A look back: You Talk too Much

Mar 12, 2007

A look back: You Talk too Much · by Sach O

These gentlemen advise you to kindly stop speaking.

So I’m sitting on the back steps arguing with a fellow rap fan over a blunt (a good 75% of all “rap journalism” starts out this way incidentally) and the subject of Run DMC’s classic sophomore album King of Rock comes up. It’s always been my personal favorite in their catalogue as it caught them building on the stark aggressiveness of their debut without yet hitting the pop-status they achieved on Raising Hell. From the drum machine dub intro Rock the House to the party starters King of Rock, Can you Rock it like that and Krush Groove 3 it was the hardest representation of the crew’s sound yet, successfully building on the group’s affinity for rock guitars without sounding like crossover material. Even a tentative experiment like Roots Rap Reggae and the obligatory JMJ tribute somehow fit in.

As great as the singles and party tracks were however, it’s the album’s deeper cuts, particularly You Talk too Much that really cement King of Rock as my favorite Run DMC album. Seemingly innocent on first listen, there’s more than a little social-commentary in the song thanks to the group’s constant reminder to listeners to keep their noses out of other people’s business. From early references to dropping dimes and working for the mob to mentions of overly gossipy girls, the crew puts out a laundry list of reasons to keep one’s trap shut in the hood. Now obviously I’m not insinuating that this is an anti-snitching song, at least not in the modern sense of the term. Law enforcement is barely mentioned (although the cavity creeps should look out for crest) and rap wasn’t yet quite so self-referential that emcees could directly address neighborhood issues on wax. Besides, that would have been self-defeating given the song’s title. But backed by a hard hitting drum machine and informed by their increasingly dire environment in Hollis, it’s hard to totally ignore the group’s commentary on the social aspects of street life. Taking the role of the judgmental narrators, Run DMC assure prospective blabbermouths that their gossip will catch up with them, even as the group fails to mention specific incidents themselves. Interestingly enough, this vagueness makes for a far more interesting song than most recent attempts. Sure Cam and Fiddy can talk about the code of the streets and their refusal to divulge who shot them ad nauseum, but the brunt force of Run’s hook ending SHUT UP and the intimidating innuendo in the primitive song gets the message across simply and directly. Whether it’s a “crime caper”, creeping with a shorty or whatever the case may be: don’t tell your man because he’ll tell his man who’ll tell his baby’s mama who knows the neighborhood beat cop/dealer and…

Of course, it’s partly subjective. The homie I was smoking a blunt with coughed up a lung insisting that I was both high and crazy and that the song was an entirely innocent rhyme about nothing at all. On the other hand discussions around Ohword central were less dismissive. Ultimately it’s up to the listener…and y’all really don’t want to hear my thoughts on “You’re Blind”.

Comments for "A look back: You Talk too Much"

you betta wear some glasses like DMC!

— wax Mar 12, 06:45 PM
top notch, also a favourite of mine and it came up in an interview i was doing about baile funk and its origins a couple of weeks ago. apparently the song was very big in Rio and because cariocas had had a gutsfull of incomprehensible amercian lyrics they started interpreting them phonetically, hence ‘you talk too much’ became the ‘tomato rap’ which is because it’s close to the portugese tocatu much (which apparently translates to tomato, i aint really up on the portugese styles so excuse my guess spelling)
not particulalry in tune with your writings but a strange bit of interesting global synchronicity nonetheless.

— Jim Mar 12, 09:54 PM
This album pales in comparison the 1st and 3rd.

But this was one of my early favorite rap songs.

— nesta Mar 12, 10:05 PM
I wish Run DMC would take their own advice on this endless (clocking in at 5:58) song.

— Bob Mar 16, 01:53 PM