As a die-hard Kurtis Blow and Melle Mel fan, I confess that the first time I heard Run-D.M.C.'s 1983 single "It's Like That," I felt that if that's the way it is, the new status quo was going to leave me on the outside, looking in.

On the other hand, consider the reaction of few gazillion b-boys, who snatched up the single like there was no tomorrow.

"It's Like That" did nothing less that usher in modern hip-hop with its stark, point-blank beats and simple, politically charged lyrics. Run and D.M.C. were entertaining, but they didn't feel so much like entertainers as they did a pair of tough, clear-thinking, pioneering activists. They were in it together – they finished each other's lines, for instance ("Hard times are spreading just like the flu / Look out, homeboy, don't let them get you," from the second single, "Hard Times"), implicitly demanding their audience lock arms and throw in with them too. Run (Joseph Simmons, brother Def Jam cofounder Russell Simmons) and D.M.C. (Darryl McDaniels) – neither of them 20 years old – clocked four hit singles before releasing the album, in early 1984. By then they were in a class by themselves and ready to open the doors with their second album, The King Of Rock (Arista).

Arista has reissued the first four Run-D.M.C. albums (this one has four bonus tracks and notes by the group's biographer, Bill Adler). The package is fine: This is one reissue project that doesn't smack of the hard times that have hit the music business. What's most interesting is how rap's multiracial, multiethnic future is in every beat, every power chord of every track. The group's debut sounds much like a fledgling metal band, keeping things simple but fully aware of its powerful essence. Call it a seamless crossover or call it a declaration of independence from the racially segregated playlists and perspectives that had been imposed on music in the past.

Run-D.M.C.'s shelf life was brief. There's a lot of distance – sonically, socially, and politically – between anything the group created and, for instance, Public Enemy's epic 1988 It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam). Still, this is where it started, and what can you say but "Holy shit," and "Look how far and how fast the music has evolved." Give this one a listen, and you can find the future – the vast, international hip-hop nation – lurking in the grooves. (J.H. Tompkins)