When Jam Master Jay was shot down last year, rap music suffered its most significant loss, more significant even than Tupac and Biggie - because Jam Master Jay was part of the greatest rap group of all time.
In the early eighties, when hip hop was peopled by flashy funksters in high suede boots and gloves glittering all the way to the elbow, rapping to the beats of live bands, Run DMC preferred to play it raw. Just Jam Master Jay with his turntable, some hardcore rhyming from rappers Run and DMC, the three of them simply all in black, leather jackets, sneakers, and fedoras. They weren't trying to look like George Clinton or Bootsy Collins. They rapped about reality, about the streets, and looked the same as the stories they told.
And it worked. Run DMC made every commercial breakthrough for rap music: they were the first to get a gold and platinum album, the first to be nominated for a Grammy, and the first to be featured on MTV. They also created the genre's most sustainable subgenre, rock rap, paving the way for such rockers as Limp Bizkit, the Beastie Boys and Linkin Park. No wonder they've warranted not one but two greatest hits collections.
In nineteen tracks this focuses on the pivotal material between 1983 and 1988, scorchers such as 'Walk This Way' (that resurrected the careers of ageing rockers Aerosmith in 1986), 'My Adidas', 'King of Rock', 'Sucker MC's', 'Peter Piper' and 'Rock Box'. And, unlike the consummate Run DMC collection, 'Together Forever: Greatest Hits 1983-1991', this brings us up to date with some newer, though less weighty material, such as 'Down With The King' and the Jason Nevins remix of 'It's Like That' (a 1998 UK number one). Perhaps in another effort to boost their profile, following their ill-fated comeback a couple of years back, we're also given the sadly dispensable dance remix by Jacknife Lee 'It's Tricky 2003', which, frankly, is nothing more than a mustard burp to the original.
But this is most surely a must-have for the serious hip hop fan, a top-notch selection of tunes, a legend of a band, and also, something of a goodbye. With Jam Master Jay behind us, and the failed comeback, and Run and DMC's tendency now to appear only in other people's videos, this does seem to mark the end of a career for the guys that made rap change the world. And oh, but what a career that was.
