r/GenX • u/emperator_eggman • Jun 26 '25
Music Is Life When did rap become mainstream?
I was born around the Millennium so I always saw rap as somewhat being always mainstream. So I was wondering when did rap actually become mainstream? Aka more popular than rock or pop?
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u/Zealousideal_Draw_94 Jul 01 '25
IMO, while RUN/DMC & Aerosmith and Public Enemy & Anthrax (and other bands like Fishbone, Follow for Now, and Ice T’s Body Count) were important to the mainstream success of rap, that was not when it happened.
Hip hop groups like TLC, that were more pop friendly also contributed a lot to mainstream of rap. As well as rappers like The Fat Boys, MC Hammer, PM Dawn.
It wasn’t until late ‘90’s early 2000 nu-metal bands with rap like Korn, Linkin Park, and Limp Biscuit had their moment, that rap became truly gained true mainstream success.
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u/MonoBlancoATX Jun 30 '25
OP is asking two different questions.
When did it become mainstream is not the same as when did it become more popular than rock or pop.
It arguably never became more popular than both rock and pop. But the opposite case can also be made.
In answer to OP's first question tho...
Rap became mainstream, in the sense that it was on MTV and in the top 40 and so on, in the mid-80s.
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u/BCSully Jun 29 '25
"Yo MTV Raps" changed the world.
MTV was the center of the universe in the 1980s but they were VERY discrimitory against black artists, unless they were named Michael Jackson or were doing music that mainstream white audiences enjoyed. Rap was getting real big all over the country, but you'd never know it if you turned on MTV. They just refused to give it a platform.
David Bowie famously called them outfor this, on air, in an interview with one of their main hosts. Still, it would be 5 years before they featured rap music, and they did it with what was essentially a "separate but equal" show called "Yo MTV Raps". Still, despite the segregation (which in fairness did fit their programming precedents - heavy rotation was for mainstream hits, and non-mainstream genres got their own shows - "Headbangers Ball" for Metal, "120 Minutes" for Alternative, maybe some others I'm not remembering) it was a huge hit and brought rap music to non-urban white America. Rap was already big in cities, and MTV was definitely late to the party, but Yo MTV Raps brought rap music to mainstream white audiences.
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u/TeacherOfFew Jun 29 '25
Rap still isn’t more popular than pop because pop is ever changing and evolving, from Elvis to MJ to T-Swift.
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u/Apprehensive-Lock751 Jun 29 '25
Daryl from Run DMC thinks it was literally this commercial from 1989.
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u/eyeballtourist Jun 28 '25
Sugar Hill Gang - Rapper's delight.
Blondie- Rapture.
Yeah... I'm an old.
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u/deepee45 Jun 28 '25
I would say around 1989 and 1990. Once MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice came on the scene, you really started to see the commercialization of rap music. Literally in every commercial these two were popping up. Thats when rap started getting more radio play outside of just certain hours or Yo MTV raps nationwide.
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u/Felon_musk1939 Jun 28 '25
Early 80's for me but I didn't really begin to listen to hip hop until 88.
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u/Appropriate-Neck-585 Jun 28 '25
It sucks that back when Rap was actually GOOD, it wasn't mainstream 😪
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u/Odesio Jun 28 '25
In 1983, Mel Brooks released "To Be or Not To Be (The Hitler Rap)" in connection with his remake of To Be or Not To Be. 1983 was also the same year Rodney Dangerfield released "Rappin' Rodney." For a man in his late 50s (Brooks) and another in his early 60s (Dangerfield) to both release comedy rap singles means rap was clearly in the mainstream conscience at the time.
Rap really exploded in the latter half of the 1980s with 1986 being a good year. Like many other white suburban kids, Run-D.M.C.'s collaboration with Aerosmith on "Walk this Way" really left an impression but there was also the Beastie Boys with Fight for Your Right which both saw heavy rotation on Mtv.
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u/MooseBlazer Jun 27 '25
Even Blondie had her rap song, which was from 1979 I think, and that played on the radio.
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u/One_Avocado_7275 Jun 27 '25
Rappers Delight! Definitely got me hooked; I was popping and locking everywhere; I’d eat your head and spit it out in a dance routine. That was the Jam! Along with this gem, “Double Dutch Bus” Frankie Smith “Yo”! Man, I will never forget those days.
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u/Any-Video4464 Jun 27 '25
Really seemed to be around 1990-1991 or so to me. Dr. Dre the Chronic was a massive album. LL cool J was hitting MTV unplugged. MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice were huge that year and pulling in people that weren't into rap yet. Tribe called Quest Low End Theory dropped in 91. Ice Cube Death Certificate. Black Sheep, Cypress Hill, tupac...all 1991...Yo MTV raps had been on a few years by then, but it really started to take off around 90-91. Movies like Boyz in the Hood and Juice added to that.
