KINGDOM COME: The Hollis Crew Fights To Keep The Crown

"You know what you need to learn/old school artists don't always burn/you're just another rapper who's had his turn"

I'm Still #1 ---Boogie Down Productions (1988)

In just four bars, BDP lead rapper KRS-One delivered a dead-on dissertation of rap music's stylistic changeover and constant turnover of its ever-evolving cast of characters. Early deejays and emcees were supplanted by seminal figures who delivered rap's first recorded hits. It happened again when

Run-D.M.C---Joey "Run" Simmons, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels and deejay Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell emerged in '83 with game-changing two-sided single "It's Like That /Sucker MC's". The record's big-beat sound abruptly ended the party-rocking Sugar Hill/Enjoy style. Now the legendary group was on the ropes as rap's Golden Age was approaching.

 Part of the seminal class of '84 along with Whodini and the Fat Boys delivering groundbreaking albums moving rap into the gold and platinum stratosphere, Run-DMC's subsequent success---headlining tours, crossover hits, Grammy nominations and commercial endorsements and pop radio and video airplay was underscored by a mainstream industry who had yet to embrace rap music. Their accomplishments also outpaced a still-nascent rap industry likening the group to a towering skyscraper with a shaky foundation straining to support it.

On the outside things looked lovely. the Hollis Crew rolled with Rush hitting the road for three straight years selling out 20,000 seat arenas. It was 1987 but might as well been the 1950s. All the lucrative show money in the world couldn't disguise the fact that Run-DMC's business wasn't right.

They moved over 700,000 copies of their debut Run-DMC album and nearly a million of King of Rock. They sold three million copies of third album Raising Hell but the crew that made hip hop's equivalent of Thriller were bound to a record contract that paid them very little royalties. Eager to emancipate the group from indentured servitude to Profile Records and make the jump to his Def Jam label manager Russell Simmons, sued the label for $6.8 million dollars for non-payment for publishing and royalties. Profile countersued, holding up the release of follow album Tougher Than Leather

 Front man Run was eager to extend his hot streak and hold on the industry ("I don't know when I'm gonna give up the crown. It won't be any time soon") While Dee and Jay enjoyed the life of rap superstars, Run expressed his frustration in an 1988 interview with Spin Magazine as he saw the material he recorded and written in late '86 and early '87 get old:

"I made Mary, Mary so long ago, this jam would have busted their face. A record called Dedicated , when I made that----could have dropped that. I would have been busting everyone asses by now. Now Mary Mary gotta wait. F-----g headaches."

From age 19, Run experienced unprecedented success. Now at 23, Run's competitive fire was conflicted by a cloud of manic depression ("My brain has just clicked. Ain't nothing going through my head but f---k when my s---t coming out?) bordering on suicide:

"I'm surprised I 'm still here---didn't pull a garage job, radio on. Going to sleep. You get suicidal for the longest time''

  While the Kings from Queens were on the sidelines, a galaxy of new rap stars emerged flaunting sample-based productions, complex rhyme styles and a different vibe worlds away from the bands drum heavy aggressive vocal routines. The group touched up the album with more sample-based productions with the help of producer/Queens compatriot Davy-D. Run and Dee began incorporating the multi-syllabic rhyme styles of rappers Rakim and Big Daddy Kane. Having heard key tracks from Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation of Million To Hold Us Back album in its infancy the group modeled Millions' hyper-speed tempos and conscious lyrical content ("crack/wack/smash it right back")

Ultimately there would be no free agent status for the band. Locked in their deal, they re-upped with Profile for ten more albums they would never record. When the album finally hit the streets on May 17, 1988, early lead-off single  I'm Not Going Out Like That featured MLK/Malcolm X vocal snippets was in the vein of  Public Enemy's Jesse Jackson vocal on '87's Rebel Without A Pause."

 Run's House/Beats To The Rhyme recaptured the vibe of two sided single My Adidas/Peter Piper. The swaggering Run's House features Run's legendary stage opener: "We had a whole lotta superstars on stage tonight/but I gotta tell ya'll one thing/this is MY HOUSE!!".

Set to James Brown's evergreen Funky Drummer, the record finds the group in top tag-team form rhyming form, pulling off internal rhyme schemes. Run kicks things off reminding listeners of his legacy:"Once again my friend/not a trend/but then they said rap was crap/but never had this band/til the ruler came/ with a cooler name". DMC---a reluctant participant in the group's new lyrical direction delivers the knockout blow:"Come in the door/get on the floor hardrock/hard hitting/hip-hop/hardcore/causing casualties and catastrophies and tragedy for the sucker mc."

