules ♪
[reporter] This is the office of Russell Simmons
-of Def Jam label. -[rapper] Yeah, we wanna meet him.
Def Jam was a very small office
on Elizabeth street. The four of us had
three desks and two phones that we had to share.
And there was no air conditioning
and there were lots of crack heads across the street,
but it was great because all we wanted to do
was be around hip hop.
The Def Jam artists at the time were: LL Cool J,
Slick Rick, the Beastie Boys.
Rick was the visionary in terms of making the music,
and Russell was the visionary
in terms of where things were going to go,
and I think that's why the two of them
worked so well together.
If you look at where the industry was in the mid '80s,
Russell could foresee a time
when it was going to be bigger than what it was.
[Russell Simmons] Rappers represented
the voices and aspirations of broke niggas
that were not saleable to mainstream white America
or black America or everyone else, we don't want to hear that shit,
but alternative kids, the white boys who liked new,
creative, innovative music gave rap its props.
So, with that reality, there's a hole in the market,
there's a white space, and so...
we wanted to sell our shit into that space.
♪ Kick it! ♪
["(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)" by Beastie Boys playing]
[music playing]
♪ You wake up late for school Man, you don't want to go ♪
[Nelson George] Russell'd already been kind of in search
for that audience that Rick kind of represented.
Rick was a punk guy, and so, both of them saw this
as a kind of a punk thing.
The soft R&B stuff, they don't want us anyway,
so fuck 'em.
♪ You gotta fight ♪
♪ For your right ♪
♪ To party ♪
[Bill Adler] Rick was very influential
in helping the Beastie Boys become the Beastie Boys
that emerged on Licensed to Ill.
The bombastic, beer guzzling,
comical Beastie Boys
that blew up that group persona
was imagined by Rick.
♪ Aw, Mom, you're just jealous ♪
-♪ It's the ♪ -♪ Beastie ♪
♪ Boys! ♪
♪ You gotta fight ♪
♪ For your right ♪
♪ To party ♪
[Russell Simmons] When Rick came on, he was perfect as a partner,
because he was a rock and roll guy.
He had no interest in playing an R&B bassline
on a record either, or anything like that.
We hated Michael Jackson. We hated anything pop.
Hated pop niggas more than we hated pop white boys.
We just hated niggas because they hated us,
and we wanted to make sure that we made records
that shoved it in their face.
That was the purpose of hip hop.
New generation, new music, our shit, keep your shit,
and I felt that that was a kind of the fuck you attitude
that rap deserved.
[intro to "Walk This Way']
[Shad] With LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys,
Def Jam put a whole new face on hip hop.
But hip hop had still not fully crossed over
into the mainstream. But that would all change
with a single song.
[intro to "Walk This Way']
[Darryl 'D.M.C.' McDaniels] Aerosmith's "Walk This Way"
was one of the records that I heard on the tapes,
Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation rhymed over it,
Treacherous Three,
[beatboxing "Walk This Way" intro]
♪ Yes, yes, y'all, to the beat, y'all ♪
♪ On the two train going up to Lennox Ave. ♪
So, we were sampling "Walk This Way."
It was originally going to be...
[beatboxing]
Back to the beginning.
I personally never heard the singing,
'cause Jay would never let it play that far.
I never knew there was fucking singing on the record
so Rick was like, "Yo, the name of the group is Aerosmith,
big rock band. They went through drug problems,
whatever, whatever." And then Rick goes like this,
"Y'all should make the record over. Fuck you think we gonna do?
We're going to sample the motherfucker,
loop it and rhyme on it."
[intro to "Walk This Way"]
Rick goes, "No. You should do the record over as is."
Jay, rest in peace, Jay.
Jay goes, "Yo, that might be a crazy idea."
Me and Run go, "Hold on, hold on, hold up.
You're all taking this rock/rap thing too far."
So, Rick says take the record,
and write down the lyrics so y'all can learn it
to do the record over, so true story,
we put the needle on the record.
