Run-D.M.C.’s ‘Raising Hell’ at 40: How Billboard Tracked the Rise of Rap’s First Blockbuster Album

"It doesn't get any hotter than this."

Illustration by Gibson Kochanek

FROM LEFT: LARRY BUSACCA/GETTY IMAGES, BSR AGENCY/GENTLE LOOK/GETTY IMAGES, ALAN SINGER/NBC/GETTY IMAGES. Illustration by Gibson Kochanek

Forty years ago, a trio from Queens catapulted hip-hop into the mainstream with Run-D.M.C.’s third album, Raising Hell. Rap had been raising a ruckus across the five boroughs starting in 1973, but the New York-born genre didn’t become a pop culture force until September 1986, when Raising Hell and its second single, “Walk This Way,” put hip-hop into the top five of the Billboard 200 and the Billboard Hot 100, respectively, for the first time.

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