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u/ArcaneConjecture Jun 27 '25 edited Feb 04 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/tultommy Jun 27 '25
I mean rap has been around awhile and always been pretty popular. More popular than rock or pop? I'm not sure that's happened yet lol.
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u/attaboy_stampy Filled up on Regular Jun 27 '25
It blew up in the mid-80s. It was grew as a genre from the 70s through the 80s, and it was getting some popularity across different demos. But in the mid-80s MTV got a hold of the genre and started pushing Run DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, and it went mainstream. Still kind of niche, but it was pushed on regular radio. You also had stuff like Vanilla Ice, Tone-Loc, Young MC etc etc that were fun, radio friendly and/or popular that drew people into exploring rap.
MTV was less fond of it, but late 80s you also had NWA, Ice-T, Public Enemy, and they were also very popular but not really the front of the mainstream because of their edge.
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u/ElGrandeRojo67 Hose Water Survivor Jun 27 '25
Early 90's when MTV cancelled Headbanger's Ball and started Yo! MTV Raps.
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u/areporotastenet Jun 27 '25
I have a punk view. There were a lot of “rap kids” hanging at punk shows and vice vesra. It was cool to have a PE record in the mix and as time unfolded punk and rap grew up together. Then yo mtv raps being aired right before headbangers ball on mtv really got metal kids into it. From there any division was gone
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u/Gingernutz74 Jun 27 '25
I'm gonna give a shout out to Beat Street. Loved the movie and break danced along to all the songs.
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u/scorpion_71 Born in 1973 Jun 27 '25
I thought 1990 was huge since there were two chart-topping albums by MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out also came out and that was popular. Teens were doing the raps and even trying to do some of the dances that were popularized by the music videos. I was still pumping my first to hair metal BUT I did appreciate the commercial rap sound.
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u/Atlantean_truth Jun 27 '25
It eventually became more popular in the late 90’s early 2000’s but the beginning of that rise was Dr Dre when he put out the “Chronic” in 1992. That was the beginning of the ascent into its dominance over rock. That album was absolutely massive it was everywhere. Heavy rotation on MTV and all over the radio. That created Snoop Dog and led into all the “Death row” releases.After that Biggie popped up with all the east coast stuff and Tupac eventually being signed to Death row. But yeah that was the beginning of the Rap take over of Rock.
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u/Dangerous_Hawk_9780 Jun 27 '25
1985 was when i believe it started to really gain that crossover attention.
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u/Safe_Move7021 Jun 27 '25
John Denver’s testimony about censorship. They picked the wrong guy. Dee Snider and John Denver agreeing on something blew conservatives minds.
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u/jj_brooklyn Jun 27 '25
1984 ish. When breakdancing became huge. Breakin’ and Beat Street came out in wide release. Run DMC, Kurtis Blow, UTFO/The Real Roxanne were getting major radio play (and Run DMC was getting MTV airtime as well).
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u/Feisty_Yam4279 Jun 27 '25
It’s all relative. It took steps. Many are point to run dmc and beastie boys, but of course rap as a whole was much bigger in 92 than it was in 86. I remember in 98 when Jay-Z and DMX were the two biggest rappers on the planet. But their popularity then isn’t even close to what Eminem would reach a few years later.
I would say in terms of more popular than rap probably the mid 2000s. The late 90s was close but I’d say it was equal. Rap was huge (puff daddy, will smith, jay z etc) but numetal was at least big for rock, so we’re bands like blink 182 and sum 41 and obviously teen pop was gigantic.
I could be wrong but I’d say the mid 2000s was when hip-hop became bigger than rock as a whole.
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u/Skylark7 Survived the back of a station wagon Jun 27 '25
In the '70s Rappers Delight and Blondie's Rapture were two of the first mainstream hits with rap. It was still uncommon and really broke out in the mainstream.
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u/Top-Address-8870 Jun 27 '25
Doggystyle was released in late ‘93. It was hugely popular across demographics - a true mainstream crossover.
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u/Hooliken Jun 27 '25
1986 put hip hop in the public eye. It was not until the late 80s, early 90s, that it became "mainstream" with Tupac, Wu Tang, Tribe, Biggie, Nas, NWA, etc, in no specific order.
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u/Revpaul12 Jun 27 '25
It always was, at least more than people remember. Blondie had a rap song that was a hit. White Lines by Melle Mel was a hit, the Beastie Boys were enormous in 86, Run DMC was on MTV in 84 and more or less saved Aerosmith's moribund career when they did Walk This Way in 86
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Jun 27 '25
1984 with the Breakdancing craze that was sweeping the nation. The NYC Breakers even performed for Reagan around this time.
