Twenty-five years later, Run-DMC’s “My Adidas” still remains one of Hip Hop’s most iconic songs, a fact that isn’t lost on group member DMC.
“It was a song that was about our sneakers, but it was bigger than just talking about how many pairs of sneakers we had,” explained DMC in an interview with MTV News. “It came from the place of people would look at the b-boys, the b-girls and go, ‘Oh, those are the people that cause all the problems in here.’ And, ‘Those young people are nothing but troublemakers and those young people don’t know nothing.’ So they was judging the book by its cover, without seeing what was inside of it.”
The impact of the song was evident to the group, DMC said. “It was scary. We was going through Detroit, through Boston, through Chicago, through LA, through Virginia; every city we went to on the ‘Raising Hell’ Tour, we would look out the back of the tour bus and everybody had the Adidas [track] suits from head to toe. The Cazals, the hats, the Kangols, and they had those Adidas on. You would think we would sit in the back of the bus and go, ‘Yo, we gonna get paid!'”
“Me, Run and Jay, we sat back and said, ‘We gotta watch what we do and we gotta watch what we say,'” he added. “Because the music, the image, the concepts was so powerful, if they’re going to wear Adidas because we say it’s cool, that means they would drink, abuse, fight because of this. We got nervous. I always remember Jay said, ‘Yo, this Hip Hop stuff is really powerful, man. We gotta watch what we say and what we present to the world.'”
Watch the interview below:
Kids listen up..the legend is talkin..the first rap group to go platinum..the first rap group to have a video played on MTV…respect the elders and the pillars of hip-hop..thank you DMC..they had an endorsement deal from adidas back in the 80s
I’m not even going to pretend to be a seasoned veteran, but damn Run-DMC made some amazing music. I’m so upset I wasn’t around when they were on the scene.
either he was nervous as shit or on drugs cuz that just wasn’t natural..he was all jumpy and talkin fast like he just saw somebody get shot lol
shut the fuck up.
DMC,
If you’re readin this imma rock Adidas and rock ‘My Adidas’ on Friday when I’m SJing. tribute. Salute. Large ups!
that’s meant to be “DJing”. Cornerstone of hiphop. peace
Is he making a book for white people or something? I should think that all hip hop heads should already have known that.
Man, this the nigga is right these younger rapper should pay attention to what dmc is saying if you going to rap about something get paid for it, if not dont rap about it
That joint goes hard as hell regardless. To hear th reasoning behind it makes it that much sweeter to appreciate….