Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - "We Were The Beatles of HipHop!" RUN DMC - The Band that Changed Culture

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Rediscover the band that CHANGED MUSIC FOREVER.   RUN D.M.C. were the Beatles of Hip-Hop. Darryl "DMC" McDaniels was a comic book nerd who pretended his way into hip-hop stardom and changed the world forever.   We dive into Darryl’s journey from a shy Catholic school boy, being bullied to becoming an icon in the music industry. Darryl shares his struggles with the dark side of stardom, which lead to alcohol abuse and drinking a case of 40-oz bottles per day.   Darryl opens up about confronting the realities of adoption trauma after discovering he was adopted at the age of 35, the pressures that lead him to suicidal ideation, and his diagnoses of suppressed emotions & OCD.   He also REVEALS the origins of Run D.M.C.'s famous remake of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way," their signature fashion style ("Adidas with no laces!"), their close relationship with the Beastie Boys, his rock 'n' roll inspirations, what it was like to be the first rap group on MTV, and grief over losing Jam Master Jay to homicide.   PLUS Darryl discusses practicing meditation through his creativity, his exciting upcoming music with Travis Barker, what music he’s listening to these days and what he thinks of hip hop and rap today, and the surprising story of how Sarah McLachlan saved his life!   Whether you're a long-time Run D.M.C. fan or new to the hip hop scene, you'll discover something new and inspiring.   This episode will leave you feeling like a fly on the wall as you witness MUSIC HISTORY - TUNE IN to MBB!    Peacock’s docuseries Kings From Queens: The Run DMC Story: https://www.peacocktv.com/stream-tv/kings-from-queens-the-run-dmc-story Darryl "DMC" McDaniels' memoir, Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062368788?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_VESZMBJ6FQ8Q4VVM656K Darryl "DMC" McDaniels' Children's Book, Darryl's Dream: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/704151/darryls-dream-by-darryl-dmc-mcdaniels-shawnee-warfield-johnny-warfield-and-adam-padilla-illustrated-by-tristan-tait/ Darryl "DMC" McDaniels' foster care nonprofit, The Felix Organization: https://www.thefelixorganization.org/about1-c8e1 Darryl Makes Cookies: https://www.dmc-cookies.com/ Darryl Makes Comics: https://www.instagram.com/dmcmakescomics/ BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When I think about what you created, I'm going to make a person that is confident. I'm going to make a person that believes he's the most... The king of rock. There is none higher. But then, like, I flashed to, like, what we saw when we saw you. It was true. Like, you dreamed something, and it became true. Metaphysical stuff.

I mean, it's like you literally, you dreamed it out of your house. into the world. Think about those words, make believe. Yeah. It was make the world believe. Hipub was just considered black ghetto music at first because it was, and it was the message, broken glass. It was me living in Hollis.

I was like, why are anybody talking about deaf darkness and destruction? And what I meant in the streets, of course, it was gang banging, drug dealers, pimps, heroin and all of that. But like I said earlier, it was kids playing jump rope. And I was like, why nobody talking about that? on a record. It was like they almost overlooked. You know, it's funny how when people say the streets, it's

everything negative. The streets was beautiful, too. So hip hop's rule is keep it real. So when they passed me to Mike, I ain't going to be some gang, banging and killing. Hip-hop gave me the permission to be me. We brought white people and black people together. We didn't just sell

records. We didn't just create a new culture. It really did something good for human beings. MTV put us in every living room, even living rooms that didn't want us. So there was a responsibility with us to represent continuously the community that we came from. Not to let it get diluted, polluted, or destroyed. Anything sacred or holy to a culture, a community, or a nation of people will get diluted, polluted, and destroyed once it's commercialized.

I was an alcoholic suicide, a metaphysical, spiritual wreck that didn't want to live anymore. Instead of using my imagination to accomplish harm. Instead of pretending, I started indulging in the... It was alcohol. And alcohol would just make those thoughts go away. But only when I was drunk, because then when the highway off, the thoughts would come right back. So now I got to... You know, I went from drinking 3, 40 ounces to a taste a day.

harmful, unhealthy behaviors is celebrated in our community. The person that takes 20 shots, nobody stops. I'm at number seven to say, yo, what's wrong? It was avoiding me, and it was also things I was trying to suppress. But I called my mom's up, and I'm like, hey, mom, I'm writing a book, and just to make it more interest for it. I want to know three things. How much did I weigh?

What time I was born? What hospital? She tells me. Simple questions. Yep. Hanks up the phone. Aval lady, she calls back with my father. Hey, son.

Hey, Dad, what's going on? We have something else to tell you. Now, I thought it was going to go, when you was born, there was a power outage in the hospital, and we gave birth to you by Canada, like something like that. Oh, there was an earthquake and you made it too. They hit me with this. We have something else to tell you what. Now, I'm an alcoholic, suicidal, metaphysical depressed wreck.

You was a month old when we brought you home and you're adopted, but we love you. Buy, click. And you're 35 years old at this time. 35 years old. It's my and be a little. Hi, I'm I'm Biolix Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two.

And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. Hi, I'm I'm Bialik. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. This is the place we break things down so you don't have to. Today we're going to break down what's on my sweatshirt, yo. A little bit of music history.

The band that might have changed music as we know it. we have DMC of Run DMC, Darrell DMC McDaniels, here to talk about what it was like to be literally the first hip-hop rap group on the cover of Rolling Stone, the first to appear on MTV,

the first to be on American bandstand. His story of his journey into fame from being a comic book loving, like turntabling, in the basement when no one was looking, nerdy kid who went to Catholic school, who became part of a revolution and also went on this tremendous mental health journey.

His story about alcoholism is one of the most extreme I have heard. He also didn't find out he was adopted until he was 35 years old. This is a story for the ages. If you vaguely know who run DMC, is listen to this episode. If you don't know who run DMC is, listen to this episode. And if you, like me, have run DMC lyrics programmed into your DNA from the time you were very young,

you have to hear the perspective from the person who literally was at the cornerstone of a revolution, not just in music, but in our cultural understanding of music. Also, before we get started, please make sure to subscribe. It actually really helps the podcast. It's a significant thing, and we need you to do it. So please do it. Subscribe wherever you get podcasts. And also on YouTube, click that little bell icon so you get notifications

so you know when episodes are about to drop. Without further ado, we're so honored to bring Darrell DMC McDaniels to the breakdown. Break it down. It's really, really awesome to get to talk to you. So just so, you know, I was born in 1975. So I grew up in Los Angeles. My parents are from the Bronx, and I was raised out here like it was the Bronx in the 1940s.

And, you know, I was raised on all the music you can imagine. I was raised on 60s, folk and all that stuff. Yeah, I was raised on like, Free to Me and Me, you know, like I was that kid. But I do remember when music changed forever. And that was when we heard your voice and run DMC became part of our culture. I remember it. I remember it was different than anything we'd ever heard. I remember it was just catchy as fuck.