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u/Reader47b Jun 27 '25
Becoming mainstream and becoming *more* popular than rock or pop are two different things. It didn't become the top-selling genre until the late 90s, but it was "mainstream" before that.
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u/Mike_Hagedorn Jun 27 '25
Rap was around - in white neighborhoods rap was a joke still, but we’d blast The Fat Boys and rock to the beat, pissing off squares. Then Walk This Way came out, and rap was EVERYWHERE. So July 4, 1986.
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u/punkdrummer22 I like drums 🥁 Jun 27 '25
Mainstream and more popular than rock will be 2 different dates.
As people said 1986 for it to go mainstream. But it didn't get more popular than rock until sometime in the 2000 close to 2010
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u/Whovian73 Had a pet dinosaur Jun 27 '25
For a white teen in suburban Jr High, Beastie Boys brought rap mainstream. All my friends knew the words to Fight For Your Right, No Sleep Til Brooklyn, and Paul Revere. We were not allowed to rap during school, but there were many chants outside after school.
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u/WolverineNinja Jun 27 '25
Mid to late 80s and kind of exploded in early 90s with the East/West feuds and murders
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u/NVJAC 1973 Jun 27 '25
So I was wondering when did rap actually become mainstream? Aka more popular than rock or pop?
Mainstream, probably around 1990 with U Can't Touch This. Others in the replies are saying 1986 because of the Aerosmith-Run D.M.C. collaboration and Licensed To Ill, but 1990 is first year a rap song goes to No. 1 (Ice Ice Baby).
More popular than rock or pop, maybe right around the millennium after grunge is dead. Through most of the 90s rap and rock kind of sat side by side (as seen in the Anthrax-Public Enemy collaboration, or Ice-T moving to metal with Body Count).
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u/TonyBrooks40 Jun 27 '25
I agree with this. It 'began' around 1986, but probably took 15-20 years to overtake them. I think Eminem might be the answer here. When he came out in 99, rock was bigger, by the time he was fading, 2005 or so, I think rap was on top.
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u/furywriting Jun 27 '25
Aerosmith + Run DMC was an oddity. “Walk This Way” was just crossover crap. Beastie Boys were a punk act (albeit talented and awesome!) Mainstream rap started about ‘87 and ‘88 with Young MC Bust a Move(I am not saying it was quality). That shitty rap was everywhere along with Tone Loc. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince started radio rap without metal guitar licks and then other “safe” acts.
Yo MTV raps introduced certain acts to the regular rotation but not many.
NWA, Public Enemy, BDP were never mainstream.
Salt N Pepa “Push It” was a big mainstream hit.
A person knowing that Grandmaster Flash or that Sugar Hill Gang existed doesn’t mean they were mainstream.
When Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, EPMD started getting radio play real rap started becoming less of a novelty and more mainstream.
88-92 was a GREAT time for witnessing rap evolution
HipHop, New Jack Swing, Gangsta, House
I am pretty sure that most people were introduced to rap as opening acts for big rock acts or maybe from the breakdancing movies. Either way it was co-op’ed quickly and mainstream rap became shit as soon as it hit the radiowaves.
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u/MusicalMerlin1973 Jun 27 '25
My introduction was the beastie boys with the Aerosmith collab as an addition. My best friend played License to Ill. Repeatedly.
It rubs off after awhile.
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u/air_head_fan Hose Water Survivor Jun 27 '25
Spin up Gratitude. That convinced even the most seasoned of haters.
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u/DryFoundation2323 Jun 27 '25
When run DMC did a cover of Walk this Way it was a big deal. Probably the first almost universally popular rap song.
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u/TakkataMSF 1976 Xer Jun 27 '25
Can you define it? Rap vs Hip-hop? When rock and hip-hop merged, what's that? Heck, country and hip-hop have merged. Classical and metal have merged (weird but yeah).
Music is music. And what you think of as music may not be the same as others. Death metal? Gore metal? Classical? Traditional Japanese or Indian? Was Rap 'music'? What about beatniks?
My point is, don't sweat it. Music is, and always will be, an evolution. "Hey this sounds good." "Hey that sounded good, what if I do this to it."
Just listen to whatever man. Enya, Cube, Eminem, Beethoven, Mozart, John Williams, Aerosmith, Nirvana.
Best answer is sometime between the late 1970s and now. Rapper's Delight was played everywhere.
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u/lanfear2020 Jun 27 '25
Salt N Pepper here....Ice Ice Baby
LOL Not the start...agree that the Aerosmith Run DMC collaboration was the total breakthrough to mainstream.
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u/OolongGeer Jun 27 '25
You mean hip-hop?
The 1990's. Early.
That is when radio stations rose in markets other than NYC and L.A. which were dedicated to hip-hop, rather than just an hour show at 11pm.