[beatboxing]
♪ Backstroke lover Hot underneath the cover ♪
♪ Talk to my Daddy, say... ♪ "Oh, hell, no"
We get on the phone with Russell, me and Run was like,
"Oh, fuck hell, no. Oh, hell, no. This is fucking Hillbilly gibberish.
This is some fucking moonshine, country bumpkin bullshit.
You're going to ruin our careers. Oh, fuck hell, no"
Russell's screaming, "Fuck you, Joey, this and that D,
you stupid motherfucker. You listen to..."
We hung up the phone.
It went like that for a whole week.
A week later, Jay calls from the studio.
You can still hear Russell screaming in the back,
"Yo, stupid Joey!" And Jay goes,
"Yo Russell, stop screaming at 'em
'cause you know they're stupid, young kids."
So, Jay just basically says, "Yo, listen to this."
[scratching beats]
It was like, "Yo, what's up?" Um, Jay was like,
"Yo, we're in the studio. Rick went to Boston and brought Aerosmith here."
["Walk This Way" beats]
[Darryl 'D.M.C' McDaniels] So we finally come back,
we make the version of Aerosmith the way it is,
came out like you hear it. It's us doing the original lyrics
on "Walk This Way."
♪ Backseat lover That's always undercover ♪
♪ And that's what the people say ♪
♪ I said, you ain't seen nothing 'Till you're down on the muffin ♪
♪ Then you're sure to be a-changin' ways ♪
[Darryl 'D.M.C.' McDaniels] But the crazy shit was this.
Even after that, they finish, you know,
we got the, we pass the demo stage,
it's a keeper. Me and Run turn to Russell, Rick,
um, their label, Jay and we say,
"Y'all mother fuckers can be happy as you want.
You better not put this out as a single."
They put it out as a single, changed my life.
♪ See-saw swingin' with the boys in school ♪
♪ And her feet are flyin' up in the air ♪
♪ Singin' hey diddle-diddle with the kitty in the middle ♪
♪ You be swingin' like you just don't care ♪
♪ So I took a big chance at the high school dance ♪
♪ With a lady who was ready to play ♪
♪ It wasn't me she was foolin'? ♪
♪ 'Cause she knew what she was doin' ♪
♪ When she taught me how to walk this way ♪
-♪ She told me to ♪ -♪ Walk this way ♪
[Kevin Powell] When they made the record "Walk This Way,"
it brought them into mainstream America
in a different kind of way because now all these other kids
beyond the black and Latino communities
that created it and loved Run-D.M.C.
They literally crossed over. I mean, people don't understand
how big that was. First rap group
on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
First rap group on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.
They were the first in so many different ways.
They just busted down so many different doors
and yeah, that was as exciting to us as all those kids
a generation before who sat in front of their TV shows,
watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
♪ School girl sleazy with the classy kinda sassy ♪
♪ Little skirt hanging way up her knees ♪
We're here to jam to the best tunes in the world,
that mean a lot to us. Run-D.M.C. is awesome.
-It's fresh. -It's good, it's bad and it's nice!
[music playing]
[Shad] With "Walk This Way," hip hop had finally crossed over
and Def Jam's vision of transforming hip hop
into an identity with worldwide appeal
was fully realized.
But even though "Walk This Way" was a massive hit,
in the hip hop underground, it was Run-D.M.C.'s early,
stripped-down sound that inspired the next generation
of hip hoppers.
[heavy beats]
[Shad] And it was a radio DJ from Queens
who would light the spark
and introduce a tool that would forever redefine
hip hop music.
[music playing]
[Marley Marl] Oh, you made it!
What's up, man?
Welcome to the lab. Let's go, man.
♪ His beats, my rhymes Combined make force ♪
♪ Marley, can we hear your funky fresh scratchin' again? ♪
[music playing]
[Shad] Honor to meet you. [Marley Marl] No doubt, no doubt.
Honor to have you up in the spot. That's real.
Um, I'd love to start with Run-D.M.C., what was your first reaction to them?
Uh, Run-D.M.C. was definitely influential to me
because I heard "Sucker M.C.'s"
and I loved it.
