Back in the day, Run-D.M.C. would do the most extraordinary and eerie thing: The members had doubles follow them up and down the stage during performances. These android versions of Run-D.M.C. were made, one supposed, by a mad scientist or an evil biotech corporation like the one in Blade Runner. Like the humans they duplicated, the androids wore laceless Adidas sneakers, black pants and hats, and thick gold chains. The androids had no will or thought of their own; they simply walked when their masters walked, or stood when their masters stood.

To make matters even more bizarre, the Beastie Boys, who toured with Run-D.M.C. at the time, were also not entirely human, but a kind of Run-D.M.C. from an alternate universe. This was how Def Jam promoted the terrible trio: as a white, whiny, juvenile reflection of the black, confident, and dead-serious Run-D.M.C. Indeed, watching a Def Jam concert was much like looking at Bosch's nightmarish painting of Eden, The Garden of Earthly Delights, because most of the performers on stage were phantoms or monsters who followed, mimicked, and even mocked the real thing.

Once the spell of fantasy was removed from the land of hiphop (roughly around 1987), the Beastie Boys sobered up, left Def Jam and Rick Rubin, and became real pop musicians in the real pop world. As for Run-D.M.C.'s androids, one, Run's double, dropped out of hiphop history entirely, and the other, D.M.C.'s double, became a human in the form of the Beastie Boys' DJ, Hurricane. Hurricane scratched for the Beastie Boys until '98, when he was replaced by the more talented and robotic Mix Master Mike. DJ Hurricane, however, still commands respect; he has a loyal following cultivated from his long residency at Grand Royal, and has produced two decent solo efforts--The Hurra (1995), and Don't Sleep (2000). Considering his android roots, DJ Hurricane has fared pretty well in the real world.

While the Beastie Boys excelled in the post-fantasy era, Run-D.M.C. imploded. With the exception of "Down with the King" (1993), the group has failed to make a presence in the real world. And what a paradox this is! Though standing as the only real thing during the mad/creative monster era of hiphop (an era that gave us Dana Dane, who was Slick Rick's double; Roxanne Shanté, who was the Real Roxanne's double; and even a rap group called Dr. Jackal and Mr. Hyde), its members were unable to survive in a world where suddenly everyone was obsessed with becoming "the realest." Run was so traumatized by his band's utter collapse that he turned to religion and is now Reverend Run, and D.M.C. is still in something of a daze.

As for Run-D.M.C.'s DJ, Jam Master Jay, he too has never come to terms with the hard facts of the real world, and has tried, again and again, to sustain the whole elaborate fiction that once enclosed Run-D.M.C.'s early years. In fact, Jam Master Jay is still under the impression that he is "the best DJ in the US of A" and that DJs continue to play an important role in today's billion-dollar rap industry, as exemplified by the release of his "ultimate DJ instructional video" on Warner Bros. "Get started as a DJ now," the video says, and promises a "one-on-one with Jay." If this weren't sad enough, Jam Master Jay recently offered DJ lessons on eBay, with bids opening at $1,000 and closing only at $2,325 (whoever got the lessons had to also pay for his flight from New York and hotel expenses).

At the start of hiphop's third decade--which has witnessed the fall of realism and the rise of "bling-bling"--the veterans Jam Master Jay and DJ Hurricane have teamed up for what certainly feels like the last authentic Def Jam tour. Indeed, to watch these fallen figures spin is to literally watch the fragments of a faded dream that happened many moons ago in a land far, far away. And this is why attending their show is worth the time and money. Soon these final fragments will vanish and nothing will remain of the heady years when the men of Run-D.M.C. were the real kings of rock.