Pull out your shell-toe Adidas sneaks, break out your tracksuits and bust a cold B-Boy stance as we celebrate one of the most important rap music albums of all time. Forty years ago, on May 15, 1986, Run-DMC dropped their legendary and revolutionary album Raising Hell.
Raising Hell was not only the first rap album to sell several million units, it was the first one to successfully cross over into the mainstream. One of the singles released from the album got a companion video that spent most of the full year of 1986 in heavy rotation on MTV. Hell (pun intended), the first single from the LP got Run-DMC Hip-Hop’s first corporate shoe/clothing deal. Any way you slice it, Raising Hell was a massive step for rap’s reach and growth as a real cultural force.
The second song to come from the album (and the most important) was “Walk This Way”, a remake of the Aerosmith original that dropped in 1975. Run-DMC’s version hit on July 4, 1986, and became just that, a hit. A runaway culture changing smash. It was the first rap song to reach the top five of Billboard’s Top 100 chart, peaking at number 4.
The first official single from Raising Hell didn’t do too badly either. “My Adidas” not only shot to number five on Billboard’s Black singles charts, the popularity of the song and a legendary concert date where an actual Adidas executive saw an entire audience of kids hold up his company’s shoes on cue led to the first rap/sneaker company endorsement deal.
Check out these Raising Hell highlights below:
Here’s Run-DMC’s ultra important and iconic Adidas commercial.
Here’s the group and NBA legend Patrick Ewing (who also had a shoe contract with Adidas) in a promo for Adidas.
Here’s the making of the legendary single and remake “Walk This Way”.
Here’s “Walk This Way”, one of the most important rap singles of all time.
