This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross. This week in celebration of Hip Hop's 50th anniversary,

we're featuring interviews from our archive with some of the groundbreaking performers.

Our first interview today is with Darryl McDaniels, co-founder of Run DMC,

one of the early Hip Hop groups to break into the mainstream. They had their first hit back in 1983.

It's like that. In 1984, they became the first rappers to earn a gold album.

The next year, they were the first to earn a platinum. They were the first rap group

to have their videos played on MTV, and the first to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Run DMC was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in 2009,

making them the second Hip Hop group to make it after Grandmaster Flash on the Furious Five.

The group stopped recording albums after its member DJ Jam Master J was shot and killed

in a recording studio in Queens, New York in 2002. Darryl McDaniels is the DMC in Run DMC.

Run is Reverend Joseph Run Simmons, whose brother is Russell Simmons.

Run DMC performed earlier this month at the star-studded Hip Hop 50 concert in Yankee Stadium.

Before we hear the interview I recorded with Darryl McDaniels in 1997,

here he is on Sucker MC, the B side of Run DMC's first record. It's like that.

In the place to be, I go to St. John's University, and since Kenny got it, I acquired the knowledge.

And after 12th grade, I went straight to college, I'm like skin, I live in cream,

and I love E&G, and in Malik Green, I dress to kill, I knock this down.

I'm an MC, and no who's gonna set out to say that I drink credit in your regards.

Got my name not numbers, I'm a credit card, I go uptown, I go back home before me,

I keep myself in my microphone, all around, all sweet delight.

So it's the number one boy called to fight, when I run, I'll never quit.

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