And it took over. It took over school. It took over my synagogue. Like, it took over fashion. It took over everything. And now that I've been watching the docu series, Kings from Queens, you know, it was a time. culture that you were part of in what seemed almost an accident, meaning I thought your story

would be, you always wanted to be a musician and like you were rapping when you were a kid. Talk a little bit about where you grew up, how you grew up, and what you were like as a kid. Well, I grew up in Hollis, Queens, New York, as you know, I've shouted out on so many records. But I went to Catholic school. our neighborhood Hollis, Queens, it was a lower suburban middle-class area where it wasn't like the Bronx. It wasn't like the Bronx.

It wasn't like Harlem. It wasn't like do a dead bed stye. You know, our 42nd street and our 120th, he was just on the corner of 2rd Street. So there was like one little strip in a whole, I would say it was like an 18-block neighborhood. We're the pimps and the drugs and all of that. But otherwise, the blocks, your mother was my mother, my mother was your mother.

We had the United Block Association. Kids played jump rope and skelly and stickball. And we rode our bikes and, you know, opened to sprinklers and all of that. You know, so it was a, it was a very lovely, it was like the Brady Bunch meets the Cosby kids. You know, the cartoon. And I mean, we were there, but our upbringing was more like the Brady bunch. We got disciplined and kids were smart. You know, yeah, the bad kids, but it was 50-50.

But me, I went to Catholic school my whole life. So I was one of those kids that had to be in the house on that street, like, come on. So when you're in the house, often, you had to have imagination. So my go-to was comic books. my whole existence. I couldn't relate to the kids that's playing hooky and cutting school

and you stealing the water gun go home and ask your parents for money. You know, I'm just that kid. You know what I'm saying? I was very active tag and, you know, all of that stuff. But, you know, when you have to be in a house when their street light come on,

and then you're kind of jealous of the other kids that you hear outside. I was like, how is Warren, Glenn and Gregory outside at one in the morning? And were your parents, Were you raised in a religious home? Like, was there religion in your home? No, there was no religion at home, but they sent me to Catholic school.

Right. They put it all on me. You know what I was a kid? I had to go to get by Ash Wednesday. I had to go get community. I went to the church on Sunday. Not them. You know, my parents were, they worked.

It's crazy. Growing up with my parents, they always worked. What did they do? My father was a boiling. man at the bus New York Transit Authority. What does that mean for those of us who don't know what a boiler man is? He didn't drive the bus. He worked

for New York Transit, but he didn't drive the bus. The bus depot, the big gigantic building where all the buses go in and out to get distributed around the city. He worked in the boiling room to keep that facility running for his old life. My mother was a nurse,

a registered nurse. So she worked at a... First, she worked at hospitals, but then she started working at a health-related facility called Haven Manor. She used to work at, when I was little, she worked at Terrace Hikes Hospital in Queens. Then she got a job and rock away at Haven Manor. But they always work, but once a year every summer, oh, we'll take you to Canada. They'll take you to the Danbury's Fair out in Connecticut.

They took us to do it. Once a year, they give us a week of this. their time. And you had a brother. Alfred. He was three years old. Right. And so your love of comic books,

I mean, as you describe it, it's a really classic love affair with comic books. You really embraced the notion of the Uber Mench, you know, the superhero, like the man who could do anything. What spoke to you about that?

All superheroes have problems. when they're not to super heroes. They are awkward, they're clumsy, they're trying to, if they don't fit in, their norm Peter Parker's life was chaos. Bruce Wains, who his mother and father get murdered.

What I'm saying? All the super, Dr. Bruce, everybody got issues. They all had issues, right? But what I saw in these superheroes, number one, was, okay, they're kind of awkward and confused like me. I can relate to that. But then a lot of them,

were very smart. People forget Peter Parker, smartest. Tony Stark, Reed Richards. So I saw my awkwardness of not fitting in in the world where in my real, my personal life things didn't go right. But also, they were educated. So I couldn't see nobody in my name. I am not in a gang. I don't sell drugs. I don't, you know what I'm saying? I saw them in this Marvel comic world doing what I was doing. And also, since I had to be in the house when a street light came on, and, you know, until I got like 10, but couldn't leave the block, Stan Lee was brilliant. Now, I love DC2, Flash, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, but Gotham and Metropolis was fictional. They wanted to be New York. Stan Lee, rest in peace, he created DMC. He put the superheroes really in

New York. So when I read a Marvel comic book, it gave me a geographical lesson about the city that I lived in, but I couldn't experience because my mother wouldn't let me leave the block. So I learned about the Lower East Side. I learned about Hell's Kitchen. I learned about Harlem. So Stan Lee was showing me New York City with these characters in there who were had problems like me trying to figure life out. But Spider-Man lived in Queens like me that blew my mind. So those were characters that I could relate to because I didn't have that in my world. And you also, you know, I wore thick rimmed glasses in your honor today. You know, you wore glasses.

I still wear them. I got contacts in today. You're looking very fashionable without glasses, I'm sure. As well, you look great with glasses. I still need them. Can't see for nothing. But what was that like also? You know, now we think of glasses as like the perfect accessory and everybody's wearing.

But when you were a kid, this was definitely. Hey, four eyes. Hey, binoculars, blind as a bat. Oh, it's great. Kids were mean, and I started wearing glasses in second grade because my teacher, Mrs. Peterson, noticed I was squinting. And squinting is one of my favorite words, because when I'm little second grade,

and they're talking about me squinting. But I was squinting, and my mother comes to pick me up, and Ms. Peterson says, I need glasses, and I started wearing glasses in second grade. Wow. Now, it helped me see, but it also brought, kids were mean, they would take my glasses and hide them. it was like,

Craig, but it still didn't stop me from learning, though. I'd be like, Miss Peterson, can you move me closer to the blackboard? Like, I didn't let them prevent me from getting my knowledge. But I had no idea the glasses with, the very thing that I got teased, bullied, and picked on became one of the most powerful things about me. Totally. And I go to speak to kids about that.

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Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $1,000. $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. Tell us about when you met Joseph Simmons, who everybody else will recognize as run.

Right. Y'all went to the same school. But he was always in the other class. I didn't know Joe. My best friend growing up was Douglas Hayes. So from kindergarten to eighth grade, that was my best friend. We had many adventures together. It was like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn together.

I didn't meet run until eighth grade because what had happened was a new student came to the school in the eighth grade. And, you know, that's a thing that's a big deal. Class today we have a new and everybody looks at them. And our thing was, why did he wait till eighth grade to come? You should have came in sick. Like, everybody in my school, we grew up together for Kennedy, there's this new kid. His name was David McEachan.

