JACKYL + RUN DMC = LEAST WORST RAP METAL SONG OF THE CENTURY SO FAR

When I fulfilled an adolescent dream and interviewed Jackyl’s Jesse James Dupree earlier this year, he told me that he was anticipating some controversy for the band’s cover of Mother’s Finest’s song “Just Like a Negro.” It’s obviously a little weird to have a bunch of white dudes doing a track with that title, and doubly so when you consider that Jackyl are southern and might be seen as, um, I think the correct terms are “crackers” and “honkeys.”

But Dupree felt confident that anyone who knew the facts behind the cover would realize Jackyl aren’t a bunch of redneck racists. He even re-wrote the lyrics with Mother’s Finest bassist Wyzard so that they’d make sense for a caucasian to sing:

“…the lyrics basically say that music makes all the colors run together and that it was the brothers who invented rock n’ roll – Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino…  That’s all the song is – a tribute to that, and the fact that music breaks down the barriers.”

He also told me that he had hoped to get Sevendust’s Lajon Witherspoon to do some guest vocals on the track, but it didn’t work out for whatever reason. What he didn’t tell me, and what I didn’t know at that time ’cause I hadn’t heard the album yet, was that he did end up getting a guest for the track — the “DMC” from Run DMC, Darryl Matthews McDaniels.

And, honestly, this song is still pretty awful. I mean, watching Dupree try to dance while DMC raps is kinda funny, but I’d never actively listen to this track. That being said, I’d still argue that it’s the least worst rap metal song of the century so far. I’ll take Jackyl over Limp Bizkit and their ilk any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Jackyl’s latest, When Moonshine and Dynamite Collide, is out now.

-AR