Run, DMC and Jam Master Jay are mad as hell, not about to take it anymore, and quite ready to let you know about the bad rap their rap is suffering. On the one hand, things couldn’t be better for the trio of 21-year-olds from Hollis, Queens: the group’s third album, Raising Hell, is tightlike-that in the Top 10, and their latest single, a cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” performed with Steve Tyler and Joe Perry, is barreling through the Top 20—albeit without the support of many chart-oriented stations, such as the biggest one in their hometown. As they travel across the U.S.A. on their “Raising Hell” tour, Run-DMC, as the headliners of an all-star rap package that includes Whodini, LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys, are drawing crowds large enough to sell out arenas coast-to-coast. But on at least a half-dozen of those shows, what they’ve also been drawing is trouble.

Playing right into the hands of wouldbe censors as well as outright bigots across the land, your basic bad apples have selectively targeted the Run-DMC shows as likely places to, as Jay puts it, “get paid tonight.” Recurring episodes of chain snatching, mugging and gang fighting—occurring mostly outside the arenas, after the shows—have resulted in RunDMC’s appearing in tandem with grimfaced reporters on the nightly news. Even Dan Rather included a segment about the troubles and subsequent cancellation of a West Coast Run-DMC show on the CBS Nightly News, though here, at least, the band was shown rapping one of their very specific, very blunt anti-drug and anticrime messages.

“I think the media’s just trying to blow rap out of proportion, period,” declares Jay. “They’re trying to blow rock ’n’ roll out of proportion, period. Somebody gets arrested on 56th Street, we played on 32nd Street (Madison Square Garden), and they blamed the concert for that. The guy said he wasn’t even at the concert, and they blamed it on Run-DMC’s show.”

Run notes, “There are fights at basketball games. You get a lot of people at Madison Square Garden, after the basketball game when people get robbed, and you never hear about it the next day. I’ve been there.” And DMC sums up the situation sadly. “I guess they’re trying to put pur concerts down just because we got somethin’ good. I don’t even associate the concert with the violence, ’cause this is happening in the streets every day. You leave school, people gonna fight, or there’s this crew that’s gonna wait to rob everybody.”

‘‘We can’t go to heaven and perform,” says Run. ‘‘We out here with the bad people. We got to put as much positive message behind it as we can, but we can’t stop the devils.” Ironically, the troublemakers just use the show as an excuse to drop their own brand of boogie on the night. They are not, the group states firmly, fans of Run-DMC, but instead lurk outside the arenas, knowing that when there’s a huge mass of B-boys and girls flooding the streets, heading for the subway or their car, they can dress the same as legitimate folk and mingle right in, do the deed and fade away. Like one of Raising Hell’s raps proclaims, it’s tricky.

Even some of the old Hollis crowd has been showing a bad attitude since RunDMC became neighborhood stars, but, from what you see while hanging out at the band’s home base, jealousy is weak, ’cause Run-DMC are def, and that means the absolute best. There is pride in their accomplishments from family, friends and strangers alike. Darryl (DMC) McDaniels’s parents warmly welcome a never-ending stream of reporters (in addition to the CREEM bunch, there’s a delegation from People here) into their lovely home, with its spacious backyard. Neighbors up and down this block of Hollis, one of Queens’ middle-class black communities, share their recollections of Darryl and his best friend Joe (Run) Simmons, growing up together, working on their music, making plans.

In fact, Run-DMC have become so popular in Hollis that they have to be selective about where to take photos. Go any place wide open, in a populous arena, and they’ll be mobbed. (Of course, the buddy who travels with them as we wander, blasting out a Raising Hell tape from his car’s sound system, doesn’t exactly guarantee anonymity.) First stop is an alley behind an apartment building a block away from DMC’s house. Here, with a natural echo reverberating off the concrete, Run and DMC practiced their raps, bouncing phrases off one another, perfecting their timing so that when Run says ‘‘Peter,” Darryl can respond ‘‘Piper” exactly on the beat. Not everyone appreciated having this honing going on under their noses, Run admits with a small smile. ‘‘They used to drop water on us from up there,” he points to several apartments’ back windows, ‘‘and the super chased us outta here with a gun.” Guess he won’t be wanting any free tickets.

Once out on Hollis Avenue, the area’s main street, things begin heating up. Dressed in their logo’d T-shirts and Adidaswear (the group has an endorsement deal with the sportswear company), trailed by an entourage of friends as well as a large limousine, Run-DMC draw stares and waves from most people they pass. Yet they’re constantly conscious of not acting like superstars, or being too big-headed for their own good. ‘‘Not in front of that house,” Run orders a photographer, “It looks like fucking Jamaica Estates,” referring to a neighborhood about two miles and a whole world away from Hollis. Instead, they find a graffiti’d wall much more to their liking. Soon, a city bus pulls up and as it discharges passengers, a crew sitting in the back spots the trio. With yells of “Yo!,” much chitchat and handshaking ensues in just a few seconds before the bus lumbers on its way. Superstars, no—local heroes, absolutely. Young girls giggle and admit that Run, or DMC, or Jay is their favorite. Even younger ones timidly muster up the courage to ask for an autograph or a picture. Willingly, if somewhat weary after a while, the trio always obliges.

That’s not to imply that they suffer fools with the same sort of tolerance given to fans. Run admits to changing his phone number with discouraging regularity, “because people get the number, and they call and say anything they wanna say.” The trio has made it clear that they don’t appreciate free offers of sex or drugs either. Two out of the three are in long-term relationships, and their biggest vice is a particularly vile species of brew called Old English Malt Liquor, which they appropriately dub “pissy.” A brief revolt ensues when the People photographer asks them to horse around an oversize Adidas shoe—you know, like, to make a point. “This ain’t Sesame Street,” someone blurts, as Run threatens to demolish the offending prop. But the shutterbug, almost apoplectic with insistence, briefly gets his way. Later, after the guy shakes hands, thanks them and leaves, Run drops the mask and mutters, “He dusted, man,” to the others, who roll about roaring. (Rap definition: “People smoke this thing called angel dust, and when you smoke, you act retarded. So we say you dusted, it means you buggin, you illin.” So now you know.)