If you're out the day, you was part of history. Because he was like probably, he probably was 5-11, almost six feet. So we had one little rim in the schoolyard, one little rim in the schoolyard. And that rim was a saving grace for us because for me to go to the regular park, I would have to go home and put on my play clothes because you can't go in your uniform because the public school kids and the bullies see you in that uniform

you're over. So I would have to go all the way home changing my play clothes, then go to Jamaica Park. Play clothes. I like that you're calling your play clothes. Because your mother would be, when you tried to play in your uniform,

you get in trouble. Boy, didn't I tell you to put your play clothes on before you go out in that backyard? You know what I'm saying? So it was play clothes. So after school, we would play on this one rim. this kid David McChiechie come he dunks and breaks the rim

Wow So we all crying Well not me All the kids is crying Because we can't go to the park Hold up wait I have the best parents ever Bifred and Banner McDaniels

Who I rhymed about on a raising hell album Son of Bifraid Wait my father My father would put a rim in my backyard Yay we love you down So after school the kids would come play in my yard One particular day Usually it's 12 to 15 kids

One particular day Joseph Simmons from the other class shows up and the rest of this history. We play basketball and how we connected musically, I let him, because when you was little, what's the rule when your parents ain't home? No company.

So usually I would go, you're going to love this. I would go in the house, get the juggle forcer water that you put in the refrigerator to get cold, you know what I'm saying? Because we wasn't in the bottle of water back there. Forced water, put in the refrigerator, it's cold.

Then you go get the Dixie cups. come to the back door, hand out, pour every little kid to water. This particular day was Joe, it's what, three o'clock, my parents don't get home until four, come on in and get to water. So when he came in, he saw me and my brother's turntables. And he said, do you do that? And I said, no. Because it was my little secret hobby thing that I was doing.

You know, I didn't want to be Grandmaster Flash. I'm not trying to really be rapper's delight. It was just my little thing. When I first heard hip hop, it was, oh, shoot, you could tell stories about who you are over music, just like Stanley tells stories in comic books. And also, maybe you can talk a little bit about the culture of music at that time, because you were into comic books, you and your brother, and you have this story that you literally said to your, like, you and your brother were like, we're going to sell comic books to be able to afford to turn tables like that.

Right, well, you know. Well, I was re-fabacted. Right, right. If they're the kids that the kids who, the kids who's older brothers, like 16 to 25, those, if you sold Rifa, you got new turntables. My brother, we didn't sell Rifa, but my brother goes, we're going to sell cars. And I'm like, hold on. Whoa, whoa. Whoa.

No. I don't love this hip-hop thing. No. And he was like, yo, D, we got to do this, you know, because my brother, he had his two friends. Anthony Wallace, I remember everybody. Moving long, got turntails. There was no way my brother wasn't going to have turntables. So what was this?

What did the hobby look like for you? Because also, the way that your musical ability exploded once it had that audience for everybody. That existed in your head. Like, that was in your head. It was all imagination. Right. So what, what was that hobby like for you? Pretending to be the most powerful entity in the hip hop universe.

It was just pretend. Like, Melly Mel and Grandma's Curtis Blow and all the early sugar, they were serious about this thing. For me, it was just an outlet for me. I was a shy kid, and I was just writing rhymes for me. It's kind of like my diary. All my rhymes was, you know, I like going out on sunny days. There was stores, department stores back in the days called Gertz and Mays. So I remember I like going out on sunny days or go down to the ab that you.

check out maize. I'm at the Cheva spots. I make stops. I buy British walkers. I was just talking about my life. And hip hop gave me permission to do that without being ashamed of it. But I never wanted to hear it. So I was just writing all of these rhymes.

So Joe says, I'm the son of Curtis Blow. Run was a professional rapper since he was 15. And the Laurel in New York City in the tri-state area, there was a big business going on. Russell was a promoter. He was managing. He was, rappers were getting signed to independent record deals. Run saw hip-hop's business born in his living room to his brother, brother.

Me, it was just, oh, shoot, you can say rise and have fun and talk. You know what I'm saying? It was just an outlet for me. I just, it, the reason, it makes me very emotional because when I think about what you created, just really for your own imagined it, like to create the notion of I'm going to make a person that is confident. I'm going to make a person that believes he's the most...

The king of rock. There is none higher. But then like I flashed to like what we saw when we saw you. It was true. Like you, you dreamed something and it became true.

Metaphysical stuff. I mean, it's like you literally, you dreamed it out of your house into the world. Right. Think about those words, make believe. Yeah.

I was make the world believe. I didn't know the power and it was worse until I got older. Well, and that's what I was thinking. I was making believe I'm all of this stuff and people believed it. Or I always talk about pre. I used to get teased.

You didn't do that corny pretense stuff. You're damn right. I am. Pre-means before. I was being prepared for something. I had no idea. I didn't know when me and runs started DJing together and how my exposure came.

When Run would come over, we were just DJ. Right. In the beginning, before the rapper, it was the DJ and it was the breakdances. A lot of people don't know that. For the white people who don't know, what does it mean to DJ? Like, what does that mean? What does it look like for you? A DJ is the guy that plays records.

We basically, to make them understand, we basically took what they were doing in Studio 54 and did it in the streets in New York. It was all about playing music and people come and dance at first. Right. And then this new style of dance was crazy. I want to spin on my head and dance. That's right. We put cardboard dancing.

So then in the early days, it was the DJs, the DJ himself would just say a couple of words. Get out your seat and dance to my beat. And they would dance and stuff like that. Then him speaking got people wanted more. But you can't DJ and talk at the same time. So it was like, you, come over here. Take this mic while I DJed. That's what him seeing came into it.

Wow. So it was, and in the beginning, and that's the master of ceremonies, right? When you think of what an MC is, it's all that. He's the master of ceremonies. What it meant, right? We were masters of ceremonies who had raps,

which is, because we didn't sing, but we used to, so we wasn't rappers, but then we became rappers once rappers delight signified it. So in the beginning, we was just DJing. Then when I discovered the DJs have MCs, in my basement, at first I was, I caught myself grand. master get high because you didn't need

drugs or drugs my musical intoxication. Then when I found out, oh, and this is all me pretending to be everything, I became Grandmaster Get High and M-C-E-Z-D because it's easy for me to do these rhymes. I'm just doing that, and I would write rhymes and about the seventh time run came over, when he would come over, I would hide my rhyme book.

Because it's like my diction. It's like my diary. My diary. But one day I forget to put it away and he finds it. And I'm trying to get it from him. You know, when somebody picture a diary, and he says, no. And then he says, yo, Dee, this is really good. Like, he's really doing it.

And he was like, you wrote this? And I was like, yeah, he was like, yo, this is really good. And he looks at me, this is in eighth grade. And he says, whenever my brother lets me make a record, I'm putting you in my group. What? Which, like, how many times do you hear that? Right? and people, oh, that's great.

Yeah, you're going to put me to. No, I don't do, no. I don't do, like, I'm doubt, I'm not doubt myself. I don't really, no, you and Curtis blow and flash and y'all do this for real, this, and it. He just laughed it off. So that was eighth grade.

