A column dedicated to great songs, old and new.
January 6, 2006
Written by Larry Smith, Darryl McDaniels, and Joseph Simmons
Deluxe Expanded Edition released on Profile and Arista Records, 2005
From Run D.M.C., Profile Records, 1984
"Rock Box", Run D.M.C.'s guitar-laden hip-hop manifesto from 1984, is still a powerful, exhilarating listen for me. I can remember where I was when I first heard "Rock Box" on the radio, and where I was when I first saw the video. It didn't sound anything like other rap music I had heard.
Run D.M.C.
Run D.M.C.
"Rock Box" also didn't sound like any funk or R&B music I had heard, though that era of R&B was rife with rockin' guitar. Taking a cue from the success of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (which featured a hair-raising guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen), the R&B/pop songs of ‘83 and ‘84 often included sudden, occasionally alarming rock guitar solos placed smack-dab in the middle of the tune. Lionel Richie's "Running With the Night", Kool and the Gang's "Misled", Shalamar's "Dead Giveaway", Cameo's "Talkin' Out the Side of Your Neck" and The Isley Brothers' "Between the Sheets" are just a few examples. In some cases, these guitar solos were obvious attempts to capture some "Beat It" style crossover success, but in other cases, like with the Isleys, this was simply a case of the public's taste (and label executive decisions) finally catching up with the artist in question. After all, Isley Brothers guitarist Ernie Isley had been shredding his guitar for over a decade before playing his solo on "Between the Sheets." Despite all this guitar-activity in commercial R&B, and despite the fact that MCs (rappers) had long used rock songs as backing tracks for live shows, "Rock Box" still sounded fresh and new when it came out, and it still retains a compelling raw power today.
Though the heavy guitars of "Rock Box" (supplied by Eddie Martinez) are certainly the most noticeable thing about the track, one cannot underestimate the power of the sparse but thundering beat, the minimalistic synthesizer decorations, the raw duo vocal delivery (which would become a kind of default prototype for rap vocals in the mid-80s), and the lyrical content itself, which had an attitude and edge hereteofore not heard in hip-hop. Remember that just a couple of years before "Rock Box", many R&B songs were glorifying designer jeans, but in "Rock Box", Run is heard saying:
Calvin Klein is no friend of mine,
Don't want nobody's name on my behind.
Lee on my leg, sneakers on my feet,
D by my side, and Jay with the beat!
The whole thing stands in contrast to the slick, sharp-dressing priorities of classic R&B, and the last two lines even seem to emphasize both the simple dress code of the mid-80s B-Boy, and the tight-knit relationship between MCs (Run and "D"--D.M.C., that is) and their DJ ("Jay"--Jam Master Jay). These lines are not just a call to recognize the validity of this new aesthetic; it's nothing less than a flat-out warning for the old school to watch out. There's a reason Run is pictured on the cover of this album pointing directly at the camera; their raw sound is a kind of sonic confrontation, a dare to either get it or not get it.
Ultimately, what I love about "Rock Box" (and any Run D.M.C. track, actually), is the vocals. Run has always been an incredibly intense rapper, half-shouting his lines as if his life depended on it, and D.M.C.'s powerful, deceptively simple complements that intensity perfectly. On "Rock Box", which is a mix of move-the-crowd rhymes, boasts, and manifesto-like declarations, both rappers project an urgency that wasn't heard in rap before, not even in the socially-conscious pieces which followed Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "The Message." Though hip-hop is 25+ years old now, I still get a renewed excitement about the form when I hear "Rock Box."
Run D.M.C. continued to break new ground in hip-hop, and had much success after "Rock Box", especially with their hugely successful Raising Hell record in 1986 (my own personal favorite is 1988's Tougher than Leather). They have since taken some interesting paths. Like Al Green before him, Run's keen sense of mission has led him into ministry; he is now called Reverend (or Rev) Run. He recently dropped a solo album called Distortion, which, I can happily report, features the same intense vocal power he's always possessed. Because of a disorder called spasmodic dystonia, D.M.C.'s voice has been altered, but he is currently readying a solo album, Checks, Thugs, and Rock n Roll. Rumors still fly about a reunion album (though Jam Master Jay was murdered in 2002), as well.
I don't know if the members of Run D.M.C. had any idea how pervasive an influence hip-hop would become on American pop culture. One thing's for sure, though: those young men were quite certain they were doing something important. That certainty, apparent in their voices, lends a kind of mystical-historical power to "Rock Box". Listening to it is truly like hearing the birth of a generation.
It's like that.
pcm
Purchase:
Rock Box
$10.99 at Amazon.com
$18.99 at Tower
Records
For those of you interested in a comprehensive look at hip-hop history, I recommend the book Can't Stop Won't Stop by Bay Area writer Jeff Chang.