When Run-DMC released Raising Hell 40 years ago, they set out to shake up the world of hip-hop. In an interview with Billboard, DMC said that’s part of what made the album a classic.
“Raising Hell was special because we wasn’t trying to make a music industry album; we was trying to make a hip-hop album,” he said.
He called the project “the prototype, the blueprint,” adding, “It’s the Sgt. Peppers of hip-hop.”
DMC continued, “It made everybody after us, if you want to do an album, you got to do it on that level.”
Released in May 1986, Raising Hell featured Run-DMC’s cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.” The album peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200, making Run-DMC the first hip-hop group to earn a Platinum rap album and receive a Grammy nomination.
“Walk This Way” reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Reverend Run credited much of the album’s success to the late Jam Master Jay.
“[Forty] years, I pray it lives up to how me and D felt in ’87 going on tour,” he said of the album’s milestone anniversary. “[Producer] Jam Master Jay was everything to Raising Hell… He was like the one-man-band making Raising Hell.”
Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