We graduated elementary school. He went to school, we and him went to different high schools. Four years go by, I went to Rice High School, all boys Catholic high school in Harlem, Rice High School. They were known for basketball.

And I graduated. send my resumes out to different schools. I get a letter in the mail says, Mr. McDaniels, I was so, oh, I'm grown now. You're probably, we're proud to inform you you've been accepted to St. John's University. So when I got the letter, it's funny. I get the letter and I read it,

and my mother and farmer come home from work again because they always work. And when they came in a house, I didn't run to my mother and say, my, ma-ma, I got accepted to death. I ran past them to the base. to go write a rhyme about being accepted to St. John University, which was I'm DMC, and the place

to be, I go to St. John's University. So I wrote this rhyme, then I went upstairs for my mother. I was the class of 82 at Rice High School. Oh, my God. Graduated June at 82. In August of 82, the phone rings. It's Joe. Dee, remember four years ago I said,

well, my brother lets me make a record? I'm like, yeah, grab your roundbook. We're going to the studio. We went to the studio, made it's like that, and that's the way it is. with the B-Sat-Succrum C's. And here I am today sitting here with you. That's, it's unbelievable. I mean, it's unbelievable in so many ways.

But especially when you think about, when you think about what people think about rap and what people think about hip-hop and what, I mean, my parents were pretty cool, but what a lot of parents thought about it, right? A lot of what happened to our culture surrounding this art, right? And when you think about the tremendous pressure on the black community and the weight of this art form, right, resting, I mean, it was like everything was in the balances.

And I just love this notion that you were rhyming about getting acceptance in the university. And chicken and collard greens. And that when you would go on tour, like, they said like your dressing room was like Mr. Rogers and Martha Stewart. That's because of my upbringing. Right. You just were like, and I always picture, I was like, he's the quiet one, he's quiet, you know, like with the Beatles, right?

I was like, which one's which. And I was like, he's the quiet one because he's wearing glasses. Like, that's what I thought. They caught me the quiet storm because I didn't speak till I got on stage. Run and ran his mouth. He was the, you know what I'm saying?

And Jay was the flavor. Jay was the style. Jay was the music. Okay, so we now have the two of you. Yeah. And when did Jamaster? J enter. We made the first single.

The single starts being a hit in the tri-state area. Then it gets a hit down south. Then it starts going to the Midwest. Then it goes all the way to our music reaches California. So then Russell's management office phone is ringing off the hook. We want to book run to MC. So Russell said, yo, you're getting off for shows. You got to get a DJ.

And then Ron goes, oh, I forgot about that part. Because he was the DJ for Curtis Blow. But now he's the vocalist. So we needed a DJ Jam Master Jay, Jason Mazzell, was the best DJ in our little neighborhood of Hollis. So he goes to Jay, yo, Jay, man, me and Darrell McDaniels for 197th Street. Oh, yeah, I know, Darrell, that's Buttersprint. This is all hilarious, but this is our way.

Then we got to Shrek, you want to be our DJ? You're going to get paid. Jay was like, I'm going to get paid to do what I do in the streets for free. I'm in. And then Jay, when we put Jay in the group, you know, me and Run, we wasn't coordinated. When Jay came in a group, it was like, we're going to dress like Jay. Okay, so that's what I need to talk about next. So, so.

Out style. Yeah, so obviously the music, the sound, like the understanding of the use of language, like that was, that was already explosive. Yeah, to go back to what you said, because I know you want to do it. Hip-hop was considered black ghetto music at first because it was, and it was the message, broken glass. It was me living in Hollis. I was like, why have I been talking about deaf darkness? and destruction. And what I meant in the streets, of course,

there was gang banging, drug dealers, pimps, heroin and all of that. But like I said earlier, there was kids playing jump rope. Skelly. And I was like, why nobody talking about that on a record? It was like they almost overlooked.

You know, it's funny how when people say the streets, it's everything negative. The streets was beautiful, too. So hip hop's rule is keep it real. So when they passed me to my mic, I ain't going to be saying, I'm gang banging and killing it. Hip hop gave me the permission to be me.

So that's why I took that F to be honest on a microphone. So the sort of next level of what Run DMC meant for our culture. I mean, I have to read a couple of these stats because it's, I don't think that people can under, I mean, I don't think people can understand. Run DMC was the first, the first hip-hop act to have their videos on MTV. That's crazy. And this was in the day when MTV came out and everybody was like, where are the black people?

Even David Bowie was doing an interview. That's right. His interview and he just said, why you don't have more black people in his? The first hip-hop act to be on American bandstand. This is enormous. The first to be on the cover of Rolling Stone, this is going to make me cry.

The first to perform at live aid. That's an enormous cultural musical moment. And the first hip hop act to be nominated for a Grammy. And a huge part of not just the marketing, but the identity of what Run DMC was, was there was a very specific look. It was a style. It was very understated.

I mean, at first, it was black T-shirts and black trousers. And Adidas with no laces. Tell us why Adidas with no laces. Well, it's not a jail thing. There was a culture where the inmates would get their shoe strings taken so they don't hang themselves and choke out other inmates. But for us, it was enthusiasm. When you go in and you get your new Adidas,

you're so excited. You don't want to waste any time to lace them up. You want to put them all in and walk out the store. So we started doing it and it just stuck. And everybody saw us doing it. Like, we were going with the old pair of sneakers. The first time, we went in with the laced up Adidas. Now we got enough money to get two-payer.

You didn't have to ask your mother for them, money in there. So when we would go in there, when we was able to get our own Adidas that said, we were so excited, we would put the shoe strings around our necks and just walk out to store. But at that time, we was doing so many shows. Store and the car, shoot to Connecticut, shoot to Jersey, shoot down south, this and everyone. It was no time to lace them up. So we actually just started performing. And then we would go to the next town or we'd come back to that town.

And everybody's walking around. And I remember there was. It wasn't like we planned it. There was a, there was conversation about it. You know, I remember this. It was like, it's about prison. They're trying to, they're trying to indoctrinate people to think that they, everybody's going to go to prison.

Right. They're trying to make white people go to prison. Like just stupid. Yep. Ridicelessness. But it wasn't, that was going on in prison. Right. It's not not how we did.

We wasn't doing it to be rough and say, oh, we're gangst or anything like that. And what about this notion of the look? The hats was also, was that a J thing? That was a J. The way Run DMC dressed was how Jason Marzell and went to fight who is DJ Hara came from the BCs. Right. That's how Jason and DJ Hercaine was dressing in ninth, 10th, and 11th grade. They was going to school.

Oh, but people who realized in New York City, the young people used to dress up. We used to put on gabardines and quarterfills, British walkers and playboard. We used to wear sheepskins. We used to put on mock night. Like, we used to dress. So when we first saw Jay come out onto his steps like that, we was like, that's going to be our look.

