An All-Star Rock / Hip Hop Moment That You Have to See to Believe

Jack Black Along With Rock & Hip-Hop Legends Turn “Walk This Way” Into an All-Star Explosion

There are concert moments that are planned, rehearsed and performed exactly as expected. Then there are moments when somebody looks around backstage, apparently decides that musical sanity is overrated, and puts together something nobody could have predicted. That was “Walk This Way” at Tom Morello’s Power to the People Festival on Saturday, October 3rd, 2026, at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.

The one day Power to the People Festival, curated by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, brought together an absolutely ridiculous collection of rock, hip hop and alternative music legends. The sold out event featured performances from Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Joan Baez, Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, Jack Black, Dropkick Murphys, Brittany Howard, Killer Mike, Serj Tankian, Stephen Stills and plenty of other heavy hitters. The festival was billed as a celebration of music, community, civic engagement and social action.

But buried inside an already stacked day was one of those collaborations that instantly becomes a concert memory.

During Tom Morello’s set, the stage became a musical collision between Aerosmith, Run-DMC, Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy, Cypress Hill and Anthrax as the performers launched into Aerosmith’s legendary “Walk This Way.” Morello handled guitar while Darryl “DMC” McDaniels delivered the rap portions, recreating the hip-hop side of the song that helped make the 1986 Run-DMC/Aerosmith collaboration one of the most important crossover records in music history.

And Then Came Jack Black

Black stepped into the Steven Tyler role, taking on the song’s huge rock vocals while performing in front of a microphone stand decorated with a scarf, a clear nod to Tyler’s unmistakable stage persona. Because apparently Jack Black deciding to channel Steven Tyler in the middle of a Tom Morello festival wasn’t enough, the lineup also included Chuck D of Public Enemy, Cypress Hill’s B-Real and Sen Dog, and Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian.

The result was completely ridiculous in the best possible way. DMC brought the rapid fire hip hop delivery. Jack Black supplied the oversized rock star vocals. Morello attacked the guitar like only Morello can. Chuck D and the members of Cypress Hill added another layer of hip hop history, while Scott Ian brought the unmistakable metal presence of Anthrax to the stage.

What made the performance particularly cool wasn’t simply that famous people were standing next to each other. It was that the song itself has a history of smashing musical boundaries. Aerosmith’s original “Walk This Way” became a completely different cultural phenomenon when Run-DMC transformed it into a rap rock crossover in 1986. That version helped introduce rock audiences to hip-hop and hip-hop audiences to hard rock on a massive scale.

And That Wasn’t All… There Were Other Huge Performances

Nearly four decades later, Morello essentially turned the song into a live musical reunion of several generations of that same DNA. And this wasn’t even the only insane collaboration during the festival. Earlier in the day, Jack Black appeared as “Jack Sabbath,” performing Black Sabbath material with a young band that included Tom Morello’s son Roman Morello and Scott Ian’s son Revel Ian. Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler even joined them for “War Pigs.” Later, Morello brought out System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, Chuck D, B-Real, DMC, Flavor Flav and others during his set.

The “Walk This Way” performance therefore felt less like a standard cover and more like a musical family tree suddenly coming to life on one stage. Jack Black singing Steven Tyler. DMC representing Run-DMC. Tom Morello representing Rage Against the Machine. Chuck D representing Public Enemy. Cypress Hill representing another generation of hip hop. Scott Ian representing Anthrax.

Put all of that together and you get something that is nearly impossible to manufacture. It was loud, bizarre, nostalgic and completely entertaining. That is exactly what made the October 3rd, 2026 Power to the People Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion so memorable. Tom Morello didn’t simply put together another concert lineup. He created an environment where musicians from completely different corners of rock and hip hop could walk onto the same stage and suddenly make perfect sense together.

And honestly, if there was ever a song capable of holding that whole musical circus together, it was “Walk This Way.” Sometimes the best concert moments are the ones that look completely insane on paper. Then the music starts.

The Real Story Behind “Walk This Way”

The version of “Walk This Way” that Run-DMC and Aerosmith created in 1986 was far more than just a cool collaboration. It became one of the defining moments in the history of rock and hip hop. Aerosmith originally released “Walk This Way” in 1975 on their album Toys in the Attic. Written by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, the song became one of Aerosmith’s signature tracks, built around Perry’s instantly recognizable guitar riff and Tyler’s explosive vocals.

More than a decade later, Run-DMC were working on their album Raising Hell when producer Rick Rubin suggested they take a shot at the Aerosmith song. Run-DMC’s Darryl “DMC” McDaniels and Joseph “Run” Simmons initially weren’t particularly interested in recording a rock song. Rubin, however, convinced them to use the famous guitar riff and Steven Tyler’s vocals as the foundation for a rap track.

The crucial moment came when Aerosmith’s Tyler and Joe Perry joined Run-DMC in the studio. Instead of simply sampling the original recording, the musicians essentially rebuilt the song together. Tyler re-recorded the famous vocal sections while Perry played guitar, and Run-DMC added their rap verses.

The result was released as a single in 1986, accompanied by a hugely influential music video showing Run-DMC and Aerosmith literally breaking through a wall separating rock and hip hop. The video and song helped introduce each group’s audience to the other genre at a time when rock and hip-hop were still often treated as completely separate musical worlds.

“Walk This Way” became a massive commercial success and is widely credited with helping bring hip hop into the mainstream, while simultaneously giving Aerosmith a remarkable career resurgence. It reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became one of the most recognizable rock/rap crossovers ever recorded.

That’s what makes the 2026 Power to the People performance so much more interesting. When DMC, Jack Black, Tom Morello, Chuck D, Cypress Hill and Scott Ian came together for “Walk This Way,” they weren’t just performing an old Aerosmith hit. They were revisiting a song that had already changed the relationship between rock and hip hop nearly 40 years earlier.