Latest / DISGRACELAND / Run DMC Pt. 1: Innovation, Evolution and the Mysterious Death of Jam Master Jay

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Run DMC Pt. 1: Innovation, Evolution and the Mysterious Death of Jam Master Jay · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Run DMC are insane, but not in the way you think,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: not in a particular Disgraceland way. Their story born in
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: part out of the crime and grime of seventies and
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: eighties New York City gang violence, stick up kids, and assassins.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Aside from the unsolved murder of djjmmaster J, the insanity
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: surrounding Run DMC is more about the group's music than
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: it is about true crime. Run DMC were the first
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: rap group to grace the cover of Rolling Stone magazine,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to be played on MTV, to be nominated for a
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Grammy Award. Run DMC were not only real deal be
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: boys from the block. They were the first rap group
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to sell half a million records, then a million, first
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: to have a multi million selling album, gold, platinum, and
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: multi platinum, and it was all due to the groundbreaking
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: music they recorded. Great music. That music you heard at
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the top of the show that wasn't great music. That
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: was a preset loop from my mellotron called Malory and
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Nick MK one. I played you that loop because I
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: can't afford the rights to Jump by Van Halen, And
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: why would I play you that specific slice of hairy
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: chest virtuoso synth cheese. Could I afford it? Because that
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: was the number one song in America on March twenty seventh,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, And that was the day Run DMC
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: released their self titled debut album and changed the face
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of popular music forever. On this episode, truth and hard Beats,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Virtuoso Cheese, the evolution of hip hop, and a dead DJ.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this this disgraceland. In Jamaica, Queens,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: they had the Savage Skulls, and over in Brooklyn the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Young Barons cut a dude's nose off. Here in the Bronx,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the gang murders were just as prevalent and no less colorful.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: The year before, in nineteen seventy two, there were a
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: total of fifty four gang related homicides. A dealer down
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: in South Bronx was shot thirty seven times, his body
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: riddled with bullets in the form of a cross, his
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: blood and his life escaping in the direction of the Father,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And for residents of
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the Bronx in nineteen seventy three, there was no escaping
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the gang violence. The neighborhood in the nineteen seventies resembled
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: nothing less than a war zone. New York City's rent
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: control policies had long ago deincentivized landlords to care for
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: their properties. As a result, the Borrow's apartment buildings fell
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: into disrepair en mass. All of this at a time
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: when unemployment in South Bronx was hovering around twenty five percent, which,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: to give you some perspective, was the national unemployment rate
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: during the Great Depression. Crime was rampant in nineteen seventies.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Bronx violence was so prevalent that the streets were unwalkable
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and for most the neighborhood unlivable. Soon it became clear
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to property owners that their Bronx real estate was worth
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: more on fire than it was as is, and as
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a result, the Bronx burned, and while the insurance dollars
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: poured in, the gangs took over hard times, spreading just
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: like the flu Black Assassins, Majestic Warlocks, Brothers of Satan,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the Reapers, the Henchmen, the Dirty Dozen, and the biggest,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: most dominant gang, the Black Space. It's the gangs ruled
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the Bronx, intimidating residents into respecting their authority, their turf,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: and bending to their violent will, robbing whatever shop owners remained,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: pedaling dope, raping young women. It was a brutal gang
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: ruled reality in the Bronx in nineteen seventy three, especially
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: if you were a teenager. There was safety in numbers.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Disco had already begun to rule the airwaves, but in
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: the Bronx, disco represented a glitz and glam that was unrecognizable.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: North of Times Square, one hundred and tenth Street was
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: a disco firewall. On the other side, the deep gurus
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of the JVS, Simon Day and the Fat Back Band
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: ran deep and far all the way up Lennox Avenue
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: from Harlem to the Bronx. But this sophisticated funk was
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: still adult music. It was cool, but not all that exciting.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: In order to turn a party out, to get a
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: room full of young teenagers excited, something else was needed.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: And this something else was exactly what an innovative young
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: DJ brought to the first floor wreck room of the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty Sedwick Avenue housing projects on August eleventh,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three. DJ Cool Hirks Back to School Jam