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And lowest on their list are the two arch-enemies of rap: jealousy and prejudice. Says Jay, “They got the AOR stations and the R&B stations, and one means white and one means black. They try to say one is rock and one is rhythm and blues, but it’s not like that at all.”

“We can’t go to heaven and perform. We out here with the bad people.” —Run

“I just see it as good music,” adds Run. “Music is all one and it should all be treated as one instead of categorized.” As those apparently impenetrable walls begin to break down, Run-DMC and the rap movement can take a large share of credit for pushing over the barricades. Right at the top, their management company, Rush Productions, is a model of interracial success. Run-DMC’s career is directed by Run’s older brother, the 28-year-old dynamo Russell Simmons, and his resident creative genius, 23-yearold Rick Rubin, who sees heavy metal and rap as equally maligned street musics, and is passionate about both. It was Rubin who proposed the unlikely merger of Run-DMC and Aerosmith in the “Walk This Way” cover. His reward may well be as producer of the next Aerosmith album.

It’s possible, though, that Rubin didn’t even realize “Walk This Way” was familiar—at least part of it—to Run-DMC. Jason (Jam Master Jay) Mizell built himself a reputation during the late 1970s as a party disc jockey. He experimented with sound repetition while Run and DMC rapped over the rhythms. “Even before they had any rap records, Kurtis Blow or anybody, I used to mix Aerosmith’s ‘Walk This Way,’ the beginning of the record,” Jay explains. “See, we couldn’t rap over the disco records we used to listen to on the radio, because there weren’t hard beats. Run-DMC’s version of rap is really hard beats, loud rock ’n’ roll beats. And Run-DMC couldn’t rap over ‘Boogie Nights,’ so we used to find records that had hard beats, like Aerosmith.

“I used to mix that same drum track (the handful of notes that crack open the song) over and over again.” When RunDMC eventually secured a recording contract, those hard beats were dominant on their first two albums, Rock Box and last year’s breakthrough LP, King Of Rock. Knowing the group was starting to win over rock fans, Rubin suggested the Aerosmith cover, and the band suggested he have his head examined. Says Run, “We didn’t know about ‘back seat lover that’s always undercover and talk to my daddy saaaaay.’ All we knew about was ‘doop doop, da doop-doop.’ Then, when we started listening to the record, we started liking it.” Interestingly, “Walk This Way” has the ability to bring out the rapper in people. Steve Tyler found it very convenient to break into a. rap of its lyrics during a conversation we had a couple of months ago. As the “Walk This Way” video cleverly and humorously points out, both sides benefit when the walls come tumbling down.

But while Run and his partners are gratified by the recognition their group has earned, their thoughts are centered on the next achievement. At age 21, these boys have a professional track record that would give a politician pause. Run billed himself as the son of Kurtis Blow, whom Russell managed, and got his 11 -year-old self booked onto Blow’s concerts. Every day, when they got out of St. Pascal’s Catholic school, Run and DMC would rehearse their raps, always fine tuning, exploring the possibilities, insisting that they had a vision that the world was waiting for. Run says he’s visualized the successes which have come their way, and when he pays attention to the visions, they always work out right.

Darryl remembers: “We were in a movie theater. We snuck in, and we’re sittin’ in the girls’ bathroom, ’cause the boys’ bathroom was messed up. And he was tellin’ me, never take your glasses off again.” “That’s another visualization,” Run jumps in. “I used to go crazy, break out in a stupid sweat and tell him he’s the greatest king of rap that ever been. I told him, your glasses are cool. Your glasses are the most B-boy, incredible thing you could ever do to yourself.” So DMC stopped squinting and accepted himself, and wouldn’t you know it? The dynamic duo started getting hired for local gigs and taken real seriously. All the way to Madison Square Garden and the rest of it, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Lately, Run’s been visualizing himself as an actor, but that projection is firmly grounded in the band’s freshest reality. Krush Groove was a thinly-disguised story about the rise of Rush Productions, but although Run-DMC appeared in the film, the company had no control over it and everyone was disappointed with the final product. This time, Run-DMC’s film in progress is going to be an inside job. Called Tougher Than Leather, it’s a detective story centered around a murder in the music business, which the group has to solve to redeem their good name. Run’s a devoted moviegoer whose tastes range from Rodney Dangerfield and Gene Wilder to Michael J. Fox and Anthony Michael Hall, and he insists that this movie will remain in their control, for better or worse. “Even if it never comes out, it’ll still be our movie. We gotta make it the way we like it and not the way somebody from California likes it.” As DMC promises, “It’ll be a cross between Rambo, Commando, Cobra, 48 Hours, Apocalypse Now...” Small dreams are not for this crew.

Like the punksters before them, RunDMC are on the cutting edge of a sound and a scene that will affect generations of music still to come. Like the metallians, the rappers are supported by massive numbers of fans, although they’re despised and feared by publicus ignoramus. And sometimes, reality can hand you a hopelessness that only the lessons of rapping can help to overcome.

Run tells a story about a solo record he made as a teenager that was never released, called “Street Kid.” Seems that some woman up on the avenue saw him and Darryl coming along, assumed they were going to rob her, and put a death grip on her purse. Darryl just laughed at the idea of this woman being afraid of him, but Run didn’t think it was so funny, because, as the song said, “I’m a coolout folk.”

It’s like that. a