And the reason why resonated was when people saw him see, they didn't see celebrity. They saw how dynamic we are, but they saw themselves. And for people that didn't, prior to MTV, people were hearing the records, they didn't know what we were looking at. But then when they saw us, it was new to them. Like, what's this new thing?

I have a question because, like, I'm, I think for a lot of people, the first black musical act, a lot of people saw, like, was often run DMC. 100%. Meaning for a lot of people, for a lot of, if you think about the people in the middle of the country, right, in certain places,

where it was still very segregated. Oh, 100%. Cities in America like that. MTV put us in every living room, even living rooms that didn't want us. Well, so this is my question. Was there, did you have an awareness of that? I mean, you're still basically like a kid, right?

You guys are still young. You didn't have any awareness of like, what should we look like or what are people going to think? Nope, we didn't. Right. No, we didn't. We would go to some cities on people who would talk about it. You don't go to that side of town.

like, but we didn't have no world. We were so innocent. Like we would walk into the battlefield. Right. We'd just happy performing. And was it, did you, I know you didn't always dress like triplets. Right. But there was something also so sweet about the uniformity.

The uniformity. Because also, you know, obviously, I mean, you all had very distinctive kind of personality and different persona to it. But there was something that made me feel as a listener, as a viewer. like that you really enjoyed this company together. Yeah, yeah. It made it fun, you know, to be part. It made me feel like I was part.

I mean, again, I'm the farthest thing from, you know. No, no, but you, I'm going to get my ideas. Right. Was it. I'm going to get to record. Can you, can you tell me what it felt like? Like, did it feel like a party every show? No, no.

What it felt like was it was more like playtime. And the reason why I say that, we were doing what, what we did in, front of the world. We were doing in the parks and at the block parties and at the basements of houses. So we just went from Run's basement to this stage at LaVey. What do you think you were... And that's very weird. What do you think you were, maybe you weren't planning on thinking of it that way, but what were you teaching people about your culture, your music, like your life? Well, we were, we were highly, highly inspired. Because you got to

minute, we come from a generation of albums. So we grew up up on Sergeant Pepper's look at it. Like you said, with the Beatles. Oh, that's all. And then you read stuff. And then you would see them as superstars. Then you would hear John Lennon sleeping naked in the bed for the war.

You know what I'm saying? James Brown, incredible. But then he went to Watts when the riots was going on. Marvin Gay was super sexy love-making man. But he had to do a record called what's going on that Barry Gordy. want him to do what he said I got. So there was a responsibility with us to represent continuously the community that we came from. And we was taught that by the Grandmaster Flash in the first five,

Sol Sonic Force, you know, from message to planet rock to rapists delight. For us, we're in show business now, but we're not giving up what our culture means. We're not going to change the essence of who we are. So there was a big responsibility for, and that's why it works so good because the first rappers, flashing them when you look at them, they look like Rick James,

Parliament Funkadelic, and the sex business. Look at their early rappers. But that's because they had no, they had no show business, entertainment rappers to look up to it. So when they, oh, we're going to look like Stevie Wonder and Parliament.

When we came along, we was looking at them before they were in show business. So like I said, we were, went from the park to American Man Standing. We got turntaped. Like, we used to show up to early shows and the promoters. They never knew before MTV.

They would book run DMC, and we would go to the venues, and they wouldn't even let us in. Because they would go, where's the band? And we point at Jay standing in turntables and records. It's completely hilarious. But to answer your question, it was a responsibility that we had for the culture, not to get, not to let it get diluted,

polluted, or destroyed. Anything sacred or holy to a culture, a community, or a nation of people will get diluted, polluted, and destroyed once it's commercialized. So we said, okay, we're going to get this money. We're going to go to Hollywood,

but we're not going to let them forget what this is really about. How did you choose your first single? Was there other things that were considered? Like, how did that process work? Well, in the beginning, now hip-hop right now, they say everything sounds alike. It's always like that. It was always like that until when the MC came along.

If you remember, everything in hip-hop was a message record. Message one, message two, life in the ghetto. It was black ghetto music, and they're talking about the inner city, political, economic, social. Every record was that until we came along two years ago. What is this? I'm DMC, St. Challenge University. We changed that. So the process was, remember, it wasn't no albums.

It was single. Right. We were actually duplicating disco. All the early discos were singles. You know what I'm saying? So you had to have a message record. And we invented the freestyle, talk about whatever you want, category of hip-hop. Because prior to that, it was the message.

It was playing rock, rock to the plan. We know what place. where the lights are hot. It was inspiration. Everything was inspiration and inspiration. It was inspiration and desperation. But nobody was just doing, yo, let's have some fun.

So Run DMC brought that curriculum to the music. But in the beginning, we did a slight that succumb C's, hard time sham master Jay. And those singles worked. And then Russell Run's brother said, you know what? We're going to make a rap album. But the world and the world,

the critics was like, look, we'll give you all those singles, but it's no way in the world anybody wants to hear a rap album. Wow. So the first Fund DMC rap album, we did something different. I grew up as a kid loving 70s rock radio. Yeah. In New York City, W.A.B.C. Dan Ingram, Harry Harrison, them all of those guys, legends, you know what I'm saying?

And they would play James Brown. They'd play Slater Family Stone. They'd play Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gay. and all of that. But they also would play Harry Chapin. They also would play Led Zeppelin.

They also would play the Doobie Burb. It's one of my favorite records growing up as a kid was Oh, Blackwater, keep on rolling. Mississippi,

Moon, I was like, this is the best thing that I ever heard. So when I, as we went on, you know, we got to make albums.

I was the one that suggested, you know, everybody's using R&B, funk, jazz. Nobody's using a rock records. Let's make a rock record.

Wow. So that was a game changing when we made Rock Box. And that helped get us on MTV. Remember, MTV didn't want to say, we're a white station only. We're a rock and roll station. You know, they played.

They had Michael on there, but then somebody took us, but he didn't count. Because there was no... I mean, he was his own category. He was already... He was Michael Jack. He's the Jackson Five.

There was no, you know, you have punk rock bubbling. People forget. Blondie made one of the earliest... That's right. made rapture. Right. But it's like, yo, she's like walking in the video.

She's like so silly. She had to do it. And people say, why did she do it? If you came to New York in the early 80s and you went, you went in dance ateria. Yeah. Or the world. Oh, shoot, there goes blonde. Oh, shoot, there goes Lurit.

Oh, shoot, they go. Yo, that was the piece. Well, that was, I mean, this is also the evolution of music, right? You have new wave that was coming in. So all this stuff started fusing. It was inevitable, though, that the actual music that was being communicated. to do it on a record. Like, what is this?

So the two things. Do a message record for our culture that we don't even more in the music business, put the beat on, we're going to say some rhymes. Did you get your rhyme book? That was cool. But then it became, once we got in the established music business, run the approach was this. Look at what everybody's doing.