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: a place to escape the heat off the street, a
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: cause to get out from under the nightly terror of
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the gangs, a late summer hang, sweating it out on
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the dance floor together admission twenty five cents for the ladies,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: fifty cents for the fellas, nine pm to four am.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Seven hours of fun, seven hours of partying, seven hours
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: of dancing, and that's a long time to keep A hot,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: restless crowd of kids entertained. Relying on their parents' music
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: alone wasn't going to cut it. So herk improvised. He'd
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: start out with the funk, with the Jimmy Caster Bunch
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and the incredible Bongo Band. But when their hits, it's
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: just begun in apache get to their respective breaks, the breakdowns,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the parts of the songs where the world seemed to
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: drift off to strip the listeners of their cares and worries,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: leaving them out on the dance floor with nothing but
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the beat, Those incredible beats, those beats that propelled partygoers
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: deeper and deeper into the abandon of the dance floor.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: When Dj cool Hirk came to the breaks in those tracks,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: he did something revolutionary. He kept them going. Dj cool
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Hirk knew this to keep rocking the party, Can't stop,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Won't stop. Park was the first DJ to bring two
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: copies of the same record to the party, and of
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: course too turntables. Just as the breakdown of one funky
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: song was ending on one turntable, Park would jump to
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the same point on the same record on the other turntable,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: and when that finished, he'd jumped back to the beginning
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: of the break on the same song on the original turntable,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and then switched back on and on and on. Should
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I say it really should on and on and on
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: to the break of don I mean, because it was
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: literally to the break of dawn. That's how long herk
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: would rock the parties until until four or five am.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: But I'm not going to say it's cheesy anyways, I digress.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: This extension of the track, this extension of the beat,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: This Merry Go Round is hurt called. It was virtually
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: endless and had the desired effect of keeping kids on
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the dance floor for long stretches of time. It was
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: so simple, so genius, and it would go down in
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: history as the innovation that sparked the beginning of what
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: we now call hip hop. These beats that played continuously
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: in the songs breaks. These breakbeats that Herk played endlessly
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: inspired dancers to go for it in ways their parents
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: can never dream of. Perk's music inspired them to take
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: what James Brown was doing and to push his dance
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: style over the top, to reimaginate into something futuristic, athletic, youthful, competitive.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: So a new form of dance emerged over the break beats,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: break dancing by kids who would utilize the time afforded
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: by the extended beats to compete against each other and dance.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: These kids came to be known as bee boys, identified
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: as much by their dance as they were by their style.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Like everyone else within the walls of the Sedgwick Avenue
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: rec room, these kids were from the street, jeans, T shirts,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: sneakers in the bronx. It was a far cry, fashion
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: wise from the fur and leather of downtown Manhattan nightlife,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and the crowd was wild. It was dark and mysterious, exciting.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: The smoke from grass and angel dusts hung heavy under
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the low ceiling, and all of it, along with the music,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: created a vibe that was more tranced than a block party.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Herk had a mic in reserve for his boy Coke Rock,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to weaponize in an instant in case the crowd needed
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: a little something extra to keep them going. Coke was
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Hirk's party rocker, his de facto master of ceremonies. While
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Herk kept the beat going, Coke would jump on the mic,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: call out his friends in the audience, make them laugh,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: entertain them, guilt them into getting back on the dance floor.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: While doing so, Coke would tend to his other job
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: for the night, selling nickel bags of cannabis while on
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: the mic, dispensing dope to his friends on the side.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: On an average night, a quarter pound of nickelbags in
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: under two hours, all while keeping the party going with
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Herk with his shoutouts that took flight from his mic
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: in the form of rhymes inspired by his parents' record
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: collection pig Meat, Markhams, here comes the Judge and Gil
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Scott herons the revolution will not be televised. And when