"Sucker M.C.'s" changed hip hop.
When I first heard the record, I heard the grittiness from the streets.
That's why I had to bring it back
to the gritty sound when I first started sampling.
[tape rewinding]
[Marley Marl] My first set up was really real wack,
corny little set up in the crib, but I was able to make do with it.
My reel to reel had different drum sounds on it.
I would have kick, white leader, snare,
white leader, high hat, white leader.
This was all edited together on a reel to reel tape.
[heavy beats]
[Shad] What's most known is
you were chopping up the break beats.
-Right. -[Shad] So could you tell us about
-maybe that first moment? -Well, basically,
one time in the studio, I was sampling the record
and when I hit the sampler and I hit the snare played.
Then I started playing the snare along with the track
and I realized like, "Wow,
I could take my favorite drum sounds
and make my own patterns."
[heavy drum beats]
That's like, it just blew my mind.
I was probably in a daze for a week after that.
So I started putting different drum sounds in my sampler
kicks, snares that I grabbed because I knew
that they was hot from being a DJ.
If I was the DJ last night
and it made the crowd react the way it did,
what I would do is take that kick and the snare.
[music playing]
[Marley Marl] I would put that in my sampler,
most likely the next day, and instant crowd reaction.
[crowd cheering]
Marley's way of cooking it up was just different.
You just... It just,
no one was doing it the way he was doing it.
He was recreating the songs like "Impeach the President"
and taking the snare from "Impeach the President"
and taking the kick from "Impeach the President,"
and then replaying it in his own style,
beyond the drum machine sound.
You know, it was like actually taking the sounds
and making your own drum machine.
[Prince Paul] The amazing thing about what he did
was everybody was using standard stock drum machines
and whatever's the stock sounds in a drum machine.
[drum beats]
Pretty lame if you think about it, you know,
and-and you'd hear that song after song after song.
When you heard a Marley Marl song...
[scratching and sampling]
You're like, "What is that?
Like, where did that snare, where did that kick come from?"
[scratching]
And they were always distorted. You know...
[beatboxing]
But it was just so funky.
He just had that sound to me that was just, like, real street.
Marley Marl brought a, brought an era to hip hop.
Like, some people made hot records and made a name for themselves,
but he brought an era that totally changed the whole style
of how records were being made.
[funky beats]
[Shad] Like Grandmaster Flash years earlier,
Marley Marl was a sonic revolutionary.
His sampling techniques changed the sound of hip hop forever
and ignited the careers of a new guard of MC's.
Among them, a kid from Brooklyn with a deep baritone
who went by the name of Big Daddy Kane.
♪ Well, excuse me Take a few minutes ♪
♪ To mellow out ♪
♪ Big Daddy Kane is on the mic and I'mma tell about... ♪
[Shad] Thank you for coming in.
Glad to be here.
[Shad] I know you did a lot of work with Marley Marl,
but how did you get your start?
I started rapping back in '82. It's like right after junior high.
My introduction to MC'ing started as a battle rapper.
Eventually, I met Biz Markie.
We battled, and I was using my battle rhymes,
Biz sort of, you know,
like, he couldn't do nothing there,
so, what Biz did was try to go into funny rhymes about girls.
And then I spit some funny rhymes about girls,
and Biz in that crazy voice, you know, he goes,
[laughs] "That was so, that was dope."
You know, and you know, we became friends,
and he was like, "Yo, if you stick with me and listen to me,
I promise you, we gonna make a record one day.
You gonna be a star."
♪ So listen to the man of the hour ♪
♪ Flow and go to a slow tempo and you know ♪
♪ Sing ho, swing low Then yo, the show ♪
♪ Will go on, as I perform ♪
♪ Transformin' on stage like a Decepticon ♪
[Big Daddy Kane] I want to have some hard rhymes
where, you know, you're spitting lyrics
that's making someone want to rewind
and listen to, you know, the last line again.
But what I liked to do was connect words,
real slick 'cause, like, you're seeing it.
Now they can visualize what you're saying
'cause of the comparison you just made.
