The year was 1986. Boston rock legends, Aerosmith, faced a decline in popularity while the rap and hip-hop genres began to rise in the ranks.
In walked New York's latest hip-hop group, Run-DMC, looking for their next new sound.
Not knowing who Aerosmith was (and vice versa), they happened to stumble on what the trio called “the beat” - a riff to remix on the turntables and rap over.
It was Rick Rubin, the group’s manager, who recognised the track as the 1975 hit ‘Walk This Way’.
This sparked an idea. Rubin got on the phone with the rockers from across the state, and boom, two worlds collided. The result? The epic Run-DMC revamp of the decade-old song.
It was an unlikely collaboration that both sides were initially hesitant to jump into - but one that’s now considered one of the greatest in music history.
The merging of hip-hop, rap and rock was a cultural reset, boosting the careers of both groups and changing perspectives worldwide.
For Aerosmith, it landed them a second wave of popularity. They had reached a whole new audience, and old fans were reminded that the band they loved still had it.
On the Run-DMC side, new audiences were reached, too. The song became the first hip-hop song to play on mainstream rock radio, and it found its way to MTV, which barely had anything to do with the genre at the time.
Looking at the bigger picture, it helped pave the way for the incoming nu-metal genre and rap-rock collabs of the 2000s.
Without the hit, we might never have had Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine, or Linkin Park teaming up with Jay-Z.
Some might say this track walked so those artists could run.
Even those who weren’t fans couldn’t deny the cultural significance of this moment and the barriers it broke down. Walls were literally torn down, as we see in the music video.
Watch below.