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Coke Rock was done, Bhila the MC was born, and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: so was rap as we know it today. Two turntables,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: a microphone, a breakbeat, an MC and a rhyme. Hirk's
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: parties quickly became legend and were attended by those who
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: would go on to become the founding fathers of hip
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: hop Africa. Bambada, who would unite the warring Bronx neighbors
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: hoods with his parties that emphasized community and shared culture,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and a young kid who went by the bee boy moniker,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Grandmaster Flash, who would take Hirk's DJ style and evolve
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: it further, going as far as turning his turntables into
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: instruments in an effort to avoid the clunky, inelegant sounds
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: of switching records by manually dropping the tone erm from
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: one record to the next. Flash would be the first
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: to put his hands on the vinyl to turn back
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the beat on one table with one hand while pausing
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: the beat on the other turntable with his other hand,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: cutting the record from side to side and creating a
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: seamless transition where the beat was never disrupted, scratching the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: record for emphasis and effect. It was revolutionary, infectious, and inspiring. Flash,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: along with another one of Hurk's early partygoers, mc Mellimel,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: would form the group Grandmaster Flash in the Furious Five,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: and by nineteen seventy eight, the regular nights at disco
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Fever in the Bronx were legend flash his name, and
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: hip hop culture spread through Manhattan's Five Burrows, making its
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: way to Hollis Queens, a neighborhood where the violent gang
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the Savage Skulls once reigned supreme. But for an aspiring
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: thirteen year old Hollis Bee Boy in nineteen seventy eight,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: music not gangs was starting to pave his road out,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: a road that he would travel to bring hip hop
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: beyond the Burrows to mainstream Middle America and beyond that.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Bee Boy was named Jason Miselle, and he would one
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: day go by the name Jammaster J and his group
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: was called Run DMC. The Stick Up Kids sat in
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: the back of the seventy eight Cadillac Coupe Deville, dressed
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: head to toe, black black jeans, black leather jackets, black hats,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: all the bad guys in their own movie, and their driver, Larry,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: complete and total herb. His best attribute, aside from his cunning,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: was his lead foot. He pushed the Caddy to ninety
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: as soon as he'd hit the on ramp onto Interstate
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: ninety five north out of the city to Boston, south
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: to Jersey. It didn't matter. Wherever there was money to snatch,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: speed was necessary. And there were parties to rock shows
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: to do, sometimes three in a day, with every appearance
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: more money. They'd take their fee off the top after
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the show, as was customary for any performer, and as
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: was far from customary. While they were on stage, Larry
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the Herb, their driver, would rob unsuspecting promoters in attendees
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: while they were distracted by the ongoing stage show. They'd
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: get them coming and going. Rhyme steal, steal, rhyme, rhyme steal, repeat.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: For the leather Cloud stick up kids on stage, it
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: was a thrilling way of life, except it was a
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: total fantasy, a fantasy of one of the stick up kids,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Darryl McDaniels, who in all reality was nothing like an
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: actual stick up kid. He was a freshman at Saint
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: John's University who, as of just a couple of years prior,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: cut his hard earned academic career short to take the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: stage name DMC and team up with his Rice high
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: school friend Joseph Simmons to form the rap group Run DMC.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: For DMC, the fantasy was a youthful daydream, but for
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: jam Master Jay, the fantasy was a little closer to home.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Of the three group members who all hailed from Hollis Queens,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: New York. Jay's experience was the most street Which isn't
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: to say that Jay was a gang member, but he
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: was hard as nails and not to be fucked with. Smart,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: but less academic and more school of hard knocks and
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: his two other group members. When Jay was thirteen years old,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: he built himself a reputation of fearlessness. He'd flash what
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: little money he had, daring older neighborhood real stick of
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: kids to attempt to tap his pockets, just so he
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: could beat them down, whoop their asses, and send them
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: on their way, sending a message to the rest of
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the block that his domain was his own. It's like that,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: and that's the way it is. In addition to being tough,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Jay was smart despite the fighting in the street antics.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: At the age of fourteen, Jay was in the smartest
