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Flavor Flav, Ice-T, and Rev-Run of Run-D.M.C. are certainly feelin' some love, as each are starring in reality shows, but the royalty checks from their old recordings certainly aren't showing up:

Over Thanksgiving weekend, the longtime rap D.J. AJ Scratch held his third annual dinner and party for old-school rappers and D.J.'s, at a sports bar in the Bronx. For Scratch, a former associate of Kurtis Blow who co-wrote Mr. Blow's hit ''If I Ruled the World'' in 1985, the aim was twofold: to salute those who started the music (guests at this year's event included the turntable legends Kool Herc, DJ Red Alert and Grandmaster Theodore) and to help Scratch make a living. The $20 admission went to his AJ Productions.

Scratch, 48, said his royalty checks (even from the song on which Nas sampled him) amounted to only ''a couple of hundred dollars'' every six months. ''My publishing income isn't that big,'' he said. ''So I find ways to stay afloat. If I pack the house, I get a reward.''

A few hundred dollars every six months? WHAT??

Check this out:

For the week ending Nov. 12, according to Nielsen SoundScan, Public Enemy's landmark 1988 album ''It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back'' sold 400 copies. LL Cool J's 1987 album ''Bigger and Deffer'' (home of one of his biggest hits, ''I Need Love'') sold half that amount. Run-D.M.C.'s ''Raising Hell,'' which includes the group's groundbreaking collaboration with Aerosmith on a remake of ''Walk This Way,'' moved only 100 units.

Compare those numbers to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," which sells nearly 10,000 copies per week, and you begin to realize how far the originators of Rap have to go before the rewards really start coming in:

'With rock fans who are over 45, their kids are going into their record collections and pulling out Dylan and Procol Harum,'' said Darryl McDaniels, D.M.C. of Run-D.M.C. ''We're not at that point yet.''

Rap is still too young, relative to Rock and Roll. Or is it a cultural thing, where Rap lovers just aren't interested in the old stuff the way Rock and Rollers are?

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