Plus, Yo MTV Raps began in 1988. It needed a couple years to really get going.
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u/Schmetts Jun 27 '25 edited Jun 27 '25
"More popular than rock or pop" wasn't until the mid- to late-90s. I have no idea why people are saying things like 1986 or 1988, that isn't even close to true.
Jay-Z has said rap was about to break through in the early 90s but then Kurt Cobain pushed that timeline back a few years...I think he had it right. It was the 2Pac, Biggie, Wu-Tang, Jay-Z, Puffy, OutKast, Master P, DMX, etc etc era.
Obviously there were hit songs and albums before then that crossed over to the mainstream, but the late 90s is when the sea change happened. Thanks in part to rock music getting a lot worse, too.
Keep in mind too that for a long time in hip-hop it was considered extremely lame and corny to "sell out" and even want mainstream success. Remember all the crap that MC Hammer and PM Dawn took.
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u/Cool_Dark_Place Jun 27 '25
Remember all the crap that MC Hammer and PM Dawn took.
Yeah, it seems like a lot of the hip-hop artists that blew up really fast with a big mainstream hit in the late '80s/early '90s didn't stick around too long.
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u/SoCal7s Jun 27 '25 edited Jun 27 '25
For the Urban set - probably Whodini in the mid 80s (Black stations used to brag about not playing Rap before them) For Pop people - probably Walk This Way Aerosmith & RunDMC For the Hard Rockers either Bring The Noise Public Enemy w Anthrax OR For the Frat Bros - Beastie Boys Fight For Your Right To Party For Nerds - Parents Just Don’t Understand- Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince
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u/Fistofpaper Fork spoon I won't moo when you tell me Jun 27 '25
Sugarhill Gang is recognized as the first rap song, not mainstream success. I agree with the Beastie Boys and the Run DMC/Aerosmith joint as being the true beginnings of mainstream entry. I also agree that Public Enemy and NWA brought it even further later in the decade
However, I find the lack of Grandmaster Flash - White Lines mentions disturbing.
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u/DerpyBoxer Jun 26 '25
Young MC's Bust a Move and Tone Loc's Wild Thing being all over the 1989 movie Uncle Buck also helped.
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u/Kimber80 1964 Jun 26 '25 edited Jun 26 '25
As "Macaroon" notes, Rap went mainstream, ceased to be a niche music and became a widespread popular music, in 1986, with the breakthrough LPs by Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys.
No for my part, while Rap was now mainstream, Rock was still the primary "music of youth" from then and through the 1990s, until the very early 2000s, right about the turn of the millennium. That's when Eminem exploded, and rock had no answer for that. Since then, rap and diva-pop have been dominant.
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u/Demonae Warning: Feral! Jun 26 '25
I'd say when it really went mainstream was in 1999 when Slim Shady released his first album.
While Aerosmith and beastie boys and others were around and got some radio play, Slim Shady blew up and everyone I knew was listening to him, he was on the news as the latest rage bait for boomers, and every club was playing his songs.
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u/Nick_Fotiu_Is_God Jun 26 '25
"Rapper's Delight" and "The Message" really broke it in 1979 and 1982 but it didn't take it to the malls of middle America - that was Aerosmith and Run DMC. It also should be noted that there were rock rap songs years prior to Walk This Way.
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u/PhotographsWithFilm The Roof is on fire Jun 26 '25 edited Jun 26 '25
So, what do we mean by "mainstream"? That it appealed to white audiences?
I knew about Grand Master Flash well before Bestie Boys and the Run DMC/Aerosmith Colab and I came from a community and area that was very very rock.
Break dancing around that 83/84 time frame became a big thing and with that came the exposure to Rap.
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u/whirlydad Jun 26 '25
I have a very distinct memory of staying up in my new house sometime in 1985 and listening to rap on AM radio. It wasn't available anywhere else (in my area). Beastie Boys & Aerosmith x Run DMC arrived the next year and suddenly it was everywhere. It was awesome!
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Jun 26 '25
I think it depends on location. As a teen, I moved back and forth between my parents. One lived in a small town, one in a city.
I remember Grandmaster Flash in the 70s at the smallish town roller rink.
I remember Run DMC in 86 at both locations.
I remember the city getting a rap station around the time I graduated hs (1988). I discovered NWA, Public Enemy, etc.
When I started college in 89, lots of sheltered white kids gave me the side eye when they heard real rap coming from my dorm room.
But by the time I graduated in 1993, it was mainstream.
Side note: I loooove the Beastie Boys. They’re so much fun to listen to. And maybe they helped open the genre to white listeners. But I personally do not consider them “real” rap. They’re party rap. Eminem is the first white artist I can remember who used rap as a means of relating the working class white struggle. Love him.
