Penn and Teller starred in Run DMC’s music video for “It’s Tricky”
Run DMC‘s music video for “It’s Tricky”, the fourth single off their 1986 third studio album ‘Raising Hell’, featured a cameo from famous magicians Penn and Teller.
The single was released via Profile Records and you can see Penn and Teller, who are the self-proclaimed “Magicians Extraordinaire and Kings of Sin City”, playing a card game outside of a theatre in Los Angeles and tricking a woman into taking her chain in the streets before getting chased by cops.
You can see the Superstar Magicians and Television Stars, Penn and Teller, throughout the music video as Run DMC win their chain the end.
Before the music genre, we all love today was called Hip-Hop or Rap, Hip-Hop music was originally called “Disco Rap” Aka Old School Hip Hop or Old School Rap.
Hip-Hop was created in the 70s. August 11th, 1973 was the exact birthdate of Hip-Hop, the night all four elements, DJing, MCing, Breakdancing, and Graffiting would all come together. The genre wasn’t called Hip-Hop then, they didn’t have a name for it yet then it was known as Disco Rap then eventually Hip-Hop. The founders of Hip-Hop DJ Kool Herc (The Godfather of Hip-Hop, Hip-Hop’s first DJ) & Coke La Rock (The Father Emcee, Hip-Hop’s first MC) would just play disco music with Herc creating the breaks for Coke La Rock to say some rhymes and the B-Boys and B-Girls to breakdance. It wasn’t called Hip-Hop back then. People just went to the jams, it was all new.
Rappers would rap over disco beats so the music then was known as “Disco Rap”. The rise of Hip-Hop eventually created a decline in Disco music.
In 1978, the term “Hip-Hop” was then coined by Keith “Cowboy” Wiggings”. The official term “Hip-Hop” was born and it spread quickly throughout New York and the West and South into what we have today.
The term Disco Rap was most prevalent from 1975 to 1984.
Before he was in N.W.A., Ice Cube was in a group called Stereo Crew, a trio that featured K-Dee, Sir Jinx, and Ice Cube himself. Stereo Crew released a record in 1986 titled “She’s A Skag” under Epic Records, the record didn’t do well and the group got dropped and renamed themselves C.I.A., which stood for Cru’ in Action!.
Cru in Action released a song the following year titled “My Posse” produced by Jinx’s cousin, Dr. Dre, who would later join Ice Cube and Eazy-E to form N.W.A. in 1987. K-Dee and Sir Jinx went on to form Da Lench Mob.
It’s no surprise musically, N.W.A. is a controversial gangsta rap group. On August 9, 1988, N.W.A. released their protest song Fuck tha Police, written by Ice Cube, the song sparked a lot of mixed reactions worldwide, even an Australian radio station, Triple J was banned from playing the song so they went on strike and played N.W.A’s “Express Yourself” continuously for 24 hours.
The controversy from the song made LAPD police decline to provide security at N.W.A. shows, and it got to the point where on August 1, 1989, Milt Ahlerich, then Assistant Director of the FBI office of public affairs to send a letter to Eazy-E’s label Ruthless Records, through the parent company and distributor Priority Records. The letter warned N.W.A. ‘Fuck tha Police’ was advocating for violence by stating; “advocating violence and assault is wrong and we in the law enforcement community take exception to such action.” and he made it clear his views also “entire law enforcement”.
I wanted you to be aware of the FBI’s position relative to this song and its message. I believe my views reflect the opinion of the entire law enforcement community.
Milt Ahlerich, August 1, 1989
Letter F.B.I. sent N.W.A.
The letter from the F.B.I. helped popularize N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton album and N.W.A. would later state that their music is not an advocation or promotion for violence but telling their stories and art. A lot of people saw this as the FBI trying to censor music and hinder art, which sparked a lot of pieces and more conversations worldwide on artist censorship. Dr. Dre responded to the FBI letter in N.W.A.’s 1990’s “100 Miles and Runnin’” single, rapping “my temper was too quick and now the FBI is all over my dick!” even relating the music video to the controversy. and the same year Eazy-E would do the same on “Amerikkka’s Most Wanted”, rapping “With a pay-off, cop gotta lay off, FBI on my dick, stay off”.
It’s funny that years later not a lot has changed. Some of the same things that inspired the protests back then were the same as the police brutality that inspired the Black Lives Matter movement today.
In the mid-1980s, years before Wu–Tang Clanwas founded, Cousins GZA (then known as the Genius), RZA (then known as Prince Rakeem), and ODB (Ol’ Dirty Bastard, then known as Ason Unique) were all making music under a trio originally named Force of the Imperial Master which later became known as All In Together Now Crew. The group ended up dissolving and in 1992 the nine-member Staten Island group Wu-Tang Clan was formed and the group consisted of RZA, GZA, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and Masta Killa.
The following year Wu-Tang Clan released their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). All in Together Now never released an album as a trio.
Run-D.M.C. helped TheBeastie Boys write the third single from their debut album, 1986’s, “Paul Revere.”
As listed in Licensed to Ill‘s liner notes, “Paul Revere” was written by Adam Horovitz, Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels and Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin and the Beastie Boys produced the song together.
The single “Paul Revere” peaked at No. 34 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs but the album Licensed to Ill became the first hip-hop album to top the Billboard 200.
Tone Loc‘s debut album Loc-ed After Dark, which was released on January 23, 1989, under Delicious Vinyl, was the first solo rap album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
Loc-ed After Dark was certified platinum on May 9, 1989 and reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts on April 15, 1989—the first solo rap album to go No. 1. Loc-ed After Dark has sold over 2 million copies and was certified double platinum by the RIAA.
Back in 1987, a then 10-year-old Kanye West lived in China for a year with his mother, Donda West, while she taught at Nanjing University as part of a foreign exchange program called the Fulbright Scholarship.
In a now deleted 2011 interview with Sabotage Times, Yeezy spoke about his experiences in China, saying: “I think being in China got me ready to be a celeb because, at that time, a lot of Chinese had never seen a black person. They would always come up and also stare at me, fishbowl me and everything. And that’s kind of the way it is for me right now.”
To quote Kanye West on I’m In It, “Eatin’ Asian pussy, all I need was sweet and sour sauce.” Below is a photo of a young Kanye West eating Chinese food with chopsticks in China.
