Down With the King

Run D.M.C. | Format: Audio Cassette

Product Details

• Audio Cassette (May 4, 1993)
• Original Release Date: 1993
• Label: Profile
• ASIN: B000000CHL
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #657,344 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Down With the King

2. Come on Everybody

3. Can I Get It, Yo

4. Hit 'Em Hard

5. 3 in the Head

6. Ooh, Whatcha Gonna Do

7. Big Willie

8. Three Little Indians

9. In the House

10. Can I Get a Witness

11. Get Open

12. What's Next

13. Wreck Shop

14. For 10 Years

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid latter-day work from the hip-hop legends, May 9, 2007

By 

Hype Currie "scholar of pop culture" (Detroit, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Down With the King (Audio CD)

By 1993, a lot of people had counted Run-DMC out. Their last album, Back from Hell, failed to have much commercial impact. It seemed like the rappers they helped to inspire had bypassed them, just as they had bypassed genre-birthing rap acts like Kurtis Blow and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. Fortunately, the `Kings from Queens' still carried respect among those who followed in their wake; under the auspices of Profile Records, they set about recording a comeback album.
For Down with the King, Run-DMC made use of a then-unprecedented laundry list of then-contemporary beatmakers in hip-hop production. Since the release of this album, it has become a common (and some would say, tedious) trend to make use of several "star" producers on hip-hop albums. Here, at least, the tactic works.
Among the big names here are Pete Rock, who collaborated on several album cuts, including the gold-selling title track. Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest gets behind the boards on "Come on Everybody", and EPMD pump up the bass on "Can I Get it, Yo!"
Naughty By Nature's Kay Gee threw in his group's trademark piano-riffs for "Hit `em Hard", and Public Enemy's Bomb Squad contributed "3 in the Head" and "Ooh, Whatcha Gonna Do". Fresh of the success of Kriss Kross, Jermaine Dupri helmed "Can I Get a Witness". A then-unknown Tom Morello (Audioslave, R.A.T.M.) added guitar work to "Big Willie", the only nod to rock-rap fusion here.
The album sold over 500,000 copies, enough to go gold, and the group toured with Naughty By Nature and several acts from Death Row Records (for a time, they were briefly courted by the label). This would be Run-DMC's last studio album before the release of Crown Royal in 2001.
Arista Records bought the Profile catalog in the late 90's and re-released the standard versions of Run DMC's studio LPs. However, Down with the King was not included in the 2004 expanded versions of the group's albums. Period interviews confirmed that there were sessions with Bay Area-rappers N2Deep, but they didn't make the final cut. That makes for at least one potential bonus cut that could be included for a proper re-release.

Down with the king
Come on everybody
Can I get it, yo
Hit `em hard
To the maker
3 in the head
ooh, whatcha gonna do
big willie
three little Indians
in the house
can I get a witness
get open
what's next
wreck shop
for 10 years

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Album!, July 8, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Down With the King (Audio CD)

This album is great. It's one of my favorite CD's. There is plenty of jazz sampling, rock sampling, and scratching. There are hardcore rap songs such as Ooh, Watcha Gonna Do and Can I Get It, Yo. There are some pure hip hop songs such as Hit 'Em Hard and Down With the King. I lilke the bass lines on this CD because they're so unique. You even have a reggae/rap fusion, What's Next. What could I say, another masterpiece by the Kings of Rap. Their new CD is set to come out in September. Don't miss it. It'll be a classic!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New style, same old result, July 27, 2005

By 

ctrx ('bout to show you how the EAST COAST rocks...) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Down With the King (Audio CD)

Coming off the awful "Back From Hell" album, Run-DMC went back to their older, harder roots while also trying to fit the needs of the new hip hop audience. The result is refreshing, there are some great tracks that sound different but still ring with the style of Run-DMC, and the production is amazing on all of the tracks. It's pretty much a beginning to end listen. I sort of feel bad, because Jam Master Jay (RIP) was kind of left in the dust here because they didn't let him produce as many tracks, but they do lend him a verse here and there. This album is great, and it brought the Hollis Crew back for a while.

"Down With The King" was a great track, the best on the album, and it turned out being one of their greatest hits. There is great production by Pete Rock and he and CL Smooth are featured on the track. The raps are hard and so are the beats. "Come on Everybody" is okay, and the production is good and most of the raps are okay, but I didn't like Run saying all the "stiggitys" in his raps like he was trying to be Das Efx. "Can I Get it, Yo" and "Hit 'Em Hard" are both good tracks, they sound like the Run-DMC of old. The second best song is "Big Willie", produced by Tom Morello, it has a great guitar line, the raps are tough, it really sounds hard. "Wreck Shop" is the third best song, produced by Pete Rock, the trumpet line kind of sounds like "T.R.O.Y", but the rest of the song doesn't. Pete Rock also produced "In The House", which is okay but nothing special. "Ooh, Whatcha Gonna Do", "3 Little Indians", and "3 In the Head", are also good songs to listen to. "What's Next" is a song where the Hollis crew gives in to their reggae indulgence, as they did on "Roots, Rap, Reggae", and the result is similar. This is a good album, and it's one of the best of 1993.

Some Run-DMC fans didn't like this because they felt it was too far from the formula, but I think it's a great album and it has a lot of the flavor that the classics like "Run-DMC", "Raising Hell", "King of Rock", and "Tougher than Leather" had. There is great production here, by Pete Rock, KayGee of Naughty by Nature, Onyx, Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, and EPMD. I recommend this album to old school fans who like both Run-DMC and the rap of the early 90s, because it fits the bill as a great mix of both.