Just do something different. Might be a different style. Oh, everybody's using horns. We're going to use a harmonica. I tell young kids that one little thing, you don't have to sound like everybody else. You know what I'm saying? You don't have to do what Nikki Minaj is doing

or tell her girls that all the time. Find a different sound in a different subject. Make a record about hardworking nurses. Make a record about bakers. Yo, I'm telling you, it'll work, especially if you do it, though. So one of the things, and this comes up in Kings from Queens, you know, there was all of this, I mean, the number of uptight white men asking you this question was making me want to throw up in my mouth. Is this a fad?

You know, what are you going to do when this is no longer popular? And you know, like they're in their like suits in time. I'm like, God bless them. Like that was the vibe of the time. Like, it was, it was. And for people who are who are watching or listening to this, who, who were not aware of this sort of time frame of musical culture. That's literally the only thing people knew how to say. Like, people who didn't get the music. Like, if you didn't feel, it in your soul. You didn't get it. And you were going to ask this question. How long is this going to go on? What are you going to do after? And I'm looking at the three of you sitting there and you're like, what the, who the, why? Right. So what, I'm not going to ask you like what you would have done if it had

only been a fad. But what, what did you, did you, were you aware that a revolution was happening that you had started? Okay, maybe it's going to die like disco. Okay. Maybe it will die. But the funny joke is when our sons and when there's a wedding, a baby being porn or a cookout, oh, me running Jay is embarrassing everybody at the family gallery. Oh, here they come at that turntable. We was doing it anyway. So we didn't care. If the record music, if the music business would have ended, we would have still been

DJing at your cookout. When your first kid was born, you wouldn't want to invite us. Get the turntables out. Jay, this. We was doing it anyway. So it wasn't about, it's going to, here's what I'm saying. It was hip-hop before we got signed to record deals. We didn't need them in the first place.

So if you don't want us, we don't care. But they didn't, once they saw the numbers. Well, and that's what I was, and I think it was, I think it was run that said, like, would you ask Aretha Franklin what happens when singing is no longer a thing? Like, it's not. So this is my question because for many people, the next. significant moment that they know, especially if they weren't into run DMC, was the Beastie Boys. Yep.

And what happened with the Beastie Boys was three Jewish kids, right? Yep. Came and basically started doing rap. Started doing rap. And the marketability, right, of those faces was different. But there was also a really beautiful camaraderie. Like, I had forgotten all these pictures of like the three, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, cry.

The three of you and the three of them. And it was like. beautiful. We're part of a musical revolution that is complicated and that also gives a nod to a relationship between white people and black people. We broke it when Stephen Tyler took the mic stand and knocked down the wall in arrows. Okay, well, we got to talk about that too. Right. We got to talk about that too. We brought white people and black people together. Right. We didn't, we didn't just sell records. We didn't just, oh, create a new culture. We did, it really It is something good for human beings.

I mean, also, like the, I mean, it's unbelievable. So, so can you talk a little bit about, was there ever any feeling? Because I think also, I think of it in the, in the, like, the mentality of today where it's like, everything's a threat and a competition. When you heard about the Beastie Boys, I want to know, were you like, who are these white boys? No, no, no, they were a punk rock group. Right. That came about. We was working in Chung King House of Metal.

We were the only rap group working in a place with Slayer and Anthrax, and the Beastie Boys, who was a punk group, was recording. A young man sticks his head in named Rick Rubin. Hey, guys. What's going on in here? Jay being a guy, come on in. Sit there, Rick starts talking about the group. Rick starts talking about hip-hop, this and that.

So Rick brings the Beastie. Jay's like, bring him in. So, now at this time, the Beasties were the crazy. Yeah. But Rick looks at Jay and says, yo, think these three white Jewish punk rock kids from Manhattan, and you think they can make a hip-hop record, Jay looked at him and said, why not? A couple of months later, License the Ill was born. You know what I'm saying? But did that feel like appropriation to you? I want to know. Because in our language, it would be like, oh, is it okay? They were imitated. No, it's the only appropriation if you're doing it for financial gain or selfish reasons. Before the BCEs even put, put, just wanted even to make a hip-hop record,

we would sit there and talk for hours about all the grandmaster Flash and the Fair. See, what people didn't understand about the Beces was they knew the culture. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't like, yo, let's do that. It wasn't for, let's do that to get framed. Let's do that to cross over this and that. They knew. It's like, I'll kind of describe it.

I love seeing Mick Jagger and Keith Richards get interviewed about. the Stones because their interview turns into an interview about all the black blues artists and influence. Sure. They might as well mention it because that's where the music can't. Exactly. So with the Beasties, before they started making records, they knew what was going on in the Bronx, Manhattan at the block.

They knew Busy B. Starsky. They knew the Cold Crush. They knew Cool Moody before he went solo and battle L. Oh, my God, Cool, Coal D. They knew Mo D before he battled L.L in the 90s. They knew when Modi was in a rap group called the Treacherous Street. So for them, it was more a music thing for the BC. And you've got to understand, we opened up a lane by doing rock.

Here's these black guys doing rock and roll records. Everybody from Tom Arello to Travis Barker, when they heard Rock Box, even though the critics were saying it's a fad. And so Tom Arello says in the documentary, when the MC was our rock stars. Yeah. We didn't need to prove all of the establishment. So I want you to talk about Walk This Way.

And then I kind of want to go back and talk about your personal journey through all of this. You know, again, it was kind of like you kept setting up the milestones and surpassing them. You know? It was like you were the first. You were the most. You were the dopest. And then it was like, oh, here's something we didn't even know we could conquer, right? You conquered fashion.

And people have to keep in mind. You didn't have a deal with Adidas. And it's like, Adidas, there's no amount of, it's not about money. There's no amount of information they can put out to communicate what you did simply by wearing the shoes that you were wearing. And making a song about the sneaker we love. It was unbelievable. About their product. Right.

Okay. That's why we call it. That's not Adidas. My Adidas. That superstar is my Adidas. That's facts. So then we get to something like Walk This Way. I mean, I.

It's a game changer. It's a game changer. Like, that image is seared into my mind also because as a kid, I was like, everything's coming together. We're breaking down walls. Like, it was so, it was, okay, so talk about how Walk This Way came about. We originally was going to sample it. So if you understand hip-hop, you make the beat, we're taking your beat and we're going to rhyme over it.

So originally we was going to sample it. It was Rick Rubin who suggested it's never been. been done before. Instead of sampling somebody's record, you know, it could have been, make Stevie Wonder's record completely over. Don't just make change Brown's record, say it loud,

well, don't just sampling your lyrics. So, we was going to do that. They met resistance from me from run. Because I got rhymes. I got a book of rhymes. And here's what's really funny. We had never heard the singing

parts of the record. Oh, my gosh. Because the DJs would only play the opening beat part. But the brilliance of that, the game change of us, now, if we would have did walk this way over and just did our rhymes on it, it would have been, yo, remember Run DMC sampled Arrow Smith in 86? If we would have did the record over just me and run, you remember in 86, Run DMC, remade the walk this way?