♪ The B-I-G D-A-double-D-Y-K-A-N-E ♪
♪ I'm good and plenty ♪
♪ Servin' many and any competition ♪
♪ Wishin' for an expedition ♪
♪ I'm straight up dissin' and dismissin' ♪
♪ Listen, rappers act so wild, and love to profile ♪
♪ Frontin' hard but ain't got no style ♪
The attitude, the way he bragged
and then his punchlines were just so, so seriously,
just smack after smack.
It was like somebody just kept smacking you
and smacking you, and every time you wanted
to regroup and punch back, you got smacked again.
Kane put together all the principles of a great MC,
which was cadence, you understand what I'm saying?
Which was, just the level of coolness on the mic
when he delivered his stuff and punchlines.
♪ I give nightmares to those who compete ♪
♪ Freddy Kreuger walkin' on Kane Street ♪
[Roxanne Shante] He made it sexy.
He just gave it class. You know, you knew when Kane
was around 'cause Kane was just so calm.
He just made everything so calm.
[Shad] Yeah.
You know, he made it where you say what you're going to say
and you do it lyrically, and then after you finish,
you just drop the mic and walk away. [laughs]
♪ I make it real good like Dr. Feelgood ♪
♪ To make sure that my point is understood ♪
♪ That when it comes to this there's none greater ♪
♪ Sincerely yours The smooth operator ♪
[Shad] So, you were part of this new generation of rappers
but Rakim was coming up at the same time.
What did you think of him?
I thought that Rakim was dope when I first heard him.
You know, I was like, "Okay, here, you know,
we had another dope MC out." You know, I mean,
he's one of, you know, the greatest MC's.
You know, you know, to ever do it, you know.
Can't fuck with me, but, you know,
he's one of the greatest MC's to ever do it.
[Shad] Kane can laugh today, but in the mid-'80s,
Rakim was his only rival and for good reason.
An enigmatic brother from Long Island,
Rakim's rhyme style would single-handedly set the tone
for what hip hop has become today.
[heavy dance beats]
[music playing]
[Rakim] Coming up in Long Island,
it was a little distant from, you know, the boroughs
so we was kind of on the outside looking in.
Being on the outside looking in,
we had to visualize what was going on.
Especially myself, I was only in the fourth, fifth grade.
I was too young to get on the mic.
Nah'mean, I remember a couple times
asking DJ's, "Oh, could I get...?"
They would look at me like, "Yo, who let him in here, man?
Who let him under the ropes, man?"
I didn't know I was too young. You know what I mean?
So it was just like a good feeling, man,
just trying to, you know, let everybody know I had skills,
and, you know, it took a while for me
to finally punch through and somebody said,
"Yo, give shorty the mic, man," and, you know,
it was history after that, man.
♪ Thinkin' of a master plan ♪
♪ Def with the record Def with the record ♪
♪ Thinkin' of a master plan ♪
♪ This ain't nuthin' but sweat inside my hand ♪
♪ So I dig into my pocket All my money is spent ♪
♪ So I dig deeper but still comin' up with lint ♪
♪ So I start my mission Leave my residence ♪
♪ Thinkin' how could I get some dead presidents ♪
♪ I need money I used to be a stick-up kid ♪
♪ So I think of all the devious things I did ♪
[Shad] And on the stylistic side of things,
people talk about the musicality of your flow.
People have even said that flow wasn't even really a thing
people talked about before, so...
-Okay. -Where did that influence come from?
And a big influence from that, man,
was, um, John Coltrane.
I grew up on jazz, playing the saxophone,
so when hip hop came out, to me it was simple.
It was... [vocalizing beats]
So, you know, listening to John Coltrane,
it was more like... [singing beats]
[Rakim] If I can rhyme like John Coltrane played the sax,
then I know the rhythms and the intricacy of it will be crazy.
So, I incorporated it and it popped off, man.