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: group in his class. And this is all to say
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: he was a natural leader, a natural leader who was
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: obsessed with the burgeoning world of rap music being spread
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and others. But
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: being the leader that he was, Jay wasn't content to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: imitate his heroes. Naturally, he did what was authentic to
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: him and ultimately the complete opposite of Flash, Melly, mel
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Bambada and others. Right around the time of the Eighth
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Jay started to take his personal fashion seriously. He started
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: shopping for clothes that represented a style he could envision
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: in his head, a style that matched the innovative beats
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and the excitement of the music that was fueling him.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: He bought a black floor hat with a feather. He
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: preferred jeans lee jeans, they fit better than Levi's and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: were easier to find. Along with the black jeans and
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: black hat, he'd wear a different colored T shirt and
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: matches color to the shoelaces in his white shell toe Adidas.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: So if he wore a blue shirt, blue laces, red shirt,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: red laces, white shirt, white laces, etc. The matching was crucial.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: He'd even match his underwear to one of the other
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: colors he was rocking. But Calvin Kleins aside, the matching
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: of the laces had become a giant pain in the ass.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Relacing is Adidas every single morning before school was time consuming,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: so he decided to just ditch the laces all together.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: No shoelaces in his shell toe Adidas, because no shoelaces
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: matched everything, and a style was born. Bee boy style.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Jay's b boy style out on the streets anyway, wasn't
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: as novel as it sounds. It was just more fully
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: realized cultivated than what other bee boys usually rocked whatever
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: block party or dance they attended. Jay just took what
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: was being worn on the streets and amped it up
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: a bit, personified it. On the street, it looked normal,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: if not fully realized compared to most, but still, aside
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: from the no shoelaces, pretty basic. But once Jay took
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: his style to the stage with his group run DMC,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the style became revolutionary. Up to this point, earlier rap
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: performers Jay's and his groupmate's heroes, The Furious Five, the
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Funky Four plus one, Curtis Blow, Sugarhill Gang, they all
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: dressed like they were trying to get into the clubs
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that their music was rebelling against. They dressed up aspirational
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: like the discos and clubs they were avoiding for their
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: own block parties and rec room jams. Instead of dressing
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: in a way that was really relatable to their friends
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: and bands from the hood and the audience. They dressed
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: in leather and feathers, elaborate headdresses, and jewelry matching denimen
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: in some cases even formal wear. It was more Village
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: people than East Village, where white punk rock kids with
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: their own tendencies to dress down were fast picking up
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: on the hip hop sounds emanating from north of Central Park,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: but as of yet not fully adopting the culture instinctively.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Jay was on to something, and so was his band's manager,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Russell Simmons, brother of Jay's bandmate Joseph run Simmons. When
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: it came time to record the group, just as Jay
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: was going for something different with his bee boy fashion,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Russell was going for something different with the group's sound.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Despite the incredible musical innovations brought to life by Herk
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: and Flash, when it came to recorded rap music, the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: genre was still stuck in the dark ages. What was
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: being released on record in the early eighties was vastly
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: different than what was being played on the streets and
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: in the clubs. Sugarhill Gang had the first bonafide mainstream
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: rap hit with rappers Delight and Funky four plus one
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: would set off a whole new style of rapping with
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: their first single, That's the Joint but as legendary and
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: influential as those songs would become as musical productions, Russell
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Simmons saw them for what they were, limiting and unrepresentative
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of what true hip hop culture was actually about and
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: where it could actually go. Rappers Delight, in essence was
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: just Sheikh's good times plus a funny story about eating
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: shitty food at a friend's house, while That's the joint
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: was just a rap over Rescue Me by a taste
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: of honey. Those songs, despite their lyrical and melodic brilliance,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: are each built on existing tracks by other artists, samples
