The record that carried hip hop onto MTV was one the group did not want to make and did not want released.
Only Jam Master Jay Wanted to Make It
In 1986, Run-DMC were in the studio finishing Raising Hell with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin producing. Rubin pulled out Aerosmith's 1975 album Toys in the Attic. He wanted them to rap over "Walk This Way."
Joseph Simmons and Darryl McDaniels said no. They had only ever rapped over a short looped piece of the track at their own shows, and they had never once heard the full song. To them, the lyrics were hillbilly gibberish. Jam Master Jay was the only one who wanted to do it, so the group did it his way. He worked his own scratching into the track, cutting up the same guitar riff on the turntables that Aerosmith was playing live.
They cut the track on March 9, 1986. It came out that July 4. A hip hop group and a hard rock band recording together was not a normal move that year, and nobody in either camp was sure it would work. Run-DMC did not even want it released as a single. They were stunned when both rock stations and urban stations started playing it.
Then the Video Changed Everything
The video put Run-DMC and Aerosmith in adjoining studios with a wall between them. Steven Tyler breaks through it midway through, guitar first. It is still the shot most people remember.
Joe Perry said later that the video broke down walls for real. MTV had been getting called out for years over just how white its rotation was. Three years earlier, David Bowie had pressed a network VJ on live television about why the channel barely played Black artists, and Michael Jackson was still close to the only one getting regular airplay in 1986. "Walk This Way" forced its way into heavy rotation anyway. Hip hop had never been on the channel before.
The single hit number four on the Billboard Hot 100. That made it the first hip hop record ever to crack the top five. Aerosmith's original version, back in 1975, had only reached number ten. The remake outperformed the song it was built on, and the door it kicked open on MTV stayed open. Two years later the network launched Yo! MTV Raps, which became its highest rated show.
And It Saved Aerosmith Too
Aerosmith needed this more than anyone realized. Guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford had quit the band years earlier and only rejoined in 1984, patching things up for a reunion tour. Done with Mirrors, the 1985 album that came out of that reunion, had only gone gold. It produced no hit single, and the band was drifting toward has-been status.
The Run-DMC version put them back on MTV in constant rotation. It introduced them to a generation of fans too young to remember their 1970s peak. Two years later, Aerosmith released Permanent Vacation. It went triple platinum and gave them "Dude Looks Like a Lady," their first real comeback hit.
Run-DMC did fine out of the deal too. Raising Hell went on to sell more than three million copies, the first rap album to do it. Two groups that almost never agreed to be in the same room ended up remaking both of their careers.
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