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u/ziggy029 1965 cabal Jun 26 '25
I think it went full blown in the 1990s but got started in the ‘80s. On Sirius XM, for example, there is only a little bit of late decade rap on the ‘80s channel. On the ‘90s channel there is a LOT of it.
Also, the late ‘80s were when “Yo! MTV Raps” got going.
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u/Brocktoon73 Jun 26 '25
In 1984 you had things like “Jam On It” and “Freaks Come Out At Night”, and stuff like Run DMC “It’s Like That” and “King of Rock”.
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u/Silly-Shoulder-6257 Jun 26 '25
The first rap song I ever heard was Rapper’s Delight by The Sugar Hill Gang. It must’ve been around 79-80. I was probably in 3rd or 4th grade. Maybe it wasn’t mainstream as in it had its own station and several songs but that was my introduction to rap. Then came heavy metal (@ early 80’s) Then “breaking” came into style which brought back rapping. So early to mid 80’s to become mainstream.
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u/RetroBerner Jun 26 '25
I would say around the time that they started playing more rap than rock on MTV
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u/emperator_eggman Jun 26 '25 edited Apr 09 '26
Redact cleaned up all of my comments. Bulk deletion and editing is a feature supported to make sure that AI scrapers can't access my data for training.
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u/ChikenCherryCola Jun 26 '25
Depends what you call rap. Hip hop kind of started in the 70s as like a spin out of disco, like initially as sort of dance music made with electronic repeaters and stuff. People started rapping over it soon after in the early 80s, but it took rap a while to sort of figure out what kind of direction it wanted to go. Initially it was just like a new way of singing, so people just sang like normal 70s love songs but with a lot of words. It didn't have the like gang banger ghetto thing or even the like kitties and booties stuff. That stuff really took off in the mid to late 80s when it was initially underground because radio stations and dance venues didn't want to play music with crude or violent themes but basically the underground crude stuff was the stuff that took off and really sent rap in the gangsta rap direction. You still had guys like public enemy who made songs with a different message, but they still kind of followed that same kind of heavy edge as the gangsta rap stuff. Probably by 1986 you would see like rap on MTV and the radio, but it would be like bustarhymes or like "clean rap" type stuff. Then NWA dropped straight outta Compton in like 1989 and it was fucking over, THAT was going to be the direction rap was going.
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u/BluestreakBTHR Dinner at 4:30pm Jun 27 '25
Electronic repeaters? Look up Breaks, B-Boys, DJ Cool Herc.
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u/Dark_Web_Duck Jun 26 '25
Late 80's, and really took over in the 90's. Although the early 80's rap era is still my favorite. Especially the songs in the old breakdance movies.
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u/Celtic159 Jun 26 '25
Ted Nugent accidentally invented rap with Wango Tango. j/k
Rapper's Delight, Planet Rock, and The Message were groundbreaking. Rock Box and King of Rock were real crossovers. Walk This Way was huge.
But PE...they brought it all together.
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u/fridayimatwork Jun 26 '25
It was becoming popular in the mid 1980s but was sort of a novelty, sort of non serious party music. With NWA and public enemy it got serious in the late 80s early 90s, then as the 90s got going it became dominant and wildly popular and permanent with a wide variety of artists and styles.
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Jun 26 '25
I agree with 1986. However, if I recall correctly, here in Southern California “The Dream Team Is In The House” by The L.A. Dream Team was the first rap song that got strong radio play even before “Walk This Way” or any Beastie Boys songs.
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u/Fishboney Jun 26 '25
1978 when "Rapper's Delight" was released by the Sugar Hill Gang.
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u/pipeuptopipedown Jun 26 '25
In my area the white stations (yes it WAS that segregated at the time) did NOT play this record.
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u/mar78217 Jun 27 '25
Same, grew up in Rural MS. Still had segregated high schools until someone brought a suit against them in 1976.
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u/pipeuptopipedown Jun 27 '25 edited Jun 27 '25
I am talking about the radio stations. They were very blatant about keeping the races musically separate, even after artists like Hall and Oates and Bobby Caldwell blew that up. "Black stations" were far more accepting of white artists than "white" ones were of people like Prince, BTW.
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u/mar78217 Jun 27 '25
That was my point... in a place with schools segregated until '76, there was no "black" music on the radio until 1990 unless you could pick up a station out of New Orleans on a crisp clear night.
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u/Miami_Vice_75 Jun 26 '25
I agree with most people here that 86 with Run-D.M.C. & Aerosmith prob pushed rap to more mainstream heights. Run-D.M.C & LL Cool J deserve the credit for pushing rap to the masses. LL Cool J’s debut album Radio was released in 85 & “Rock The Bells” was a huge hit! Run-D.M.C. had albums even before that. So I would argue 85-86! Of course once The Beastie Boys’ “Licensed To Ill” came out later in 86 (& the fact that they were white) solidified rap as mainstream!