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: of whole songs, instrumentalized and extended cut to allow for
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: new rap melodies. None of that sounded like what was
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: being played by rappers and DJs at block parties, in
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the parks and in reck rooms. It was all too
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: produced to elaborate. The sound on the street was stripped down, simple,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and begged for something more representative of the street, something hard.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Russell Simmons knew that that hardness could be achieved with
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: simplicity of production by stripping away the sonic elements instead
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: of adding to the production. Fuck the full tracks, forget
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the nile Roger's funk guitars and the Bootsy Collins style basslines.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Forget about the sins, forget about the strings. Lose the bongos,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: lose the congas, and get rid of those horns, get
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: rid of those flutes, and completely eliminate any and everything
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: that didn't contribute to the bigness of the beat. Strip
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: it all away. Keep the programmed drums, accent them with
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: other drum samples and effects were necessary to maximize their impact.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Give it all to jam Master Jada cut in sequence
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: with the rhymes. His brother Run and friend DMC would
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: lay over it while all of them were clad uniquely
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: in their own fully realized Bee Boys style. This this
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: was Run DMC, and this was the way tore a
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: new sound with a new image to accompany new previously
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: unimaginable success for any group of rap artists. We'll be
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: right back after this word word word. The Scraggly Rocker
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: emerged from a CD Times Square hotel and dragged himself
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and what was left of his twenty dollars a day
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: allowance out onto the street and over to Ninth Avenue
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: to scr dope. He needed it bad. It was a
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: daily habit out here, on that jagged edge where vice
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: meets inspiration, he could hear the sound of a city
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: and a culture evolving. Stick them by Fat Boys and
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Houdini's Freaks Come Out at Night seeped out of random boomboxes,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: as did run DMC's rock box. Radio stations were still
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: insisting on playing Tana Gardner's heart Beat and Tom Tom
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Club's Genius of Love, and of course Blondie's Rapture, all
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: mainstream affiliated bangers that sonically moved beyond disco to flirt
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: with this new style of music known as rap, and
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the rocker loved it, all of it, even if it
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: was completely foreign to the beefy blues based hard rock
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: his band was filling colosseums with. His band was Aerosmith,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and his name was Stephen Tyler. He may have been
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: part cartoon character, but there was no part of him
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: that was a dummy. Stephen could sense a shift in
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: youth culture right there on the streets of New York City.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: A new form of music was coming, Rap music. It
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: was very real, not a fad at all, as its
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: detractors would claim, so real and impactful that one day
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: in the not too distant future. It would save his
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and his bandmate's career, but first Stephen needed to save himself.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: That men fixing up before his jones really kicked in,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and that meant scoring from one of the various gang
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: affiliated dealers out on Ninth Avenue, Pusher's Pimps, muscle Henchmen.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: They were all the same to Stephen. The only thing
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: that distinguished any of them from the other was their
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: ability to take a five dollars bill out of one
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: of his hands and put a tenth of a gram
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: of dope stamped in a neat little wax paper packet
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: into his other. Stephen Tyler remembered this time fondly as
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: he listened to the pitch from David Geffen's Henchman. Geffen
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: at the time, some four years later, in nineteen eighty six,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: had one of the most powerful gangs in the music industry,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Geffen Records, and the Henchmen Slash A and R Man
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: was desperate, just like Stephen Tyler was his band his charge.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Stephen Tyler's band, Arrowsmith, couldn't buy a hit in eighty six,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and they were over weakened by the excessive drug use
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and a strong tumble off the charts. The band, once
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the biggest in the country, was effectively dead. If Geffen
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Records are going to recoup the millions that it had
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: invested in Arrowsmith, and if the A and R Man
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: was going to save his job, then something bold was needed,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: which is why Geffen's henchman took the meeting with the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Kid with the new label Deaf Plan or Dead Tan
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: or Deaf Jam or whatever the fuck a meeting in
