Today in Hip-Hop — August 16: Run-DMC’s ‘Raising Hell’ Hits #1, 40 Years Ago Today

August 16, 1986. Run-DMC’s Raising Hell climbs to #1 on Billboard’s Top Black Albums chart — the first rap LP to ever do it. Forty years ago today. Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin had spent the winter of ’85 at Chung King Studios stripping the record down to drum machines, guitar stabs, and three kids from Hollis, Queens who rapped like they were already legends. By August, the chart caught up to what the block already knew.

Why the Chart Mattered

Before Raising Hell, rap albums peaked in the twenties. The Sugar Hill catalog moved units in the culture but couldn’t crack the industry’s top tier. Run-DMC broke that ceiling with an album that also went to #3 on the all-genre Billboard 200 — again, first rap LP to reach the top 10 — and became the RIAA’s first platinum-certified rap record. Not gold. Platinum. Two million-plus copies of an album full of scratches, breakbeats, and unlaced Superstars.

The lever was “Walk This Way.” Rick Rubin’s idea to re-cut the 1975 Aerosmith record with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry in the booth flipped rap into MTV rotation. The single hit #4 on the Hot 100 — first rap song ever in the top five — and the video (Run-DMC and Aerosmith knocking down the wall between two studios) is still the visual shorthand for the moment rap crossed over without asking permission.

But don’t sleep on the deep cuts. “My Adidas” got Run-DMC a $1.6 million Adidas endorsement — the first non-athlete deal in the brand’s history and the blueprint every rapper-brand partnership since has copied. “It’s Tricky” flipped The Knack’s “My Sharona.” “Peter Piper” is Jam Master Jay’s DJ clinic — Bob James’s “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” bells cutting through like a sermon. Every hip-hop production textbook still starts here.

The Culture Owes This Album

Every rap #1 that came after — LL Cool J, De La Soul, Public Enemy, Wu-Tang, Nas, Jay-Z, Kendrick — is standing on Raising Hell. It’s the moment rap stopped being a genre the industry tolerated and became one the industry chased. Forty years later, the Adidas Superstars are still moving, “Walk This Way” is still the rock-rap origin story, and Jam Master Jay’s cuts still teach.

We made a Raising Hell Run-DMC tribute tee for exactly this reason — album-cover treatment, Hollis-block typography, wearable proof that you know where the crown came from. Available in the CC shop, alongside the matching hoodie for the colder months.

Also today in hip-hop:

• Young Thug turns 35. Jeffery Lamar Williams, born August 16, 1991 in Sylvan Hills (Atlanta’s Zone 3), Jonesboro South projects, tenth of eleven kids. So Much Fun (2019) was his first #1 on the Billboard 200 — Waka Flocka, 2 Chainz, and Ludacris all came out of that same block.
• Charli Baltimore turns 52. Philly femcee who ran with Biggie and Junior M.A.F.I.A. in the mid-’90s. One of the most underrated pens of the Bad Boy era.
• Will Smith’s “Men in Black” started a four-week run at #1 on the UK Singles Chart on this day in 1997.
• Quality Control’s Control the Streets, Vol. 2 dropped seven years ago today (2019), debuting at #3 on the Billboard 200. Migos, Lil Baby, City Girls, all under one QC roof.
• Aretha Franklin passed on August 16, 2018. Not a rapper, but rap owes her — “Rock Steady” alone has been flipped by Common, Salt-N-Pepa, and dozens more. Every drum break she cut lives on in a rap record.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team