In 1993 Gang Starr front-man Guru released his landmark solo album Jazzmatazz on which he collaborated with a series of jazz veterans. The same year, Run DMC staged a come-back tour on the back of their Down With The King album, roping in the hottest producers of the moment to update their signature style. Frank Broughton brought them all together in the offices of Profile Records, with Guru quizzing the Hollis trio about rock riffs, God, the old days rapping in the parks and wearing glasses with no lenses in.

Guru: I just did an album with these jazz artists, these three old cats from records that we be samplin’ from, and three of the new cats. I did Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd, Lonnie Liston-Smith, and then I got Branford Marsalis, this saxophonist from London, Courtney Pine, and this guy Ronnie Jordan from London plays guitar. It’s a fusion of hip hop and jazz. I did all the production. My beats are regular hip hop beats but I didn’t sample nothing. They played and I just rhymed. Its called Jazzmatazz. I did that because we were one of the first groups to use jazz in rap. Plus like my pops, my uncle and all of them, they love jazz. So that was like a tribute. But it ain’t like I’m a ‘jazz rapper’. People want to label you.
DMC: Like they labelled us ‘rock rappers’.
Guru: It’s a blessing to be able to do music for a living. That’s a lesson right there in itself.

What were you doing before?
Guru: Working as a case-worker for foster kids, hustling and running around, frustrated.
DMC: It’s cool when you get to do something that you like too.
Guru: Some of these chumps be taking it for granted though.

Have you guys met before?
Guru:I remember I met y‘all in London, with a Tribe Called Quest. I was like, damn! ’cos when I first heard your shit, that was one of the things that inspired me to work.
DMC: But you’ve been rhyming a long time.
Guru: But it inspired me to really take it seriously.
DMC: Go for deals and...
Guru: I was a freshman in college at the time when you was going, ‘After 12th grade I went straight to college...’ I was right there. I was like, ‘Oh shit!’
DMC: We went to college like three semesters, two semesters, and that’s when ‘Sucker MCs’ came out. We got a gig in North Carolina, we flew down there and when we came back home we got more gigs in like Florida, down south, and we had to take a leave of absence. So we’ve been absent ever since.

You’re never too old to go back and finish.
DMC: You’re never too old to go back.

Can you see yourself sitting at the back of a lecture hall?
DMC: I can. Sometimes, you know, I get the urge. I want to go back now.
Guru: In the back row?
DMC: No, I only went to college because I passed the entrance exam. My man across the room, guy I used to go to school with, said: ‘Yo what you gonna pick?’ He said Business Management, so we picked that. I went to St Johns ’cos it was right in Queens. I didn’t even know I was gonna be a rapper or nothin’. Run, he was the rapper, cos he used to rap with Kurtis Blow, and he used to bring the tapes home.
I was going to Rice High School up in Harlem, 124th and Lennox, and I used to see the Cold Crush out there, giving flyers, and they had tapes going around, for like eight and 12 dollars. I would buy the tapes, bring them back home: ‘Yo, check this out, listen to this.’ And boom bam! Then I just started writing rhymes in English class, and I had a book of rhymes.
Russell [Simmons, Run’s brother] told Run, ‘Yo I’ll let you make records but you got to get out of high school first.’ So when we graduated he said, ‘Yo D, the name of the record is ‘Its Like That’, the second record be ‘Sucker MCs’. Go home and write rhymes about, you know, the world. So I went home and we put it together. And BOOM!
Guru:That was it.
DMC: It hit. I remember when I first heard it on Kiss. I was sitting home: ‘They’re gonna play your record today.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah right.’ It was about 8.30, ‘Its Like That’ came on, Yeah!!! huh-huh-huh.
Guru: That’s dope. I remember when I heard that too.
DMC: Then, ‘Sucker MCs’ dropped, that’s when everybody just go crazy for Run DMC. And at the time we didn’t have no album cover, but we was getting a lot of props because of that record.
Guru: ‘I’m driving a Caddy, you’re fixing a Ford...’ That one too, ‘Rock Box’ was dope... all of ’em.
DMC: ‘Rock Box’ got us on MTV though. I remember we made two versions. Russell and them had put guitar on it later, so when me and Run heard it we was mad, ’cos we just wanted the beat and the rhyme, with a little echo, with the Tramp beat. But then it dropped. What sold me on it was my man Yogi that lived up the block from me. He just came and he’s giving me all these praises about ‘Rock Box’, and I’m looking at him like, ‘You like it?’
Guru: It was something different that nobody ever did.
DMC: That helped us. We did a rock tune on this new album, with Rage Against The Machine, but it ain’t like we’re gonna try and make ‘Rock Box’ over and over, you know.
Guru: So who did you all work with on the new album?
DMC: Pete Rock did two, EPMD did one, Q-Tip did one, Specialist, who does Mad Cobra and Shabba, he did one, Jermaine Dupri did one, Diamond D did one and, erm, the guy that Jay did Onyx with, he did two.
Guru: Ah yeah, he got some fly beats. I know Onyx. We were trying to get to that video, but we had a show that weekend, we didn’t get back till like one o’clock in the morning, you guys were all done.
DMC: We got finished at two o’clock, a lot of phone calls, a lot of people came down.
And Hank Shocklee did one.
Guru: You got all the fat producers on your album. I can’t wait to hear it all man.