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a goddamn dorm room of all places. The A and
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: R Man was no regular suit. His name was John
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Kallaner and he was known for his long hair, his beard,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: and discerning ear. He signed XTC and Susie in the Banshees,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: but still a fucking dorm room. However, despite the inauspicious Diggs,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: he knew he had to take the meeting with the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Kid and that kid Rick Rubin, despite not having a
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: real office to work out of, was currently producing one
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: of the biggest acts on the planet, Run DMC. Run
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: DMC was a goddamn sensation. Their self titled debut had
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: gone gold, their follow up Platinum, and Run DMC was
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the first rap group to get played on MTV and
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: at the moment we're getting more air time from the
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: influential network than Arrowsmith was. Rick Rubin's idea was simple.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Mixed the rap vocal stylings of one of the hottest
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: groups going at the time with the hard hitting riffs
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of one of the most iconic rock bands of the time,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and the opening drum beat to walk This way was
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: already familiar with block parties, but the three members of
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Run DMC had to be sold on the idea. It
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: was a cover song and they have plenty of their
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: own rhymes. Wasn't this just the type of artistic compromise
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: that had soured them on the sampled backgrounds of other
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: rap ACKs. But a compromise was necessary to win over
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: a larger audience. Arosmith needed relevance. Collaborating with Run DMC
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: would give them that, and Run DMC and rap music
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: in general needed to be seen as a credible art
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: form from the mainstream establishment rock press. Working with Arrowsmith
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: would give them that. So a deal was struck, studio
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: time was booked, and the rest, as they say, is history.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: As Reuben suspected, the collaboration went gangbusters, rocketing the joint
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Run DMC Aerosmith single, a remake of the Aerosmith classic,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Walked This Way to number four on the Billboard charts.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Arrowsmith was relevant again and on their way to their
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: own singular chart dominance, and for run DMC, working with
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Arrowsmith ushered the group and rap as a genre into
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the mainstream. Run DMC went on the headline sold out
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: arena tours in Madison Square Garden. They became the first
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: rap group to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: magazine and on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. They were the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: first rap group nominated for a Grammy Award, but the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: gains were short term. Despite Walk This Way's success, Ultimately
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the track was a regression, just as they suspected, and
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the wheel of success it put them on caused them
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: to take their eye off the ball, to cease innovating,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: and ultimately left them vulnerable to a potent threat coming
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: up from the streets. As groundbreaking as Walk This Way was,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: it was a double edged sword for run DMC. Sure,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the genre melding single blew them up beyond their wildest dreams,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: but the arrangement of the song and its composition was
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the exact opposite of the hard, simple beat oriented records
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: run DMC came to prominence with Seesaws slinging the same style,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: while their next record, Tougher than Leathers, suffered creatively suffered
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: at a time when they could least afford it, a
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: time when the streets of New York were about to
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: give rise to a new breed of MC. Daryl McDaniel
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: sat in his Cadillac stone still. He was sweating his signature.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Big framed black Kezaal glasses were sliding down his nose,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: greased by the perspiration. He cranked the ac but it
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: didn't matter. The proverbial heat was on. He could feel
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: it beating down on the back of his neck, and
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the assassin was coming for him. It was only a
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: matter of time, he knew it. He didn't know where
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the fatal shot would come from, and frankly, he was
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: tired of looking over his shoulder. Part of him wished
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: it would just happen already and have the whole thing
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: be done with this thing, this game, the constant pressure
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: of it all. Pressure on the street to stay alive,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: pressure in his head to stay relevant, pressure back home
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to keep slinging those royalty checks, to keep the lights on.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: So many lights.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: He could feel the assassin creeping, sense his presence. His
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: man Larry could too. Larry had betrayed him, brought the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: assassin into his world, welcomed him, thought bringing him around
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: would motivate d All it did was send fear sprinting
