Joseph Simmons
American rapper
Joseph Ward Simmons (born November 14, 1964), better known by the stage name Run, Rev. Run or DJ Run, is an American rapper, producer, DJ, and television personality. Simmons is one of the founding members of the influential hip hop group Run-DMC. He is also a practicing minister, known as Reverend Run.
He found new popularity in 2005 with his family's MTV reality show Run's House.
Early life
Simmons was born November 14, 1964, in Hollis, Queens, New York. He is the younger brother of artist Danny Simmons and Russell Simmons, the co-founder of Def Jam records.
Career
Before Run–D.M.C., Simmons was the lead vocalist in the hip-hop group named "The Force". He founded Run-D.M.C. as a lead vocalist along with friend Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels and the late DJ Jason "Jam-Master Jay" Mizell.
Run began using the stage name of "Rev. Run" after he was ordained as a Pentecostal minister by E. Bernard Jordan, Simmons's spiritual mentor.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Joseph Simmons” as american rapper. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q742642. VIAF identifies the subject as 87301764. The Library of Congress control number is n00093808. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph Simmons” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.