                                              
B-side Beats To The Rhyme's finds D and Run weaving in and out stacked samples of Bob James' Nautilius, James Brown's Talkin Loud and Sayin Nothin' and Funky Drummer singing the praises of their deejay. The combination of Run's slick delivery and D's devastating plain-speak is nothing less than classic. Their remake of The Monkee's Mary Mary---produced by Rick Rubin was their Walk This Way moment---reviving 70s hip hop breakbeat staples for crossover effect.

Radio Station samples Public Enemy's Bring The Noise.Where Rakim basks in his own extended absence on The R with lines like:"I was givin' ya time/ to get the last one straight." Radio Station exposes Run's frustration with his imposed creative inactivity:"Radio station, on vacation/wonder where Run was/damn be patient"
                                                                 

Inspired by his hero Chuck D's performances on PE's 1986 debut Yo! Bum Rush The Show, DMC sheds his usual modest and earnest delivery on Dedicated, now retitled How You Do It Dee and unleashes rhymes befitting of his status as rap titan:

 "My higher desire/no higher than flyer/makes me the messiah/I'll never retire"

During Raising Hell's 1985 sessions, Run and D---influenced by Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick's The Show created album track Perfection, emulating Doug and Rick's conversational banter. This time, Tougher Than Leather's Ragtime was a nod to Doug E. Fresh's second-line New Orleans riffs on All The Way To Heaven. Papa Crazy was a send up of the Temptations' Papa Was A Rolling Stone. As a concession to their successful rock-rap trilogy from each of their three previous albums, Run-DMC channels Van Halen's Hot For A Teacher on Ms. Elaine and  revisit's Raising Hell's guitar riffs on Tougher Than Leather. They Call Us Run-DMC finds Run dispatching adversaries with a self-assured sneer: Yeah, I waxed the crowd/I'm feeling proud and loud/shoulda screamed on a sucker/but I stepped and bowed" D delivers regal chest-beating vocals that sound like they were recorded on a mountain top: I'm not the king because I sell the most/I just bring the laws/cuz I'm the host!"

On Adidas D bragged: "We took the beat from the street/and put it on TV" Tougher Than Leather finds the group transferring their dynamic stage set to wax. Tougher Than Leather is the live album that Run-DMC never made. If it was released in '87 during the height of the band's popularity and heavy touring schedule, it may have been more well-received. Instead, it suffered the fate of Michael Jackson and Bobby Brown's ill-timed Bad and Bobby albums that dropped as the climate of Black music was morphing into New Jack Swing and Hip Hop/Soul. Run-DMC's strength---the blazing vocal interplay in their routines that came across so well on stage would also be their detriment in the late Eighties topic-driven rap scene. If the group had a weakness, it was their songwriting---going back to the days when outside writers penned Run-DMC songs Can You Rock It Like This, You're Blind, 30 Days and Proud To Be Black.

Sonically Tougher Than Leather was dead-on. The albums contains Coke Escovedo's I Wouldn't Change A Thing and The Meter's Here Comes The Meter Man---samples featured prominently on Eric B. and Rakim's Follow The Leader and Big Daddy Kane's Long Live The Kane---one of the many 1988 albums that were released during rap's Golden Era, effectively ending Run-DMC's reign as rap's defining act. Tougher Than Leather's sales topped out at 1.5 million---failing to meet Raising Hell's numbers, but outselling other rap albums in '88 despite falling through the cracks of that era's releases. The group's brand was still strong enough to headline a final national/international touring package---the Run's House tour---showcasing a rejuvenated Public Enemy, JJ Fad, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince and EPMD.

                                                   

                                                                            

                                       

           

                                                                                

Reissued in 2005, Chuck D provides the liner notes for Tougher Than Leather, deftly providing a narrative describing the musical climate when the album's release. He celebrates Jam Master Jay's turntable precision cutting up the group's catalog on the album's songs. Chuck compares Raising Hell to Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point performance and frames Leader's release as "like coming back after a scoring 97 points in a losing performance---How do you recognize 97 points after a spectacular performance against all odds?"

Enduring anthems Run's House and Beats To The Rhymes aside, Tougher Than Leather is rarely considered as essential listening alongside Run-DMC's previous albums featuring their classic singles. Run-DMC was the game-changing introduction. King of Rock has the group finding its way. Raising Hell captures the synergy of the band at the peak of their creative powers. Tougher Than Leather's represents a band on a mission to preserve its legacy, absorbing new styles yet still maintaining their musical identity.