"It's Like That (That's Just The Way It Is)" by Run-D.M.C.

It's a sad fact of our life here at the Pop Culture Institute that a full half of our traffic comes from approximately five posts; as much as a quarter of it, in fact - by far the largest percentage of any single post - comes as a result of my having rather innocently posted this video on January 21st of 2009, on what would have been the birthday of Jam-Master Jay.

Accordingly, today is Darryl McDaniels' birthday (he's the DMC in Run-D.M.C., dontcha know?) and so here it is again, utterly without apology; I can guarantee you, on Joseph 'Run' Simmons' birthday in November you will see it again, and on and on down through the years. Actually, the song itself has had such an interesting life, I may yet post it a fourth time, in March, on the anniversary of the date it was released.

It's Like That first appeared on Run-D.M.C.'s self-titled debut album in 1984; by the time the video was produced in 1997 the song had been remixed (by DJ Jason Nevins*) into the version you see here. And a decade later still I get between 5 and 15 hits every day because of it - hits from all over the world, not just the hip-hop capitals of New York and LA but Saudi Arabia and Thailand and Slovenia even. In a very real way, I see proof of this song uniting disparate peoples from around the globe every time I log onto Site Meter, making this song the embodiment of what the Pop Culture Institute is trying to achieve.

*I'm still looking into when his birthday is, so I can publish it a fifth time annually. Seriously, I may be a comment whore, but I'll take hits like Hendrix if that's all I get.
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