The brilliant thing is, when Rick was telling us, learn it, do the record over, he went to Boston to get Arrow Smith. The brilliance was we did it with them. Oh, it was, yeah. So it brought to two, you, when people saw, they heard it, but then they saw us together. That did something to people. But we had no idea what it was going to do.

Because on every Run DMC record, there was already a rock, we had Rock Box. 84, we had Rock Box. Runded EmC. Rapp and Over Rock. 85, we had the King of Rock's self-titled album, went to King of Rock single. And even on a Raisin' Hell album, on an album It's a rock song called Raisin' Hell But doing Walk This Way over with them This is a funny question

Were there other songs you considered? What do I mean? Like were there other songs Or you were like, oh, wouldn't it be cool to sample this? We should sample this. Or was it like this was the song that you knew you had to do? It wasn't that thing. It was like when we, that was one of the last records

that we did on the album. Wow. And Rick knew we needed something else to do. Jay had suggested, yo, we didn't know it was walked this way. Got it. Jay suggested, because it was all album,

crates of records. Jay suggested, yo, get the album with the toys on it and let's sample number four. We called it number four because the DJs would scratch off the labels so the rival DJs went and see what beat you had.

You had. So if you was a DJ, I would come over to your turntables if you played a beat out in there. Oh, my God. And I'm trying to spy so I could start playing it. So it was, yo, get number four sample. We're gonna rhyme over it. Rick says, no, it's not number four.

The name of the song is walked this way. The name of the band is Erospice, blah, zee, blah, this, boom, man. They were once great, but they're over, boom, boom, boom. I think it'll be a good idea to do the record over exactly the way that they did it. You never know what's gonna happen. Then while we was doing that, he calls him up. He calls Boston. Hello, my name is Rick Rubin. You know

who Rundi MC is. We're doing your record over. Do you want to do it with us? Unbelievable. Hold on. What? We heard of Rendeer. This is Rick Rubin. You know, I'm producing R&DFC. And Steve and Joe were humble enough to go, you know what? Those Rundi FC guys are kind of cool.

What do we got to lose? And they admit, we brought them back. They could have spent $3 million. $3 million. promotional campaign. Now, at the time, they had that album, if dude looks like a lady, my angel, they had, all those records are good, but

nobody cared. To sum it up, they could have made a record with God, Jesus, and Moses and nobody would care. The only thing, let's imagine. Yo, they got God, I'm telling you, God, Jesus, to me, nope, it would have never. But doing it with Run DMC

was the thing that changed the game. I mean, hearing how he guided that collaboration is really amazing. Was he as spiritual-minded? Was he the Rick Rubin we see now back then? Yes, he was, but he wasn't describing what he can look back now and describe what he was doing.

Rick basically was the guy like, don't care about what people think. No, there was rhymes and stuff that we would have that we would change to fit on a record. He would do stuff like this to me. Dee, I don't want this new version. I want the version of the rap that you were singing in the shower last night.

I heard you singing. Don't come in here and do. I want that emotion. You know what I'm saying? So Rick's, Rick is such a great producer because he's a fan of music. He's not a genius. He's something greater than a genius.

He's a fan. of Metallica. So you can hire a producer to produce Metallica or run DMC of the BCs of Johnny Clas and every record will flop. Rick's job is what do you think about the thing that you're creating?

Why do you have those thoughts? Move, removed. He's like Gandalf. That's who Rick is. You know what I'm saying? And it was just brilliant because he didn't want us to conform. He wanted us to create art.

And he always talks about the importance of art. He wanted us to create art. I want to go back because, you know, this is sort of the part of the journey that people saw, right? We saw what it looked like, what it sounded like, like the barriers that it broke down. Like it transformed music. It opened the door for so many artists. And in the in the Peacock docus series, I mean, you see L. Cool. Like, it's so, it's unbelievable.

Eminem. Eminem literally says, I would. wouldn't have even been born if this wasn't like programmed in the universe that you guys would exist first. I mean, it's really, the impact is so profound. But I want to talk a little bit about your personal journey because, you know, you wrote this memoir in 2017, right? And there's so many incredible things that you choose to reveal and that you choose to talk about. And, you know, I'm always curious and I think about this, you know, I see. started acting on TV when I was like, you know, in junior high. And, you know, I think about,

like, I'll never know what my life would have been like if I hadn't had that experience, right? We'll never know what Darrell would have been like if that hadn't happened or if at any of those points, it was just something you do at parties, right? Right. But what ended up happening. Yeah, I want to be here. Yeah. But it's the question that I have is, you know, you ended up doing the things that a lot of us do when we're hurting. You looked for an emotional crutch. You look for a chemical crutch. Look for something outside of you

to make you feel stronger, confident, to reassure you that you're perfect. Not knowing you're perfect already, but it happened to me. And it wasn't because of me. It was because I had a fear of not living up to everybody else's expectations. I can't let run down.

You know, it was like this. We was getting hit records. We was getting hit videos. Everything that, like you said, I think of it. Fame. You had fame. Right. People who was around me who were participating in that started saying you need fame. You need to hit record. You need the money.

You need to be on the radio. You need. And everybody's saying this around. I never thought like that. I just put the beat on. Let me do whatever happened, happened. But then. caring about them so much you forget about yourself.

So my thing was, what if I can't get the radio? What if I can't? And it's not for me. I didn't care about that. I was like, if I can't get the redden running Jake, like, I start worrying about that. So I'm like, oh, shoot, I need some confidence. Oh, liquid courage.

There's this thing called Old English 800. And they don't just make quartz anymore. They make 40 ounces of it. It used to be 32 ounce. But 40, I need all that. And so I started, instead of using my imagination and my, yeah, instead of using my imagination to accomplish all my, instead of pretending, I started indulging in, it was alcohol. And alcohol would just make those thoughts go away, but only when I was drunk, because then

when the highway off the door's would come right back. So now I got to, you know, I went from drinking 3, 40 ounces to a case a day. Okay, three is already. That's a lot for some people. It's insane. It's no craziest thing ever. Is that, I'm going to ask a dumb question. Is that, did it feel like basically constantly drinking?

No, because healthy. Like, what's the amount of time we're consuming a case in? From 11 in the morning to about, I would say, until about 6.30, 7.30. But then you go out to the world and to dance interior hours. Hercardian cold. and penitence and she, so I was drinking 24 hours a day. But the reason why,

now it should have 12, look, three is crazy. Yeah. I didn't say, that's your word, not mine. No, no, what I mean is, but it's crazy now when I look back at it, but the reason why is harmful,

unhealthy behaviors is celebrated in our community. You know, the person that takes 20 shots, nobody stops on at number seven and say, yo, what's wrong? You know, the person is fighting every stuff.

Oh, he's, Who's beating him? Is his father beating him? Is it something body on his block? The person's sleeping with everybody. The girls sleep like, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow. What are you? But in my community, look, there was Garfield who drunk five, 40s.

