October 1, 2021

I wish I had a more exciting opinion about Run-DMC's Late Night appearance

In the beforetimes, a group of friends and I were regulars at the Jordan Brand Classic in Brooklyn. I love the JBC. It’s selection process is less political than the McDonald’s Game, where you have to be nominated by someone connected to your high school, and I find that the looser and more player-forward vibe suits the atmosphere of an amateur All-Star Game. The games themselves aren’t all that special, but you get a chance to see the superstars of the future, which is always cool. Plus, they basically give the tickets away. You’re not losing anything but a little time, your seats are going to be near the floor, and sometimes you get a free t-shirt.

Anyway, thanks to his Kentucky connections and a lot of Kentucky recruits being in the game itself that year (the Harrison twins, Julius Randle), Drake performed.1 I suppose it’s still true today, but in 2013, Drake was easily the biggest pop star in America. The JBC is a full-scale Nike marketing production—it’s not like they’re sparing expenses and a few years Michael Jordan has been sitting in a suite, looking very bored—but at the end of the day it’s a high school All-Star game.

After the game ended, a bunch of roadies assembled a small stage, not unlike you might see in a high school auditorium. Drake clambered onto it and immediately started performing. It was all for show, and didn’t sound great. I’m sure the players absolutely loved it, as they were given a chance to swarm the stage before anyone in the crowd was allowed to hit the court. It was definitely cool that he was performing (I should mention that this took place after the game) but it was also a little weird, a little too forced. The energy of the event did not meet how big the headline—er, “Headlines”—was. For the JBC, this was the booking of the century. And yet, the performance underwhelmed.2

This brings us around to Run-DMC. There is no chance anyone on the current Jayhawks roster knows about Run-DMC on anything beyond a surface level, thanks to early 2000s pop culture ubiquity (Run’s House, a regular spot at the VMAs, and so forth). I don’t blame Kansas for booking Run-DMC, even though I find the choice strange, the path of least resistance. In light of the Drake/JBC experience, it’s possible that I’m thinking about this the wrong way.

A few years ago they got burned by Snoop Dogg, at least according to Kansas’s officials, so you knew they’d try to steer away from anything resembling “controversy.” “It’s Tricky” came out in 1986. Sure, most popular music now panders exclusively to millennials, because we still care about and consume structured pop music, but the selection of Run-DMC really feels like a stretch. However, the reason I brought up Drake is to make an observation about how low-ceiling these events are; if KU booked, I don’t know, Billie Eilish, it’d be absolutely bonkers. But, at most, it’d be 15 minutes of music in a boomy gym. There’s no way it could live up to the hype.

There’s probably a boring explanation for Run-DMC’s Late Night appointment—adidas has a nearly forty-year relationship with the group, and of all the music acts adidas is affiliated with, Run-DMC is certainly one of the cheaper bookings, and maybe it’s even gratis (I fantasized about A$AP Rocky performing, at least as a vehicle to get Rihanna at AFH. Real question has Rocky ever put out a song better than his introductory hit “Peso”) Run-DMC both has widespread brand recognition, and their lyrics of their biggest hits never touch anything even slightly taboo.

If you came for a heated take about Run-DMC, I’m sorry that I could not provide that. It’s a safe choice that we will all forget about, and these Late Night events in the post-COVID era probably don’t even move the needle for recruits anymore. (Self even said so recently). It’s pure nostalgia, and if I could be there, I absolutely would.

I do have one bone to pick, though, as promised. It’s about track suits.

KU staged a photoshoot featuring prominent Jayhawks in letter jackets and Superstars, mimicking Run-DMC’s look. The shots are funny, because while Ochai and Mitch Lightfoot are trying their best, they do so with an air of confusion. Ochai Agbaji was born in 2000, and though I do believe Mitch Lightfoot was born in the ‘80s, it’s awkward.

What I’m seeing here, though, is another missed opportunity by adidas, who has not been able to produce their signature item—a clean, three-striped trackie—in KU’s Pantone3. It’s the most obvious thing in the world to do, but instead they’re too busy making stuff that nobody wants. I’ve been hard on adidas in the newsletter, but this is where I can’t let them off the hook.