Queens, New York-based hip-hop artists Run-DMC, and Jam Master Jay are responsible for revolutionizing hip-hop in two very important ways. First, during hip-hop's infancy as a recorded form, they changed the direction of recorded hip-hop by stripping it of all its "old school" aural fluff and cutting it down to its barest essentials: hardcore beats and rhymes. Their debut 1983 12" single, "It's like That/Sucker MCs," reflected the way hip-hop sounded as it was performed in local parks and nightclubs, and it laid a blueprint that most 1980s hip-hop artists followed. Second, Run-DMC is credited for almost singlehandedly bringing hip-hop music to a wide scale audience with their Aerosmith collaboration, "Walk This Way," a single that reached number four on the Billboard Pop charts in 1986. Among other firsts, they were the first hip-hop artists to earn a gold record, a platinum record, a multi-platinum record, a Rolling Stone cover...