♪ I used to roll up This is a hold up ♪
♪ Ain't nuthin' funny Stop smiling, be still ♪
♪ Don't nuthin' move but the money ♪
[DJ Premier] Word play, voice, delivery, flow,
he just wasn't doing patterns that were normal to MC's
that were making records. You know, it just was not normal.
[Cheo H. Coker] He rhymes visually. He rhymes clearly.
Rakim is basically doing what Hemingway would do.
Hemingway's power was the power of short, clear, concise
visual sentences. That's Rakim.
♪ Me and Eric B and a nice big plate of fish ♪
♪ Which is my favorite dish ♪
♪ But without no money it's still a wish ♪
[Shad] In addition to the rhythmic musicality,
people talk about the level of consciousness
that you were incorporating in your rhymes.
Oh, no doubt. No doubt. I wanted to give 'em what I knew,
my experiences. What I learnt.
The more that I read, the more that I learnt,
I wanted to pass it on and it quickly became who I was,
and the more things that I experienced
opened people's eyes to certain things
and it kind of made me a better rapper
by incorporating conscious lyrics.
♪ But now I've learned to earn 'cuz I'm righteous ♪
♪ I feel great so maybe I might just ♪
♪ Search for a nine to five ♪
♪ If I strive Then maybe I'll stay alive ♪
I remember in my Cadillac,
coming off the road, got more money than God.
Everywhere I go people know who I am
and then, my sound man gets in my car at McDonald's
and goes, jokingly, "D, I know somebody better than you."
And he gets in my car and he puts in this guy called Rakim.
♪ So I walk up the street ♪
♪ Whistlin' this Feelin' out of place ♪
♪ 'Cuz, man, do I miss ♪
I kicked him out my car. I kept it. "Get the fuck out of my...
Get the fuck..."
We were something else. Hip hop was them.
We were something else by then.
[Shad] So what was on your mind at that moment?
Am I over?
♪ Feelin' out of place 'Cuz, man, do I miss ♪
♪ A pen and a paper a stereo, a tape of me... ♪
It's a time where the consciousness of hip hop
is very, very tapped into what's actually happening
with the people that love our music. There's a movement that's happening
amongst the MC's that says we have to say something.
We have to be more than, "Yes, yes, y'all."
It has to go into another direction.
It's changed. The game has changed.
[groovy beats]
[music playing]
[Shad] Rakim and other MC's of his generation
did more than add flow and complexity to rapping.
They also represented a new consciousness in young, black America.
And it was a group of socially-minded kids
at a suburban college radio station
who would take this consciousness to the masses.
[music playing]
I was born in 1960, so the whole decade of the 1960s,
as a young kid, you saw everything,
from the assassination of the president
and it seemed like anybody that was anybody
seemed to be getting killed with Vietnam going on,
the Black Panther party, which I was part of the lunch program
that this movement had,
wanted to look out for the neighborhood and the people.
These things had a direct effect on our beginnings and our base.
[radio static]
♪ Dance to the funky groove ♪
♪ That'll make your body move ♪
[Chuck D] The radio station WBAU,
which was program directed by Bill Stephney,
broadcast out of Delphi University.
That was the hub for hip hop music
going out to Long Island and going out to Queens.
I was part of Spectrum City, we as mobile DJ's,
Spectrum, that's Hank Shockley, Keith Shockley, Professor Griff.
We wanted to be hip hop radio DJ's,
and we were able to get on WBAU playing other people's music.
[vintage recording] This is Spectrum City and my name is Chucky D, y'all.
[Bill Stephney] First and foremost there was, um,
Chuck D who was, you know, sort of the visionary.
And there was this one guy, who used to come up to BAU,
who was a musician and a DJ and an MC
and he had this hat, MC DJ Flavor Flav.
A lot to put on a hat.
This guy was a very unique figure and character.
[vintage recording] What did you say your name was?
[Flavor Flav] It's Flavor! [echoing]
[Chuck D] Here you got two guys who was from the same neighborhood
but were, like, totally different people.
But, you know, we would hang out together,
we would snap together and joke. At that time we would make tapes
to compensate for the lack of records we had.
And so I saw Flavor when I started making tapes
as having a great use to introing the tape.
