Run-D.M.C.

There's three of us, but we're not The Beatles." - Run-DMC, "King Of Rock." Beg to differ. In the crucial years of rap's graduation from old school to new school, Run-DMC were The Beatles. Check the technique: The Beatles had Ed Sullivan. Run-DMC had Live Aid. The Beatles had The White Album. Run-DMC had Raising Hell. Rock was never the same after The Beatles. Rap and rock were never the same after Run-DMC. Like the mop-topped Liverpudlians, Run-DMC- with its leathers, Lee denim, Adidas shoes, Cazal glasses, dookie ropes, and fedoras-were Hip Hop's living embodiment of perfection during its epochal moment. The Beatles and Run-DMC changed the look, sound, and marketing of music forever. Hip Hop's status as one of the most important, controversial, and influential American pop culture forces in the 20th century can be traced directly to three kings from Queens. They created soliloquies for the streets and party tunes for the 'burbs. By packing lyrical pickaxes and shining the torch down a dark, uncertain pathway, Run-DMC built the underground railroad for Hip Hop to enter, seduce, and dominate the world. Joseph "Run" Simmons, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels and Jason "Jam Master J" Mizell formed a trinity in the Holy House of Hip Hop. Run was the nimble one with the Joe Frazier-style rhyme attack, all unrelenting bluster, and swagger in the form of lyrical punches arriving in bunches. DMC was the clean-up hitter with a voice descended from Moses, wielding the microphone like Thor going for the deathblow.