Here’s a few facts about Hip Hop:
The genre turned the big 5–0 this year. It’s the most popular form of music in North America today. And it’s also popping big-time in every other continent on the planet.
These Hip Hop facts are wild, to say the least. Especially when considering impoverished young Black Americans created the genre in the South Bronx, in the early ‘70s. Regardless, the genre’s global reach is impressive — no doubt. But Hip Hop’s most valid attribute may be its impact on commerce.
Everyone knows rap music moves product. It’s a bonafide fact. Like Amazon, it sells everything from A to Z. When McDonald’s paid Cardi B and Offset to promote cheeseburgers, no one batted an eye. When 50 Cent signed a $78 million underwear deal with FRIGO Revolution Wear, biz mags like Forbes described the partnership as Hip Hop business as usual.
As you can see, the marriage between big business and Hip Hop culture is a match made in Heaven — highly lucrative match made in Heaven. But this unlikely partnership wasn’t always a thing. In fact, it wasn’t even an idea until the mid-‘80s, when a rap group from Hollis, Queens, New York dropped a record about their favorite kicks.
On May 29, 1986, Run-DMC dropped the first single from their third album, Raising Hell. That single was called “My Adidas.” Not surprisingly, “My Adidas” was about Run-DMC’s love for the German sneaker brand, specifically the company’s low-top athletic shoe, the Superstar. The record was fire. And by the end of ’86, “My Adidas” reached the No. 5 spot on Billboard’s Hot Black Singles chart, and peaked at No. 10 on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles chart.
The record sold a ton of records (obviously). More importantly, it sold a ton of Adidas footwear. The first folks to figure out the latter was Run-DMC and Lyor Cohen who, at the time, was the group’s road manager. As far as they could tell, every time the group performed “My Adidas” in concert, most — if not all — of their fans were rocking the kicks they were rapping about. Realizing their record was essentially free promo for Adidas, Run-DMC decided the German sneaker company needed to pay them for all the free work they’ve done thus far. And guessed who was tasked with making that happen:
Cohen.
Meanwhile, back at Adidas headquarters in L.A., executives had no clue the company was the subject of the most popular rap song in the country. All they knew was this: one minute, revenue was trending downward — before suddenly shooting up like a rocket, on the east coast. As one would guess, the Adidas execs scrambled to figure out the reason for the sudden spike in sales. For a minute, the cause of the sudden influx of cash was a riddle, one that needed to be solved nonetheless.
Around this time, Cohen was already playing offense. He reached out to an Adidas exec named Angelo Anastasio, and pretty much told him the answer to the riddle: Run-DMC is the reason why your company’s bank account was suddenly fat AF. Naturally, Anastasio was skeptical of Cohen’s claim. But, in the same breath, the claim, as outlandish as it seemed, also sparked Anastasio’s curiosity. Clocking this, Cohen made a suggestion, one that involved Anastasio flying out to New York to watch Run-DMC’s upcoming concert at Madison Square Garden. The next thing the sneaker exec knew, he was hanging out backstage at the Garden, watching Run-DMC perform their latest hit — “My Adidas” — to 40,000 screaming fans.
Anastasio was surprised when he saw all those people rapping along to the Adidas-themed record. But his biggest revelation came during the middle of the song when, suddenly, Run-DMC went on a tangent and commanded the sold-out crowd to hold up their Adidas. After witnessing 40,000 strong raise his company’s product in the air simultaneously, Anastasio only had one thought in mind:
Money. Lots and lots of money.
After the concert, Anastasio hopped on the first flight back to L.A. As soon as he touched down, he held an emergency meeting at Adidas headquarters. During the impromptu meeting, Anastasio told his fellow execs exactly what he witnessed the other night at the Garden. He also told them that if they wanted to sell more sneakers, then they better get ready to throw some serious money at this Hip Hop group called Run-DMC. As the story goes, Anastasio’s fellow execs didn’t just take his advice — they ran with it. So much so that the next time Adidas reps met with Joseph “Run” Simmons, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, and Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell, they came bearing a $1 million sponsorship deal.
38 years after this landmark deal, Complex magazine published an article titled “Run-DMC, Adidas, and the Superstar as Hip-Hop Icons.” The article re-examined the events leading up to the historic sneaker deal, while simultaneously celebrating Hip Hop’s 50th year of existence. Coincidentally, the article also made a point that billion-dollar products like Yeezys wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for a rap record that came out way back in 1986.
Happy 50th Birthday, Hip Hop.
