It's Tricky
Rubin's rock-and-rap single built on a guitar line from the Knack's My Sharona.
Run-D.M.C., from Raising Hell (1986)
- Written by
- Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, Jason Mizell, Rick Rubin
- Released
- 8 February 1987
- Length
- 3:03
- Album
- Raising Hell
The fourth single from Raising Hell, released in early 1987 and co-produced by Rick Rubin and the group. Rubin brought in the sample of the Knack's My Sharona, and the song also takes the whole vocal structure of Toni Basil's Mickey. One lyric is anti-drug: "We are not thugs, we don't use drugs." It reached number 57 on the Hot 100, 21 on the Hot Black Singles chart and 16 in the UK.
In the video Penn and Teller work a three-card Monte game, and Run-D.M.C. beat them at it and then teach them to dance. Mark Kemp of Rolling Stone said the group took a guitar part from My Sharona and turned it into "vital street art." Tom Breihan of Pitchfork called it "basically as good as the two of them ever got." Jason Nevins remixed it in 1998 as (It's) Tricky.
More songs by Run-D.M.C.
It's Like That, Sucker M.C.'s, Rock Box, Walk This Way, My Adidas
Sources
- It's Tricky, Wikipedia
- Run-DMC / King of Rock / Raising Hell / Tougher Than Leather, Pitchfork (2005-09-22)
- Raising Hell (album), Wikipedia