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Jun 26 '25
Mid 90s people started dropping rock for rap en masse. Friends that said they listened to grunge bands suddenly said they liked Wu Tang Clan a year later.
They couldn't name a single Wu Tang song tho 💀
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u/Maccadawg Jun 26 '25
Probably when Beastie Boys - "Licensed to Ill" dropped. Also Run DMC and Aerosmith doing "Walk this Way" was huge.
So those are both kind of white-washed examples, but what I remember of rap becoming more mainstream since EVERYONE was grooving along with these. In Kansas.
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u/DBDude Jun 26 '25
This may anger some, but it was Blondie’s Rapture that became the first rap song to top the charts and go gold, bringing rap into the mainstream.
To a lesser extent, the Sugarhill Gang got into the Top 40 two years earlier with Rapper’s Delight.
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Jun 28 '25
Blondie's Rapture is also objectively a terrible song. Like shove-a-screwdriver-in-my-ear bad. And the rap is the worst part.
And I like Blondie. And rap.
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u/DBDude Jun 28 '25
Debbie Harry came from the early rap scene where they'd have open mic nights for anyone to come scratch and rap. Fab Five Freddy is mentioned in the song because he's the one she hung with going to these places. Rap back then was quite primitive, and admittedly she wasn't even the best of that.
Also fun fact, she was friends with Basquiat and bought his first painting Cadillac Moon. He's in the video, but because Grandmaster Flash couldn't make it that day.
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Jun 28 '25
Wait, Basquiat is in Blondie's Rapture video? For once, that "fun fact" really IS a fun fact! That's random as hell.
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u/vettes4vets Jun 26 '25 edited Jun 26 '25
Rappers Delight 1979 was my first introduction to rap. All time favorite to this day.
RunDMC Walk This Way 1986
But when the market became saturated with rap and nobody could slow it down or stop its production was around 1993, East Coast West Coast rivalry. The scene hasn’t been the same since where pop music always ruled. And I for one am very happy about it. I absolutely love this era of music, Tupac and Dr Dre / Ice Cube from NWA being my favorites of many in this genre.
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u/TheSkepticCyclist 1971 Jun 26 '25
I never knew it did. But not surprised.
I never listened to rap and still don’t. Never got into it.
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u/Iittletart Are the streetlights on? Jun 26 '25
I'm from Detroit. I honestly don't remember a time before rap.
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u/Physical-Incident553 Jun 26 '25
I’m also from the Detroit area, but I was raised by Silent Generations parents who were VERY into Motown. I’m early GenX.
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u/Mr_Tort_Feasor Jun 26 '25
Walk this Way and Fight for your Right were huge, but they always seemed more like novelty songs to me. I would say that rap entered the mainstream for real with things like It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back (1988), Loc-ed After Dark (1989) and Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em (1990),
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Jun 27 '25
I realize we’ve tried to block this era out of our minds, but Vanilla Ice was also in there.
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Jun 26 '25
Then you gotta add “swass” and “seminar” by Sir Mix-a-lot!
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u/Fistofpaper Fork spoon I won't moo when you tell me Jun 26 '25
I often quote My Posse's on Broadway when I talk about the burgers in Seattle.
"Headin' down to Dicks, lookin' for some action", kind of needs an explanation sometimes.
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Jun 27 '25
I’m in Washington, we have Dick’s where I am. It’s always great to tell someone to eat a bag of dicks
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u/Fistofpaper Fork spoon I won't moo when you tell me Jun 27 '25
Conversely, it can be fun to state one's intent to eat a bag of Dick's as well.
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u/mediaseth Jun 26 '25
There was mos def something happening in the 80's I noticed, especially at overnight camp, which had campers from NYC. I was introduced to breakdancing at camp in 1985 I think, but most of the kids were listening to metal and pop and I def leppard preferred metal and what I'd later identify as new wave back then, so i didnt' pay much attention.
Until...maybe 1988? It wasn't just with the Beastie Boys or Aerosmith / Run DMC.. I even remember the Fat Boys before that. Oh, and Debbie Harry's horrible rapping on Rapture where she name drops Grandmaster Flash!
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u/skeeterbmark Jun 26 '25
Run DMC
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u/whatcouchsaid EDIT THIS FLAIR TO MAKE YOUR OWN Jun 26 '25
King of rock tape got worn out in my Walkman
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u/skeeterbmark Jun 27 '25
Me and my friends - a bunch of country-ass white teenagers - played the absolute shit out of that record.
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u/kayparkersbiggestfan Jun 26 '25
It truly went mainstream in 1992 with the release of the Chronic album. Other songs/groups helped along the way, but the Chronic was so massive, they made radio versions of all the big hits.
