Rev Run Explains How ‘Kings From Queens: The Run DMC Story’ ‘Fell Into Place’ (Exclusive)

Run-D.M.C. is arguably the most influential group in the history of hip-hop. Because of its legacy, the group released a docuseries called Kings from Queens: The Run DMC Story, which is now streaming on Peacock. PopCulture.com spoke to Run-D.M.C. member Rev Run, who explained why now is the right time to tell the story. 

“It kind of fell into place,” Rev Run told PopCulture. “If you think about it, the 50th year hip hop just went past, here we are now, it wasn’t like I chose it. It felt like there was a little serendipity involved. God jumped in and said, ‘Here’s my timing.’ So I don’t take much credit for the timing of it. So it was like… I’m happy it came.”

Kings from Queens: The Run DMC Story is three episodes long and tells the story of Rev Run (Joseph Simmons), DMC (Darryl McDaniels) and the late Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell). After meeting in Hollis, Queens, the trio rose to the top of the music industry and cemented their music legacy. For Rev Run, he had one word to describe looking back at his career for the series. 

“It’s touching,” he said. “It’s touching to remember some of the times of first getting on the turntables, or first getting on the mic, or playing a show like Live Aid was such a big moment, it was hundreds of thousands of people there. And Run-D.M.C., here I am 19 years old, not knowing if the crowd’s going to like us or what it’s going to be like, and then I’m looking at this crowd and they’re singing ‘King of Rock.’ So it’s like, ‘Wow.’ So it’s very touching to see all that history.”

Run-D.M.C.’s biggest hit is “Walk This Way” with the rock group Aerosmith. The docuseries examined how the song came to be, but Rev Run didn’t think it would take off the way that it did. 

“‘Walk This Way’ was a strange one, because we used to just rap over the beat,” Rev Run said. “We never knew what the vocals were, because the DJ’s job was to make sure that you never heard the vocals. Because if you hear the vocals, then you have nothing to rap over. We would rap over the Aerosmith beat. So by the time we made the record, and Rick Rubin was like, ‘Why don’t you do the vocals that they did?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t even know what they’re saying.’ But then we learned what they were saying and we did it over. So really, I had no idea what was going to happen with anything, but definitely didn’t know what was going to happen with ‘Walk This Way.’ No way I knew. No way.”