Nowadays everyone thinks they’re an MC. Was it the same back then?
DMC: Not as much. Back in the day you had your choice of a select group of people that was really rapping, that was really good at it, that had turntables and were DJs. And in the house parties they would grab the mic. That’s how I caught on ’cos Jay, he had his little crew from two-fifth street, and they called themselves Two-Fifth Down. They was the ones from the neighborhood who would bring the turntables to the park, bring out the crates of records and DJ. I was reluctant, I wouldn’t get on the mic at first. Run used to go into the park and kick his rhyme, cos they knew him: DJ Run, and I would DJ for him.
Guru: How do you feel about the rappers that come out now? They’re successful, but they don’t know much about the old school, about the history, the artform.
DMC: I think a lot of rappers should really try to learn their history.

Run comes in

Guru: DMC was talking about when you used to be rocking a mic in the park, and he used to be DJing for you.
Run: Who D? At Doug’s block, Soup, you was good.
DMC:: Tell them about Davey D and Max: he had all the beats like Bambaata, and Jay had his crew, Two-Fifth Down, and then everybody knew DJ Run so Run had to get on the mic. Run was like the professional in the neighborhood. Everybody else was just nervous and learning, so Run would come and bust his rhyme. It took a long time before I would get on the mic with him. I would DJ for him, or sit in the park holding my beer. I didn’t really start rapping with him until he came and said, ‘Yo D, we got a record, go write rhymes.
Before you guys, rappers were more like stars, with the flashy costumes
Run:They were trying to be like Rick James.
DMC: That was like Fearless Four, and Flash, even Cold Crush got into it after a while, wearing all that stuff. But, before that, when they was just going around on their tapes, it was like a mystery to you.
Run: What happened was they got confused because they started going on tour with Rick James, and they saw how much the crowd would respond to them dressed in all that.
Guru: We were talking about who you were working with on the album, so how was it working with the different producers?
Run: I was kind of dazed. I’m always dazing through this whole career of mine, but you know, it was cool, going from person to person. I was nervous trying to gather this together. I didn’t want to be like Prince or something. Like ’cos he feel he gotta do it all his self. I felt like yeah, maybe this is what God wants me to do: just cool out Joe, put your input in, but let these guys do what they do.
I go to EPMD, and at the end of the night I want the record to be dope. I work with Q-Tip, I’m hanging out with Phife, went to the movies with Q-Tip, we were hanging out for about a week. it was cool man, I just wanted to go into the studio and come out with things that I knew were dynamic. I’m a man that deals with dynamics. I like things to drive.
I feel like that’s the best hip hop, that’s the old school. People take the word old school as meaning a rapper that’s from back in the day. No, ‘old school’ is a style of rap. You can have a new rapper that’s old school. You could have somebody that just came out, 15 years old, and listen to some Cold Crush tapes, and that’s old school.
Guru: How about Diamond, Diamond is cool.
Run: Diamond is cool. He didn’t put too much production input into it, he just gave us the beat. Other people was trying to pull the best of Run DMC out. He didn’t really.
Guru: He just let you do your thing. Diamond is old school.
Run: He’s real old school. So working with him was a lot of fun. EPMD, Hank Shocklee was a pusher, a hard worker,
Guru: He seems real intense.
Run: Jermaine Dupri is a little genius. He knows what he knows. And working with the Specialist, that does Mad Cobra and Shabba, they knew what they wanted.

