Run-D.M.C.* – It's Like That / Sucker M.C.'s (Krush-Groove 1)

Why no CD release, not kool!
Why no CD release, not kool!

The debut single from Run DMC brought about some important changes in the imagery of hip-hop in the USA, with two aspects that deserve attention: the aesthetics of Rap of the group and the importance of the clothing worn by Run-DMC at that moment, that is, a aspect that permeates musical conception and another that had a strong impact on fashion and in the way people dress.

If, on the one hand, what reigned between 1979 and 1982 in the hip-hop universe was a musical cycle known as "Old School Rap," which brought labels such as Enjoy Records and Sugar Hill, at a time when Rap musical bases were formatted with reference to what was heard in the samples, that is, studio bands tried to emulate the sound that was heard in the classics of Disco Music and Funk in the late 1970s, with emphasis on the productions of the duo P & P - Patrick Adams and Peter Brown. At that time, the groups used a "real band" to try to imitate the sound of a sample. On the other hand, between 1982 and 1983, for example, hip-hop begins to open its musical spectrum to other musical currents: one of the currents is born of "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force, which would influence the following years; the other stream would be formatted by the Run-DMC, with its dry timbres of electronic drums, rap and some scratches; the Run-DMC did not rescue the classics of the Disco Music; on the contrary, they brought the influence of classics of the on the contrary, they were influenced by rock classics such as Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" and 'The Big Beat" by Billy Squier.

When this record came out, some people realized that the Run-DMC sounded like the sound of the streets. And that times were changing. It was just rhythm, there was music, just rhythm. They managed to transport the sound from the street to the record. You hear the first electronic beats on the track "Sucker MC's" and realize that it sounds like they are singing on a street, in a park, because the sound of this track refers to these places.Run-DMC has created a beat pattern through the (Oberheim) DMX drum machine. Incidentally, the Run-DMC gained so much power in the following years that it ended up defining a musical pattern within Rap, influencing other groups and serving as a musical and aesthetic reference in Hip-Hop. In 1986, for example, Electro virtually disappeared in NY at a time when studio owners, producers and labels were interested in recording something that sounded like Run-DMC, and at a time when the collective imagery of American hip-hop was heavily seduced by the Def Jam generation, captained by Run DMC and Beastie Boys

However, part of the success of Run-DMC is due to fashion. People could not be like Grand Master Flash & The Furious 5 and dress in bright clothes and leather. Many then adopted the Run-DMC style.When the Run-DMC formed the group, they decided not to wear costumes; they decided to dress like street people, like b-boys. Rappers who came before 1983 - Grand Master Flash & The Furious 5, Cold Crush Brothers, Kurtis Blow among others - wore leather boots, fur coats, tacks, belts and chains. They had clothes to wear off the stage and inside the stage. When Run formed the group, he decided to wear adidas and climb onstage this way. They created the "be yourself" fashion following a punk premise from previous years.

The Grand Master Flash & The Furious 5 group, for example, had its own stylist. If they had an idea about the color or model of clothes to wear, they would have put that idea to their stylist, who created a half-gigolo look. The Run DMC, by contrast, took the hip-hop era Grand Master Flash into the bad boy era of leather suits and adidas without laces.

In the MTV Hip-Hop documentary of the mid-1990s, rapper Krs One makes an interesting commentary on this era:

"That's how people dressed in Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, and New York City in the 1980s. All of them were influenced by Run-DMC. Dressing like this was cool, because they (Run-DMC) were representing us. This made the youg people of the ghettos vibrate. After all, they no longer needed to be like Parliament / Funkadelic and dress up; they could be authentic and show themselves to the world in this way. "