Invoking the rap of God

When Joseph "Rev Run" Simmons gets into hot water, he prays to God.

Joseph "Rev Run" Simmons has a thing about bath tubs. Every morning, a camera crew follows him to his hot water "prayer closet" from where he delivers his sermon.

But during the height of his fame with legendary trio Run-DMC - hip-hop's first pop stars - the tub symbolised a different kind of enlightenment. Keen to indulge his ultimate superstar fantasy, he once scoffed French toast and smoked weed in the bath.

"It was crazy," he cackles down the line from his home in New Jersey. "I was at the place of just complete gluttony.

"I was trying to do it all but then I got to thinking, 'There's got to be more than chasing material rewards, awards'.

"That's how I found God, that's how I became a reverend."

You could say it's a miracle that this rapping reverend is on the phone at all, what with his church commitments, family to raise, and that he's just completed his first solo album, Distortion.

And if you're still scratching your head as to his odd cleansing ritual, it's all part of his new MTV reality show, Run's House, where cameras capture the everyday life of Simmons, his wife, and five children.

He's long since hung up his strangely laced Adidas sneakers and been ordained in the Pentecostal Church - Distortion harks back to when Run-DMC were the biggest hip-hop act in the world. The difference is that this time the album is just 25 minutes long and Simmons made it without his cohorts Darryl DMC McDaniels and Jam Master Jay, who was shot dead in 2002.

"I'm a rapper, man, that's what I do," Simmons says. "Doin' it by myself was no big deal. I've been doing it for the longest."

Rather than recruit big-name producers and side artists for the project he worked with below-the-radar producer Whiteboy, a deliberate move to ensure the album would sound "just like Run". It does, but as to how the next generation of hip-hop fans will react to it, he doesn't care.

"How do you react to a vintage steakhouse? I'm just opening up another one. I'm embedded in pop culture's consciousness, this is what I do. This piece of the buffet is called Run, if you wanna walk past and pick up 50 Cent that's great, if you feel like pickin' up a piece of Run, it'll sound just like the greatest hits that your dad has."

Conveniently for the album, Simmons was also a walking reality show waiting to happen - so much so, that two people independently suggested the idea of the programme.

The first was Motown president Andre Harrell who pitched the project as a joint production between Simmons, his brother (and Def Jam Records founder) Russell Simmons and TV channel ABC Family. The day before they were to close the deal, P Diddy rang and offered him double the money to do a show on MTV. The brothers agreed and before long Simmons' family home was looking like the set of Newlyweds.

He insists the moolah had nothing to do with it. "I'm here to inspire. That's what I'm on this Earth for, and that's what I'm here to do. That's why I'm going to be on a television show and share my life with you."

Throughout his career, Simmons says, he always felt blessed, from Run-DMC's first single in 1983, It's Like That, complete with intense beats and fierce scratching and Run and D.M.C's aggressive tag-team rhymes.

Taking hip-hop to the masses with their rock-heavy sound was simply "part of God's divine plan". Between 1984 and 1990 Run-DMC released six albums, appeared in two films and churned out a slew of memorable singles including Peter Piper, It's Tricky and the Aerosmith slammer, Walk This Way.

But when gangsta rap took over the airwaves in the early 90s, Run-DMC's popularity drooped.

The trio drove themselves to bankruptcy in 1991. They made a rap movie that went bust and an album that failed to ignite the charts.

Simmons' personal life also took a hit. He faced a rape charge which was dismissed after a two-year battle, and with his finances and marriage strained he became deeply depressed. In his memoirs, It's Like That, he writes, "Intoxicated by the illusions of power I had created, for the first time in my life I felt as if I were failing.

"People said 'Get up and fight, Run.' But I didn't want to ... I wanted to lie down and die."

Simmons is now reflective about the time he spent on the "dark side of the soul" and says it was that period that introduced him to his faith. "It's like some countries where it gets dark and it stays dark for maybe a month. You've just gotta deal with it. Life is pretty rollercoasterish."

When he first played Distortion to his brother, Russell told him, "You're not in high school banging on lunch tables. You're a grown man. How do you sound like this?"

"God," he replied.

Religion and money have long enjoyed a controversial marriage, and from certain angles Simmons could come across as a far groovier Brian Tamaki.

From the beginning, Run-DMC were as influential in fashion circles as they were in music, spawning one of hip-hop's first sponsorship deals by wearing a certain brand of sneaker.

These days Simmons drives a Bentley and lives in a mansion complete with indoor basketball court, recording studio and movie theatre. So how does a spiritual man balance an album, TV show, church and clothing line?

"By asking God for help. Because I feel like I'm about to explode again into big and beautiful things. And all I can do is ask for help.

"I don't have the strength or the wisdom or the knowledge or the power to understand what's going on at all. I realise that more and more every day.

"Whatever God gives me to work with I do my best to understand. Pressure comes and when it comes I gotta deal with it."

Amen to that.