Jam-masterJay comes in.

Guru: We was hanging with Jay at a club in Brooklyn, Rendezvous, the night they had a crazy shoot-out. Let me ask you this: how do you feel if somebody say to you, ‘Ah, you’re making a comeback?’
Run: My personal opinion about the word ‘comeback’ is that it don’t bother me man. For some people over in Nebraska, somewhere funny, they ain’t seen me in a while. You leave somewhere and you’re not hitting that market. You come back! I’m back and I’m hitting again, so the word comeback doesnt bother me.
DMC: I like the people that go ‘You’re still down, youre still together. Run DMC coming again! I met Madonna the other day she said, ‘You all gonna come ten more.’ I was like, we got a new album out; she was like, ‘Where’s my copy?’ It’s all about comin’ again and not giving up.
Guru: What about all these so-called new styles that came out. It seems like everybody started doing it. The groups I like doing it are Das EFX, Treach, and Fu Schnickens. But then after that a whole bunch of groups just started coming out with the rolling the tongue and that. And those are styles that have been done before. Biz [Markie] used to do it, when he was just telling stories, and Slick Rick, and all of them. You was like ‘riggy rhyme’ and all of that.
Run: Cold Crush was doin’ it too, ‘a lama-lama-lama.
Guru: Little fourteen-year-old kids come up to me, battling me in the street, ‘Yo you can’t do the triple tongue twister, Guru, I’ll burn you.’ And I’m like ‘Yo money, here’s the address, put your stuff on tape; if it sounds good on tape then that’s how you know. But how do you feel about that whole thing?
Run: About tongue twisting? Its def, sometimes. Its corny too man, all I hear is ‘rhymin-a-riggedy-rock-the-shop...’ Don’t give me that, know what I’m sayin’, come to me and give me something that’s real dope.
DMC: Substance.
Guru: After you came out other groups came out using rock; they tried to rhyme the way both of y’all rhyme, the whole thing. Like when Chuck [D] came out, a lot of groups came out trying to rhyme like Chuck...
Run:...and be Afrocentric and all that.
Jay: But that’s positive. I think what they was talking about was cool.
Run: But some of them it was corny – black this, black that... If you don’t feel it... It’s good for that awareness, but if you do it and it’s wack it’s just wack anyway.
Jay: When you start talking about what they talking about, I think all that’s positive because when we was comin’ up in the late ’70s, there was nobody talking about black nothing.
DMC: It was disco and John Travolta.
Guru:You were talking about God earlier, how important is religion in y’all lives?
Run:Its the most important thing. It’s the number one thing in our whole life. God made the world, he made everything, he made us who we are. And the best thing about Run DMC from the start – when me and Jay and D was comin together – was God. He took us to the top. He looked over us, he made us be larger than everything and everyboody. We praying all the time. It’s bringing us back into this thing stronger.
Run: The thing with God is this is our whole life. Another person would just think oh, by chance. Things don’t happen by chance, you get a blessing and we just got blessed. So everything to us is God. And I think I’m speaking for the whole group.
DMC: Since day one.
Run: When we started we was, ‘We gotta watch our day, watch your day Jay,’ and we just go out of our way to help a brother, or just know that God’s looking at us.
Jay: Just checking your day. You wake up in the morning, you do something positive you will receive a blessing. It comes back to you, know what I’m saying? If you wake up in the morning and you’re thinking negative, you think man I’m gonna go get with the niggas and shoot these mothers or I’ma rob up motherfuckers, word, you gonna wind up getting shot, and killed.
Run: That comes back to you.
Jay: In that same life. You wake up in the morning and say I’m gonna do something positive. I’ma do something good today. I’ma make a difference, that’s faith.
Run: We stand up on faith ’cos people didn’t think Run DMC had a chance to come back, but we knew, that it was up to God, so now we hitting again and people that was fronting before
Guru: ‘Only G.O.D. could be a king to me, if the god be in me then a king I be.’
Run: Exactly correct.
Guru: I wanna talk more about the old school. Like when did you all start wearing the sneakers with no laces?