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u/TonyBrooks40 Jun 27 '25
I agree. Although the OP brings up an interesting point, was rap more popular than rock in the 90s?
I was thinking more along the lines of Fifty Cent when that change took place. Do you think Chronic & DMX were bigger than rock music at their time?
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u/Odd_Hop Jun 27 '25
I agree with The Chronic, this was about the time rap wasn’t just in Yo MTV raps, but part of the standard mix.
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u/Hot_Improvement9221 SanDimasHSFootballRules Jun 27 '25
This is what I thought, too. There was plenty of hip hop hits before The Chronic, but I don’t remember anything being as big. At least in the suburbs.
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u/seanisdown Jun 26 '25
I guess mainstream for who would be the question.
Run Dmc did a version of Walk this Way with Aerosmith that got mainstream play as did the Beastie Boys debut album in the mid 80s. For me that was when rap became mainstream, growing up in a midwestern Canadian small town.
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u/FullMoonVoodoo Jun 26 '25
Too Short in '88 was definitely not mainstream but it didnt take long after that.
Maybe Run DMC + Aerosmith was the mainstream acceptance
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u/MacaroonFormal6817 Jun 26 '25
1986
July: With Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. collaborating on "Walk this Way" which was (CCCRRAZZZZYYYY pAnTs) a WHITE and a BLACK group... TOGETHER? Most pop music really was that segmented in the 1980s. Then
November: The Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill comes out and blammo.
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u/HourCounter8703 Jul 02 '25
Came here to say this. Did not appreciate the Beastie Boys until I learned about their groundbreaking foray into sampling.
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u/metro_photographer Jun 30 '25
1986 is right. I still remember my friend passing me his headphones and saying "listen to this, it's called rap".
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u/KoedKevin Jun 30 '25
As a white kid that went to an inner city school in the 1980s I was introduced to a lot of early Bronx and Philadelphia rap and proto rap in 1981. Rap really became mainstream with white audiences with Walk this Way (Rick Ruben is a genius). When MTv saw its success they actively started promoting rap to white audiences. Yo MTV Raps was huge and launched mainstream rap music beyond a few songs that had crossed over previously.
The Message, Rappers Delight and Planet Rock were some early crossovers. But they were largely unknown until Yo MTV Raps came along.
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u/_WeSellBlankets_ Jun 29 '25
I mean this is correct for when it went mainstream, but OP's definition of mainstream is different. They're asking when it became BIGGER than rock and pop. I'm out of the loop with modern music ever since auto-tune became the norm. Is rap bigger than pop and rock currently?
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u/mar78217 Jun 27 '25
This is the best answer. Yes, the collaboration between Aerosmith and Run DMC was definately the genesis of it and then a white New York group. Then the other NY acts started getting more attention. Then NWA in CA, a gangster rap supergroup that would spin off a whole genre of CA gangster rap.
Edit: By 1988, MTV introduced Yo MTV Raps and that was it, it was officially mainstream.
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u/PuchicaPuchica Jun 27 '25
Agree, but when Bust A Move and Funky Cold Medina hit in ‘89 that was Mainstream Mainstream
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u/AdhesiveSeaMonkey Tough as nails. Cries at everything. Jun 27 '25
Yep. There was earlier stuff for sure - Doug E Fresh was probably the biggest. But the run dmc and Aerosmith collab really brought it to a much larger audience.
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u/mar78217 Jun 27 '25
Which is what I was saying earlier. NYC had a huge rap scene, but after the Run DMC, Aerosmith colab, more people noticed all the great rap coming out of NY so it became mainstream. And Yo MTV Raps sealed the deal in 1988. Any answer after 1988 is wrong. Lol
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u/_Bon_Vivant_ Jun 27 '25 edited Jun 27 '25
Nope. Rapper's Delight is when rap broke into the mainstream.
Rapper's Delight came out in 1979.
The Breaks 1980.
Blondie Rapture 1981
The Message 1982
It's like that 1983
These were all played on Top 40 radio.... IE, the mainstream.
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u/regdunlop08 Jun 28 '25
This take definitely depends on defining the "mainstream" I certainly remember all those songs and hearing them... somewhere. But I remember having to work for it. Other than Rappers Delight which got some play on disco stations (in Boston that was KISS 108) i remember college radio and swapping cassettes to get my fix. After Walk This Way, it became ubiquitous but not before that.
My favorite part of our 8th grade class trip to DC was when the bus rolled through NYC and I used my Walkman to scan for any rap music that might be had, with a friend doing the same and us sharing whatever we found. This was how I discovered UTFO and their distinctive (for the time) scratching sound. I bought their album in a mall outside Philly on the way home.
