1998 Run DMC Vs Jason Nevins: It's Like That

I get awfully confused over schools sometimes. Old school, new school, whatever school - it's all rock and roll to me. I'm still trying to get used to the 'old school' tag that's now attached to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal bands I loved as a lad, and as for 'Nu Metal', don't get me started. In hip hop circles, Run DMC are regarded as 'old school', an act from back in the day before the beefs, bling and the nasty took over. Originally released in 1983, 'It's Like That' was an early example of rap gaining a social conscience with its checklist of social ills ("Unemployment at a record highs. People coming, people going, people born to die") squared on each verse by the "It's like that, and that's the way it is" hook and completed by an underlying message of self respect and self improvement ("If you really think about it times aren't that bad. The one that flexes with successes will make you glad. Stop playing start praying, you won't be sad").

"Bad", "Mad", "Sad" - if the rhymes are cruder then the beats are cruder (when compared with the slick modern hip hop productions of The Neptunes or Dr Dre anyway), but being 'old school' then these are less criticisms and more a statement/description of a pioneering band laying down the foundations for a brand new genre through with a piledriving force that had subtlety as the last thing on its mind. To say otherwise is to criticise Robert Johnson for not using Dolby to reduce the hiss on the tapes. Fast forward fifteen years and DJ Jason Nevin's remix takes a broad brush to the rough edges that applies a bass heavy beat that ‘updates’ it nineties dance style.

While Run DMC's earlier Aerosmith cover/collaboration on 'Walk This Way' was a genre bending, door kicking genuine crossover, don't let the Vs in the title here fool you; 'It's Like That' is no battle for supremacy and this is remix is every bit a dusting down as 'MMMbop' or 'Brimful Of Asha' were, with Nevin leading the track exactly where he wants it to go. Which in this case is to turn 'old school' hip hop into poor man's hip hop by going for the lowest common denominator in a way I'm not comfortable with.

On the two latter songs, Cook and The Dust Brothers took something already contemporary and made it more so in a way that, even if you didn't believe was an improvement, certainly didn't lessen the original in any way. They could do that because neither track in its original form or context defined anything much beyond an artistic statement from either band. But lest we forget, the 'old school of 'It's Like That' was once so 'now'' it must have hurt, and hearing it converted into the standard 'now' dumph dumph dumph passing car thump for a quick buck strikes me as a ‘Greedo shoots first’ scenario – a re-writing of history and an imagination free tampering of the song's legacy that's not required and which fills me with the same dread as that 'electronically processed for stereo' warning that used to appear on re-issues of mono recordings. Enjoy if for what it is by all means, but don’t let it overshadow what ‘It’s Like That’ once was. Because it deserves better than that.