Run: All through high school we’d wear one red and one green, or one Puma and one Adidas, you brought the girls out comin’ out with no shoestrings in your shoes and no lenses in your glasses, and a big velour. Oh Jay was the man in high school. That was the move right there. That was fly
Jay: Hip hop has a lot to do with fashion Before Run DMC started we would go look at Cold Crush, Kool Moe D, Kurtis Blow, I mean we really looked up to these kids. When we go see them on stage, they dressed a whole ’nother way. They was dealin’ with a whole ’nother lifestyle. They was on some rock and roll tip.
DMC: P-Funk...
Jay: Just out like George Clinton or something.
DMC: Rick James...
Jay: They was dressin’ and beatin’ and buggin’.
Guru: fat as...
Jay: I was so much of a true B-boy, there’s no way in the world I could do that. So when we got our chance, we just dressed the way we dressed in Hollis. To get fly to us, was just to put on a fresh pair of Adidas – funky, crazy fresh out the box, no dirt on them. I never understand how D kept his sneakers so clean. And you got on the freshly dipped gear, that could be a pair of Lees, and a fresh alpaca, you know what I’m sayin, to match the Adidas, and a velour or a Panama, with the ribbon that’s matching your sneakers...
Run: That’s that pimp shit.
Jay: But the pimps ain’t rockin the Lees, the pimps ain’t rockin the jeans, so it was... We put that feeling to the public, to let people know that hip hop is not just about the music, it’s about the style
Guru: That’s right, the lifestyle.
Jay: The culture and the lifestyle. I used to be amazed to just look at real artists, the way they drew on the trains. Some kids was crazy dope, a train’d go by there’d be a gun, and somebody gettin shot, with their name tagged up.
Guru: Sneaking into a train yard to do that just so somebody could notice it, that’s fly.
Jay: Its hectic.
Guru: When you get your tracks together, do you get your titles first. How do you get your concepts for your album? How do you go about it?
Run: It’s hard to say how we made our tracks, we made ’em and we made the vocals at the same time. It was a mixture.
Jay: D would go boom-bap, ka boom-boom bap, and then we just we had to make you do that. Play that again D.
DMC: Just sit down and play it. Just play it with the drum machine.
Guru: That’s coming back a little, ’cos people are tired of just loopin’ a breakbeat.
Jay: Q-Tip did that.
Guru: A lot of them now.
Run: I’m tired of having to pay these people [for samples].
Guru: All this stuff with sampling what do you think about all of that? You got people’s albums coming out late because they gotta clear all the samples.
Run: Truthfully, I love the way this samplin’ stuff sounds, but I wish that the whole thing flips back in a way.
DMC: I think it is going away.
Run: It needs to go away because its buggin’, its wack now. Sometimes it’s cool, especially the way Pete Rock does it, sounds so def. He’ll muffle the bass a bit and it sounds different.
Guru: Dr Dre played a lot of them
Run: He knows what he wants to sample, but he say maybe I can make this bassline sound like something.
Jay: Just like Teddy Riley do. He used different records but he’ll play ’em and he’ll change em a little bit.
Guru: So you think more of that’ll start coming back since people tryin’ to sue and all of that? The people who are against the sampling, they don’t understand that rap music did start with turntables. Now its a billion dollar industry. But it did start with catching a beat, and then the machines came out to make it so you could do more.
Jay: I think rapping evolved from us not wanting to hear disco. That was big here on the east coast.
Run: One thing I like is rap is straight from the ghetto. And God loves to work way down in the dirt. He doesn’t deal in no high industry. That’s why Dr Dre’s video is so cool.
Guru: There ain’t no people dancing or nothing in it.
Run: You come in and his mother screams, ‘Snoopy’, and you know his name was Snoopy when he was a kid. That’s what I think is dope about rap. The only thing that I like that makes rap really dope is the ghetto aspect – that it’s from the street.
DMC: Pops is like ‘I hope you grow up to be just like you.’
Run: It’s that whole thing what rap stands for.

An edited version of this conversation was published in Hip-Hop Connection

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