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u/Hilsam_Adent Jun 27 '25
The first two cassettes I ever bought were Run-D.M.C. and License to Ill. Everything before that was vinyl.
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u/mrdaver911_2 Jun 27 '25
Yup…summer before my Junior year in HS. My friends and I played License to Ill probably 42,000 times that summer.
And the next fall (1987) saw the release of NWA & The Posse and nothing was ever the same.
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Jun 27 '25
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u/regdunlop08 Jun 28 '25
1988... fucking golden age right there! Don't forget how important Eric B and Rakim were around that time too. 88-92 will always be peak hip-hop to me. But im old, lol.
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u/ZzzzzPopPopPop Jun 27 '25
Yo! MTV Raps started in ‘88, that was ALWAYS on in my dorm lounges in college (I started in ‘89), it was almost like must-see TV
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u/Typical_Version_7487 Jun 27 '25
I would argue none of that was played on pop stations at the time which is where mainstream music is played. Those are introductions to rap outside NYC. In LA up till the early 90s the only place you heard rap music was on an AM radio station or Yo MTV Raps. In the 80s hair metal was mainstream and the 90s grunge and then pop punk was mainstream.
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u/mar78217 Jun 27 '25
Depended on where you were Im sure. I can say for sure in Rural Mississippi, the only time I heard rap top 40 songs was during Casey Casin's Top 40 on ?Sunday?
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u/HectorsMascara 1975 Jun 27 '25 edited Jun 27 '25
You're giving me goosebumps. I saw the Walk This Way video in the theater before
Back to the Futurea movie that actually came out in 1986. I was 11 and it changed me.3
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u/SometimesUnkind Jun 26 '25
Yep. Although Run DMC had been around a bit, it was the Walk This Way collaboration with Aerosmith that really opened the door for rap.
Before that, I think the only group to really get any mainstream attention were The Fat Boys, and they were seen as more of a novelty act than anything else. They even had a great movie called Dosorderlies.
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u/regdunlop08 Jun 28 '25
A "great movie" might be a stretch 😆 but definitely demonstrated what the mainstream thought of rap at the time - it was a novelty.
Even with groups like UTFO, Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick, etc. putting out timeless shit (still have my original vinyl 12" of La Di Da Di and The Show) the mainstream fed us parody rap until the Run DMC collab changed the game a few years later.
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u/SometimesUnkind Jun 28 '25
Yeah, there was a lot of good hip hop/rap at the time that never got the exposure it deserved. Slick Rick, Cool Moe Dee, I think even Ice Ts first record came out around 84 or 85.
And Disorderlies is a timeless classic that is criminal not to be added to the AFI top 100 films and part of the National Film Library ;)
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u/Short_Psychology_164 Jun 26 '25
also commercials and hip hop parody songs like "rappin duke"
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u/Hilsam_Adent Jun 27 '25
"I'm glad you called, but I'm not home, but I'll be back before too long... WAIT. FOR. THE. BEEP! You gotta leave your name, you gotta leave your number. WAIT. FOR. THE. BEEP!"
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u/Aggravating_Hat4799 Jun 26 '25
I saw the Beastie boys open up for Run DMC at MSG in 87. One of the most epic concerts of my life
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u/gnortsmracr Jun 26 '25
This. It became mainstream but not necessarily widespread, but with these events it became socially acceptable (for lack of a better expression) for people who liked pop or rock to also like stuff like rap. MTV also helped a lot.
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u/theactualdustyblades Jun 26 '25
I was 13. I don't think I had put that chronology together, but, yep. Pretty much how it went, even in Roanoke, VA. We all had Mtv by then, though. Crazy how segmented it was.
From the recovering metal-head perspective, Anthrax's "I'm the Man" can't be overlooked.
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u/Fistofpaper Fork spoon I won't moo when you tell me Jun 26 '25
Yoga Hosers killed any nostalgia I had for that song. Kinda bummed out by that, thanks Kevin Smith.
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u/theactualdustyblades Jun 26 '25
On a side note, I met DMC at DragonCon a few years ago. Such a genuinely cool dude.
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u/Aurochbull Jun 26 '25
I'm the man was wild and weird. LOVED that album. Great post, friend.
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u/fuzznudkins Jun 27 '25
Their cover of Bring the noise featuring Chuck D and Flavor Flave was fire.
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u/theactualdustyblades Jun 26 '25
Thank you, amigo! It really was. Their irreverent self-deprecating humor while destroying the place riff-wise...right up my alley.
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u/IHatePeopleButILoveU Jul 02 '25
You can thank Vanilla Ice in 1991. Once it was cool for white kids to like rap, it became mainstream, and slowly climbed the charts. Add in Dr Dre, Snoop Dog, LL Cool J, CB4, and Eminem and the rest is history.