♪ We got a fresh, fresh club It's called the Flavor Drum ♪
♪ We party hardy at our party until the crack of dawn ♪
[Bill Stephney] MC DJ Flavor Flav and Chuck record a brag and boast
freestyle rap called "Public Enemy Number One."
This guy named Rick Rubin hears "Public Enemy number One"
and really just, you know, goes crazy over Chuck's voice.
Rick calls me and says well, you know,
"How can we get Chucky D?" But Chuck is completely reluctant.
Rick Rubin had asked me for, like, almost two years
to come along to Def Jam. But that didn't interest me.
I said, "It's gotta be something that's better
than me making records at Def Jam as Chuck D, a solo guy."
I was more interested in making words and music mean something.
We were clambering for power and peace because...
there was a dynamic going on in the east,
and especially in New York,
of black peoples treated like crap overtly.
You know, black folks who are always being looked down upon
and I thought that something had to be able to give
upward motion and strength and-and... and pride.
[Bill Stephney] It really took sitting down
and coming up with a concept that was bigger than just,
"We're going to be the next rap group on Def Jam
and everything will be fantastic."
You know, thinking of what was going on in England with The Clash,
you thought, "Well, you know, what if The Clash
and Run-D.M.C., you know, somehow merged?
What would that look like? What would that sound like?"
[intro to "Fight The Power"]
[music playing]
♪ 1989 the number ♪
♪ Another summer (get down) ♪
♪ Sound of the funky drummer ♪
♪ Music hittin' your heart 'cause I know you got soul ♪
♪ Brothers and sisters, hey! ♪
♪ Listen if you're missin' y'all ♪
♪ Swingin' while I'm singin' (Hey!) ♪
♪ Givin' what you're gettin' ♪
[Cheo H. Coker] Public Enemy were able to take that '60s and '70s rage,
put it with hip hop and articulate both
the rage of the past and the present and future rage
of a generation that's seeing police corruption and seeing
things that are happening all over New York City
and other places where police have overstepped bounds.
♪ Fight The Power ♪
[Kevin Powell] For someone to make a song like "Fight The Power"
and in the middle of the song you say,
"Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant to me."
♪ Elvis was a hero to most ♪
♪ But he never meant shit to me, you see ♪
♪ Straight up racist... ♪
[Kevin Powell] And then Flavor Flav jumps in with,
"Mother-- him and John Wayne too."
♪ Mother [beep] him and John Wayne ♪
[Kevin Powell] That's saying that I'm rejecting
your racist notions of what a hero is, because that hero doesn't look like me.
None of your heroes look like me.
♪ Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps ♪
♪ Sample a look back you look and find ♪
♪ Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check ♪
[Kevin Powell] We were like, "Wow,"
because they were speaking for all of us
who didn't even have the courage to say something like that.
Chuck and Public Enemy represented a resistance, finally.
It was almost like he was, like, you know, our Superman, you know.
We're going to stand up and say what we actually want.
We're going to fight the power.
♪ I'll make everybody see ♪
♪ In order to fight the powers that be ♪
♪ Let me hear you say ♪
[Chuck D] Hip hop could be a vehicle for angry black voices.
Number one, hip hop with its use of words
can be a vehicle for any voice.
And I just thought during the time of R&B
and as Reagan and Bush that hip hop as an angry voice
could speak out against a malfeasance that was taking place.
Why not? You got words, you got a voice.
Use it.
♪ Fight the Power ♪
♪ We gotta fight the powers that be ♪
♪ Come on! ♪
[Shad] The 1980s was a decade of change for hip hop.
It began with Kurtis Blow rapping about Christmas in corduroy
and ended with Public Enemy fighting the power in fatigues.
Hip hop was now a sound, an industry and a movement.
It had finally realized its potential and its power.
And this potential was being realized
beyond the borders of New York City,
on another coast, three thousand miles away.
Hip hop was speaking to a totally different reality.
In a place that needed hip hop
even more than the boroughs that birthed it.
-[sirens wailing] -[heavy beats]