Washington Post nationwide arts reporter Geoff Edgers takes a deep dive in to the tale behind “Walk IN THIS MANNER,” Aerosmith and Run-DMC’s famous, groundbreaking mashup that forever changed music.

The first 1980s were a thrilling time for music. Hair metal bands were selling out stadiums, while night clubs and house parties in NEW YORK had spawned a new genre of music. At the time, though, hip hop’s reach was limited, an art largely overlooked by mainstream radio deejays and the rock-obsessed about Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song that Changed American Music Forever MTV network.

However in 1986, the music world was irrevocably changed when Run-DMC covered Aerosmith’s strike “Walk This Method” in the initial rock-hip hop cooperation. Others had tried melding styles. This was different, as a pair of iconic world rockers as well as the young kings of hiphop shared a studio and began a revolution. The result: Something completely new and immediately popular. Most importantly, ‘Walk This Method’ would be the 1st rap song to become played on mainstream rock and roll radio.

In Walk IN THIS MANNER, Geoff Edgers sets the scene for this unlikely union of rockers and MCs, a mashup that both revived Aerosmith and catapulted hip hop in to the mainstream. He tracks the pathways of the main artists—Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Joseph “Run” Simmons, and Darryl “DMC” McDaniels—along with other major players over the picture across their lives and professions, illustrating the lengthy road to the revolutionary marriage of rock and hiphop. Deeply investigated and written in cinematic design, this music history is certainly a must-read for followers of hip hop, rock, and everything among.