Profile Records: “Run This Way”

Hip-hop was scorned by the established music industry as a novelty idiom until 1986, when Run-D.M.C. enrolled Aerosmith’s vocalist, Steven Tyler, and guitarist, Joe Perry, to take part in a revival of the hard rockers’ hit “Walk This Way” from 10 years earlier. Released on the Profile label, the resultant record was accepted by many radio formats and became the first rap hit to make the Top Five on the pop chart. Its video was an MTV staple, and Run-D.M.C. became a major live attraction. Multimillion album sales enabled Profile’s owner, Cory Robbins, to pay back the loan to his family that had funded the label’s beginnings and to move into bigger offices (on Broadway in New York City’s East Village neighbourhood). Although the label never found another act of stature comparable to Run-D.M.C.’s, its vital role had been to establish the commercial potential for rap, which other labels then exploited to better effect, notably Def Jam, whose cofounder Russell Simmons was a brother of Run-D.M.C.’s Joseph Simmons.