Darryl McDaniels recently praised Steven Tyler and Joe Perry for breaking down the stereotypes in the rock scene against rap while speaking to Vulture.
McDaniels got into the topic when the host asked whether there were any rock bands he’d like to collab with. He said:
“There isn’t one because we never planned on collaborating with a rock band in the first place On all our albums, we had at least one rock-rap track, so in our minds, Run-D.M.C. already hit as hard as any rock band out there. The title track ‘Raising Hell’ [Run-D.M.C.’s third album] has those guitar licks and was supposed to be that song on that album.”
He continued by mentioning how their collaboration with Aerosmith was out of pure luck and thanks to Rick Rubin:
“We were just going to sample ‘Walk This Way’ — Jay had been cutting the record and we had been rapping over it since we were kids — but it was Rick Rubin’s idea to actually make a record with Aerosmith.”
Still, it seemed that Tyler and Perry were first ‘skeptical’ to work with the rappers:
“It’s [Walk This Way] lost to history a bit because Aerosmith got huge again, but at that time they could have made a record with God, Jesus, or Moses and nobody would have paid attention. Still, they were skeptical, this is when mainstream rock bands shit on hip-hop, ‘can’t spell crap without rap’ and all that, but Steven Tyler and Joe Perry realized how cool it could be for everybody involved. We changed the world.”
Darryl had previously also praised Tyler and Perry while discussing their collaboration, though it seemed that he was way too nervous upon seeing the Aerosmith rockers and you can check out here to read the full story of why Run-D.M.C. felt intimidated by Steven and Joe.
