For Your Listening Pleasure
Run-DMC – Raisin’ Hell
News to You
I’m not going to spend so much time on the news today, since Adam Cankaya’sweekly news reports (as well as updates from the rest of the 411 staff) have been doing a great job keeping 411 Music up-to-date on all the latest, juicy tidbits…
But, I have to point this out as I ask you: how cool is David Grohl? In the last few weeks, a kick-ass new Foo Fighters album was released and the long-awaited Nirvana best-of finally hit the record stores. Meanwhile, the Foos celebrated Halloween by dressing up like The Hives and covering their hit “Hate to Say I Told You So”, all the while taking in a wonderful “Courtney sucks” chant from a loud NYC audience. Just fun stuff going on right there, and it’s a shame I missed out.
On the other hand, the two bands I saw on Halloween rocked hard and into the night, so you won’t hear me complaining too much about that….
Passion (continued)
www.keithcorcoran.com
Now Dr. Seuss and Mother Goose both did their thing.
but, Jam Master’s gettin’ loose and DMC’s the king.
Cause he’s the adult entertainer, child educator,
Jam Master Jay, king of the crossfader.
He’s the better of the best, best believe he’s the baddest.
Perfect timin’ when I’m climbin’, I’m rhymin’ apparatus.
Lotta guts, when he cuts, girls move their butts.
His name is Jay, hear the play, he must be nuts.
And on the mix, real quick, and I’d like to say
he’s not Flash, but he’s fast and his name is Jay! – Run-DMC, “Peter Piper”
Last week, I wrote a little about some rock and roll icons that died too young — Kurt, Biggie and Tupac. I never would have imagined the next one to go would be Jay Mizell, the 37-year-old backbone to the greatest hip-hop group on the planet, Run-DMC.
As far as I know, Jay wasn’t a troublemaker, wasn’t suicidal, didn’t act like a thug, never got in anyone’s way. In fact, everything I’ve read since Jam Master was murdered on Wednesday, October 30, was how he was known for going out of his way for people. A pioneer, and part of the first rap act to go platinum, to be played on MTV, to go Top Ten on the pop charts and to hit NUMBER ONE on the R&B charts. One of the first DJs to fuse rock and rap together on a hip-hop record, long before Limp Biskit or Korn were doing it. Jay’s albums went gold, platinum, MULTI-platinum… but he would pull over to the side of the road to help a brother out…
…and he was shot in the head while playing video games in a Queens, NY record studio.
God help us.
Jay’s like King Midas, as I was told,
everything that he touched turned to gold.
He’s the greatest of the great, get it straight he’s great.
Claim fame cause his name is known in every state.
Everyone knows Run-DMC. Every urban hip-hop head on both US coasts, and around the world. Every middle-class white boy like me, who hid Raisin’ Hell between the Billy Joel records and The Wrestling Album so our parents wouldn’t take it from us. Every Aerosmith fan that saw their favorite band’s career revitalized after they teamed up with Run-DMC to re-make “Walk This Way.” Every mother or father that yelled at their kids to “TURN IT DOWN!” at Christmastime, when “Christmas in Hollis” was sooo much cooler to listen to than “Jingle Bell Rock” or anything by Johnny Mathis or Mitch Miller (yikes!).
You know, my three favorite bands OF ALL TIME are probably The Beatles, Nirvana and Run-DMC. Sure, I go in and out of phases, I trick myself into thinking that “my ear has matured” past the stuff I’ve owned since my childhood, or I just forget to dig out an old record, tape or CD, and put it on for months — even years — at a time. But I can go back and listen to anything by these three groups over and over again.
It’s a shame I never got the chance to see any of them perform live. I missed out on The Beatles (by being born a decade or so too late), and I ignorantly passed up on too many opportunities to see Nirvana. But Run-DMC and I have always just missed each other. They played 10 minutes from my house on the night of my junior prom. Then, they were supposed to perform one year at my college — on my BIRTHDAY — but they showed up late due to traffic or some nonsense, and we all got refunds. Then on Spring Break during my senior year, we actually saw Rob Base on Monday and Vanilla Ice on Wednesday — LIP-SYNCING no less — when, of course, Run (who we saw one morning sippin’ on some OJ at our hotel restaurant), DMC and Jay were rockin’ the club on Tuesday. Top that off with the fact that their latest tour was with KID ROCK of all people, and I came to accept the fact that there was no chance in hell I would get to see them any time soon.
Then I hear the news that Jay was shot, and the first thing on my mind is, damn, that’s it. I’m never gonna see them live, after all. Shit like this can really sting.
Last week, Ice Cube called Run-DMC “the Rolling Stones of rap,” while Chuck D described them as “the Beatles of hip-hop.” Rap mogul Russell Simmons (Rev. Run’s older brother) was quoted as saying “they represented everything good and positive about hip-hop.” This made me think about a line that Rolling Stone writer Toure used in a very touching piece he wrote for the Village Voice a few years ago, about Tupac and Biggie’s deaths. He plead for the violence to stop, so more hip-hop artists could end up dying “of natural causes.” All I can hope for is that the current rappers, and the entire hip-hop community, learn from this rather than use it as an excuse for more Thug Life. And, maybe everyone reading about Jay’s early death can go out to your local record store and pick up a copy of Raisin’ Hell or Run-DMC’s Greatest Hits for your CD collection. Nothin’ wrong with takin’ it back to the old school every once in a while…
You see, I came of age listening to Kurt and Biggie and Tupac. I grew up on Run-DMC. This one hurts.
peace. love. moe.
– Matt
Till My Head Falls Off can be found weekly on 411 Music (old columns are archived in the pull-down menu below). Already hit everything on 411? Matthew Michaels also contributes to 1-42.