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: down his spine. And the assassin was no joke, lethal
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: as they come, and on some completely new trip. He
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: didn't fuck with the old way, the way of the gun. No,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: he worked a different set of weapons completely his mind
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and his tongue. Larry put the cassette into the mouth
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: of DMC's Cadillac set. Player d sunk back into a seat,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: resigned to listen to the assassin's weapons blast out and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: accept his fate. The voice of the lyrical assassin, Rock
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Kim blast out over his DJ Eric Be's beat through
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the speakers, and when Darryl McDaniels heard it, he knew
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Run DMC was dead. Rock Kim as an MC was
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: something entirely different, completely abnormal to what was accepted as
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: wrath before him. His style was so unique that it
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: necessitated the invention of the concept of flow as a
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: means to describe what he was doing with his voice.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Rock Kim grew up on Long Island, away from the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Bronx Hollis, Harlem and the growing world of hip hop.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: To experience it, he had to imagine it. The process
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: of doing so sharpened his imagination, and as a result,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: the imagery in his lyrics was crystal clear technicolor to
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: the listener. As a boy, he grew up playing saxophone
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and obsessed over bebop, so when the MC bug bit
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: he finally got on the mic, it wasn't Ron or
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: DMC or Mellie mel or Cope Lac or Pygmy Markham
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: who informed his style. It was one of the greatest
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: jazz innovators of all time, John Coltrane. His melodies had
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: little to do with the established MC style on the street,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the simplified rhymes that DMC traded on. Instead, they traced
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the horn melodies Coltrane Blue onto his classic records Blue
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Train and a Love Supreme, and the rhythm of it
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of his melodies, combined with the lyrical imagery, struck a
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: unified technique so influential that it would change hip hop
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: forever and leave run DMC in their career shot down
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: dead on the side of the road as far as
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: run DMC's future was concerned. Rock Kim marked the beginning
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: of a new phase in hip hop's evolution. Eric B
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and Rock Kim, Public Enemy and Boogie Down productions would
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: inject consciousness into the scene, one that sounded much more
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: vibrant and compelling than the party rocking anthems and park
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: jams Run DMC. In the previous generation of rap, the
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: d MC, Run and Jam Master J were born out
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: of and traded on and out on the West Coast.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: An entirely new style of hip hop was emerging from
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: South central Los Angeles, gangster rap, a style that would
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: soon be as prevalent on the minds of American teenagers
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: as it was on the streets, and all told, the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: entire shift ultimately left Run DMC stylistically irrelevant and creatively spent.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: The group introduced America to rap and conquered the mainstream
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: with the Walk This Way fueled album Raising Hell in
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, and their eighty eight follow up, Tougher
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Than Leather, did well, but not nearly as well as
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: its predecessor. The slip was on, and by the time
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the group released Back from Hell in nineteen ninety, the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: writing was on the wall tagged with thick, bold lines.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Daryl dmc McDaniel struggled with depression and pill addictions, overcoming
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: them to write an autobiography. MC run got religion, becoming
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Reverend run in a reality TV star with MTV's Runs House.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Jam Master J kept his feet firmly planted in the game,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and in nineteen eighty nine started jammaster J Records. Part
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: of owning and running a record label is about investing,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: investing in the future of younger artists. That generosity of
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: spirit suited Jay's personality, a man beloved worldwide and especially
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: back home in Queen's where he set up shop with
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the JMJ Records recording studio on Merrick Boulevard. Jay found
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: early success with the signing of a local rapper, Curtis Jackson,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: who went by the name fifty Cent. Fiddy, as he's
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: now referred to, was complete street beyond even a gangster
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: wrap that shot down run dmc'scus career. Fifty Cent began
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: dealing drugs on the streets of jam Master Jay's Queen's
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: at the age of twelve. Later, a friend introduced them
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: to Jay, who not only recognized Fiddy's emerging talent, but
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: also his authentic image. Jay recorded his unreleased debut album,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: and fifty Cent eventually signed with Columbia Records with a
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: controversialist fuck song of his twelve inch sleeve entitled Ghetto
