Despite speculating low sales from the label and the group not feeling that hip hop was a genre appropriate for a full-length album, they were given an advance to start recording.

This led to Run-DMC members Joseph "Run" Simmons and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels going through their rhyme book to develop new songs, one of which would become "Rock Box".

On its completion, McDaniels and Simmons were unhappy with the sound as they assumed it would not be as guitar heavy and Profile Records president Cory Robbins was also not confident with it, feeling that it was "weird".

biographer Bill Adler stated that "It's Like That" was a large step away from the previous three and a half years of hip hop which was known for polished and high spirited songs released by Sugar Hill record label.

[4] Profile's president, Cory Robbins, recalled that after the success of "It's Like That" the group should record an album, feeling that it would be just a few songs, and Run-DMC already had four.

[5] Profile gave them a $25,000 advance for the album with fifteen thousand going towards recording and the remaining 10,000 being split between Smith, McDaniels, Russell and Joseph Simmons.

[6] Russel Simmons and Larry Smith would go over lyrics deciding which ones to use, with McDaniels stating that both would "pass over any references to violence, guns, and shit like that.

[7] The song predominantly uses the DMX drum machine while the rest of the track used a real bass, guitar, tambourines and cowbells and keyboards.

[7] Smith, who played the bass on the track, brought in his friend, Eddie Martinez, from Hollis, Queens to perform guitar on "Rock Box".

[7][4] McDaniels stated two versions of "Rock Box" were created as Joseph Simmons initially just wanted the beat, the rhymes and a little bit of echo on the track.

[19] In "Rock Box", Joseph Simmons discusses b-boy fashion with lyrics of "Calvin Klein's no friend of mine / Don't want nobody's name on my behind / It's Lee on my leg, sneakers on my feet, D by my side, and Jay with the beat.

"[18] Prior to releasing the song, Russell Simmons played the track for Robbins at Profile Records who recalled it "was so weird [...] it just took getting used to.

[26] The video begins in with an introduction by Professor Irwin Corey, a comedian billed as "The World’s Foremost Authority" who humorously compares hip hop and other music until McDaniels and Joseph Simmons arrive in a limousine.

"[13] Ann Carli, who worked with promotional material for artists at Jive Records, stated that Run-DMC's videos were played by MTV initially as the network felt Run-DMC "weren't threatening: they dressed like cartoon characters, in the hats and the jackets [...] a lot of their videos had a cartoon quality, and that was an easier fit for MTV.

[31] Roy Trakin praised the song in Creem, calling it "a searing rap rocker" and that the guitar solo by Martinez "does for hip-hop what Eddie Van Halen did for Michael Jackson - bringing it to a whole new audience.

[36][37] From retrospective reviews, Robbins praised the track in the Trouser Press Record Guide, stating "Rock Box" was "The perfect combination — verbal acuity and theatrical drama matched by an inexorable pounding beat and the power of electric guitar" and helped "chip away the barriers that kept "black music" and "white music" segregated all through the '70s.

"[17] Tom Breihan of Pitchfork referred to the track as "The only real misstep" from their debut album, stating that it "buries a decent banger under layers of unbearable hair-metal guitar wheedling.

Steve Pond of the Los Angeles Times described that song as "Rock Box, Part II" and that it was "a conservative move that's paid off in MTV air play".

[17][12][40] Murray Forman wrote in his book The 'Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop that the new rock guitar based sound seen in similar song "8 Million Stories" (1984) by Kurtis Blow and "Rock Hard" (1984) by the Beastie Boys and showcased a drift away from the disco-based music of earlier rap music such as the use of Chic's "Good Times" (1979) as used in "Rapper's Delight" (1979).

"[15] Questlove declared that America wanted music artists that looked and dressed like they did, and by doing so, "Run-DMC officially ushered in the B-boy period of hip-hop, where the every-man had a chance to escape poverty and invisibility and make it.