Aerosmith did that song with Run-DMC, Anthrax did a few, 311 made it a little different by bringing in some groove, Faith No More blew everyone away with "Epic", and then Limp Bizkit dropped the standard with weak songs starting a trend of a lot of mediocre rap-rock bands hitting the mainstream.

What ever happened to Limp Bizkit anyway? I researched this a little and it turns out they are still around. They has that strange guitarist quit on them, taking away a lot of their energy and probably anything remarkable at all about them. Eventually, they recovered and hired a new guitarist, only to bring the original guitarist back in 2003 and quit again in 2006.

Korn was called rap-rock, but I just don't see it. They had influences from rap obviously, but the vocals make them simply a nu-metal band. I would say the same for slipknot. However, Korn was very open to talking about their hip-hop influences, probably contributing a lot to the mid-late 90s trends.

You may remember Rage Against the Machine who debuted their first album in 1992, but they didnt have major success till their second album released in 1996. Certainly talented musicians, they made their mark by mixing a lot of different genres. Linkin Park, Kid Rock, and POD are still around after coming into the limelight around the same time. All of these groups have moved away from their original sound rather quickly since 2000.

What about Bloodhound Gang? There is a group I can enjoy because they didnt even come close to taking themselves seriously, and the music was decent. Maybe in a similar vein is Mindless Self Indulgence but really, I doubt you could count them as Rap-Rock.

But with all these groups I have mentioned, have any of them topped or equaled the quality of this fusion as Anthrax (or Aerosmith) did? Why not? Maybe they are just DIFFERENT, and not better or worse? Maybe since it was a huge market in the 90s as compared to the 80s, too many labels were influencing the types of songs released, making them a lot more mainstream than the older stuff?

Theyre all valid questions and I after a great deal of research I have not found the answer. This may not be the huge trend now, but this is still and active genre. Where are the bands that are doing this right? I hope we see someone bring the genre back to the quality of the early attempts.