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Koran Hold Up. There'll be more on the song in
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: fifty Cent in an upcoming episode on Curtis Jackson, but
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: for the purposes of this episode, all you get to
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: know is that Ghetto Koran went where no other gangster
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: rap went before. It actually named names names of real
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: drug dealers and queen's hustlers, bona fide killers gangsters from
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: fifty cents life. The track was controversial for a number
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: of reasons, but this reason landed the snitch label squarely
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: on fifty cents forehead, and the street blacklisted fifty Cent,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: putting the word out that anyone who worked with or
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: aligned with fifty cent would be killed. Jam Master J
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: didn't get the memo, or so the story goes, fifty
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: cent was well on his way, but apparently Jay kept
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: his ties, and fifty cent was on the come up
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: and Jay was barely hanging on to his place in
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: the music industry. Times were tight. People close to Jay
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: have speculated that he had tried, or at least considered,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: the purchase of a major drug package to offset some debt,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: but that the deal had gone wrong and Jay was
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: being blamed by his partners either way. On October thirtieth,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: two thousand and two, Jason Masel aka jam Master J
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: feared for his life enough that, while sitting in his
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Queen's studio lounge playing Madden with his friend Rikio Rincon,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: he kept a gun at his side, fearful of the
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: danger that he could feel at his door. Little did
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: J know just how real that fear was. At approximately
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: seven thirty pm, studio receptionist Lydia High buzzed in what
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: one can only assume was a friendly face. Otherwise, why
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: would she have let the person in who proceeded to
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: storm up the stairs into the studio, gun drawn in
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: immediately discharge it execution style into jam Master Jay's head.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: The unmasked shooter had an accomplice who stood also apparently unmasked, and,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: as court papers claim, quote, pointed his gun at those
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: present in the studio, ordered them to get on the ground,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: and provided cover for his associate to shoot and kill
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Jason Mizl jam Master Jay was dead shot in cold
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: blood in his own studio while as receptionist who buzzed
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the shooters in sat at her desk where his driver
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and friend sat next to him playing video games, and
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: his business partner and another friend sat in the adjacent
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: control room working on a new artist track. Four potential
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: eye witnesses, two shooters, one dead DJ, and no answers.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: How the fuck did this happen? How does this case
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: continue to go unsolved? For as many conspiracy theories as
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: there are, there are zero suspects the police have turned up,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: in a word, nothing, which is astounding giving the amount
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: of other people who were on the scene during the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: time of the shooting. The conspiracies live on, as does
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the confounding nature of the unsolved crime. But regardless, in
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the end, this is a story about life, not death,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: about innovation and evolution. How jam Master Jay's group Run
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: DMC took hip hop from its nascent childhood into adolescence.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: And yes, the genre Run DMC helped mainstream eventually pass
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: them by, but eventually the teenager in all of us
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: dies in this episode of the so called Music and
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: True Crime podcast is heavy on music and light on crime,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: but teeming with truth, the truth that Jamaster J and
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Run DMC brought to hip hop culture, repping true style
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and true attitude, style and attitude they saw happening all
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: around them in their own neighborhood. B boy style, bee
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: boy rhymes, party rockers, park jams, jeans, T shirts, sneakers, honest, relatable, groundbreaking, entertaining, inspiring, immortal.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Jam Master Jay's killers may be in the wind, but
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: his and Run DMC's legacy will never disappear. And that
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: is anything but a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: is Disgraceland.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: With Double Elvis.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: notes page at disgracelmdpod dot com. If you're listening as
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: We really preciate it.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: And if not, you can become a member right now
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: by going to disgracelampod dot com.
• 37:05
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• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Can listen to every episode of disgracelam ad free, plus
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month weekly
• 37:15
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• 37:19
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• 37:25
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• 37:28
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• 37:32
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• 37:38
  Speaker 1: He then man