page_title: Rock Box
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Rock Box / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Hip hop music artist and comics publisher Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run–D.M.C. in Artists Alley shortly after a panel on hip hop and comics on Sunday, October 12, 2014 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, Day 4 of the 2014 New York Comic Con. This photo was created by Luigi Novi. It is not in the public domain, and use of this file outside of the licensing terms is a copyright violation. If you would like to use this image outside of the Wikimedia projects, you may do so, only if I am properly credited, either by linking the photograph to this page, or with an easily visible credit placed near the photo in each instance in which it is used. Please credit authorship as follows: &#160;© Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. Please maintain the original file name in all uses. You can see a gallery of some of my other photos here. If you have any questions, you can contact me by sending me an email or leaving a note at the bottom of my Wikipedia talk page.
context_page_description: "Rock Box" is a song by the American hip hop group Run-DMC. The song was produced by Larry Smith and Russell Simmons and released by Profile Records in March 1984. Following the popularity of their previous two singles "Hard Times" and "It's Like That", Profile Records head suggested to the producers and group that they should attempt to record an album as they already had four songs ready, and releasing a few more would not hurt them. Despite speculating low sales from the label and the group not feeling that hip hop was a genre appropriate for a full-length album, they were given an advance to start recording. This led to Run-DMC members Joseph "Run" Simmons and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels going through their rhyme book to develop new songs, one of which would become "Rock Box".
  After having to wait for the heavy metal band Riot to finish their studio time so the group could record new tracks, the group and producers were influenced by their loud guitar sound and attempted to create a guitar based track. After McDaniels and Simmons recorded their rhymes, Smith developed the track, including inviting his friend Eddie Martinez to record layers of guitar solos to match the song.
context_section_description: Martinez would return to play guitar for the group on "King of Rock" (1985). Steve Pond of the Los Angeles Times described that song as "Rock Box, Part II" and that it was "a conservative move that's paid off in MTV air play". Robbins wrote in the Trouser Press Record Guide that the use of electric guitar on "Rock Box" and "King of Rock" led to directly to the groups other rock based tracks, including "Walk This Way", and the use of The Knack's "My Sharona" (1979) riff on Run-DMC's song "It's Tricky" (1986). Murray Forman wrote in his book The 'Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop that the new rock guitar based sound seen in similar song "8 Million Stories" (1984) by Kurtis Blow and "Rock Hard" (1984) by the Beastie Boys and showcased a drift away from the disco-based music of earlier rap music such as the use of Chic's "Good Times" (1979) as used in "Rapper's Delight" (1979). Forman followed up stating this rock oriented sound made hip hop music more accessible to white teenagers and moved hip hop music being performed at discotheques to larger arenas. The song influenced contemporary groups of the period. Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys stated that the group was inspired by Run-DMC for their first album Licensed to Ill (1986), specifically noting "Rock Box" and "King of Rock" as their inspiration for a hybrid of rock and hip hop. Hip hop group Whodini changed the music they were initially going to have on their album Escape (1984) after hearing "Rock Box". Their album was initially going to have a rock music backing, but the group went with a more R&B influenced sound on the record after hearing "Rock Box".
  "Rock Box" was listed among rapper and producer Questlove's top hip hop songs of all time in 2012, noting that the song's importance was not about its hybrid of rock and hip hop music, but that before Run-DMC, hip hop groups looked like they were "part of a Broadway production." Questlove declared that America wanted music artists that looked and dressed like they did, and by doing so, "Run-DMC officially ushered in the B-boy period of hip-hop, where the every-man had a chance to escape poverty and invisibility and make it." Questlove concluded that "the single that knocked down many obstacles enabling hip-hop to become the new gospel."
caption: Darryl McDaniels said the release of "Rock Box" and their debut album led to the band's popularity.[24]
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