Ray! There was Smith who drunk three. Ray! Richard drinks said, but he's the champion. Matter of fact, he drunk 12. Give him another case. And I would do it. Because there was something I was trying to do.

It was a void in me. And there was also things I was trying to suppress. You also talk about that you saw yourself and, you know, you were relatively functional, meaning you didn't look like what a lot of people think alcoholics looked like. No, I showed up one time and all of that. I was drinking from five in the morning. I was drinking cases five in the morning to about 7.30 at night. Then from 7.30 to 2, 3 in the morning is alcohol. So I would go to sleep.

And, you know, when I finally went to rehab and therapy. That's a miracle you're a lot. I mean, it's a miracle your body. The doctor said, when I got acute pancreatitis in 1990, I had acute pancreatitis. And I remember going to the emergency room and the doctor sent me and asked me, do you drink? And I'm like, yes. How many cans would be? I don't drink cans of it.

I drink 40. I said, how many? One, two, or three. And I was like, no, I drink a case. Wow. What? Admit him. Excuse me.

So they admitted me. I was in a hospital for a month and a half. I couldn't take nothing orally. everything intravenously. Fortunately, they was like, this is a miracle. Your liver's intact and your pancreas is not bruised. Your liver is the superhero of this story. Yes, it is.

It must have knew what I was supposed to do. But when I got this charge, the doctor goes, Darrell, you have two choices in life. You can drink and die or not drink and live. So it was going good from 90 till about 96 when, But from 90 to 96, now that I'm sober, because I have to be sober, all of the thoughts is just daily on me. Yeah, I was going to say, the alcohol and, you know, really any drug, right, that's the solution for the problems. But when you take away the solution, all you're left with is problems.

So it wears off, you got to keep it going. So I was keeping it going real good. Keeping it going so much than I got acute pancreatitis. Now I have to make a decision. I can't drink. So now all the thoughts that I was suppressing are exploding to me. And in addition to that, the thoughts that come with those thoughts. So I was an alcoholic, suicide, a metaphysical, spiritual wreck that didn't want to live anymore.

And it got to the point where one day I was sitting there, and it was an empty void in me, too. It's the God-shaped hole. Which made me say, okay, something's missing from this picture. son of Bifred, brother of Al. Banners, my mother runs my pal. It's McDaniels, not McDonald's. These rhymes are darrells, those brokers are rhinos. I ran down my family tree.

My mother, my father, my brother and me. Okay, so it's me run, Alfredo. Hip hop comes over the bridge. And I something's my life. First go go, first go platinum. Something's missing. And then it got to the point where, what's this void? I got all these stores.

I can't drink, this and that. And I just said, man, if I die tomorrow, people know what I do. did with RunD&J as Run DMC. But they don't know the little boy. So I was thinking if I commit suicide, I want people to remember, I want people to remember Darrell, not the DMC King of Rock guy. So I called my mother up.

I said, I'm going to write a book because there's videos, there's music. But I want to leave Darrell, and I want to say, hey, world, I'm Darrell McDaniels from the groundbreaking rap group, Run DMC. You know me, first to go, go old, first to go play, and all that stuff. But I'm really just Darryl McDaniels from Hollis, New York, no different from anybody on the face of the earth. I was born May 31st, 1964.

And I just realized, oh, I know my birthday. Here it comes. I don't know details about it. So just to make it more interesting for the reader, I called my mother up. Now, what I should have did looking back, Mom, I'm suffering, I'm depressed. Like, but I didn't want to bother her.

I didn't want to put nothing on her. And then I really didn't want nobody to know. I didn't want to talk about whatever. I thought I thought I could handle it. myself, but I couldn't because I really would rather drink to not deal with it. But I call my mom's up and I'm like, hey, mom, I'm writing a book and just to make it more interesting word. I read her, I want to know three things. How much did I weigh? What time I was born? What hospital? She tells me. Simple questions. Yep. Hanks up the phone. Hour later, she calls back with my father.

Hey, son. Hey, dad, what's going on? We have something else to tell you. Now, I thought it was going to go, when you was born, there was a power outage in the hospital, and we gave birth to you. you about Canada, like something like that. There was an earthquake and you made it too. They hit me with this. We have something else to tell you what. Now, I'm an alcoholic, suicidal, metaphysical, depressed, right. You was a month old when we brought you home and you're adopted, but we love you, bye, click.

And you're 35 years old at this time. 35 years old. You had no idea you were adopted. None at all. All my records did By Fred and Banner. It's in the song. It's in the songs. And the reason why that it didn't come down,

my brother was dark skinned than me, different buildings, stuff like that. But the reason why that was never thought, my mother's two brothers, Uncle Ronnie and Uncle Griffin, Uncle Ronnie had fraternal twins, Derek and Samantha. Derek was dark like my brother.

Samantha was my complexion. Okay. So that makes it all working out. Uncle Griffin, Donnie, who me and my brother and Dony, we all grew up together.

Donnie looked like me. But his sister Robin looked more like his darks, his dark skin father. So for me, I didn't see that I wasn't a McDaniels.

But imagine how I felt when I found out. Tell us. What did it feel like? It destroyed me. It destroyed, the void in me, it devoid in me,

The void in me was filled. That was the misdemeanor the puzzle you're adopted. But that means I'm not a McDaniels. Like, I started all these other more negative thoughts. No, my mother and father, by the friend, that's my mother and father, but then it was like, the wise. Why did they keep me? Why did my birth mother give me up? I probably got a farmer.

This and this. So you can imagine it was, so I didn't know what to do, let me go back to the thing that I know. How am I going to start a drinking again? started drinking again. Even more now. And my wife's crying. My wife's Surrey. We've been married 30 years.

My wife, and she wasn't there for the whole rise at the run DMC. We met when the kingdom was falling apart. And she didn't leave me so, I love her so much.

But she looked at me, and I'm making excuses now. She's like, motherfucker, excuse my language. You're not supposed to be drinking because you had acute pancreatitis,

whatever. My excuse was, I'm just drinking. again because I found a missing part of my identity. My wife, she went right to the truth. She said, motherfucker, you're drinking because you can emotionally handle the fact that you just found that you adopted. That's a mic drop. Yeah, just imagine me standing there with you.

You can't beat that. So from 97, 96, 97, when I found out that I was adopted, I'm starting to drink again, all the way to 94. I didn't know what to do. And I was fortunate that I met another adopted person named Sheila Jaffe. She's actually from out here in L.A. She's a casting director. She cast soprannals and entourage and a bunch of movies like that. So I had met my manager, Eric, who you just met, him and Tracy Miller, my publicist that was here,

when I was going through all of this, you know, they really don't know what to do. Keep them working. So they was trying to keep me working So long story short I came here to audition for a part in the movie because they just Try to D you know whatever So when the agent spoke to me

He goes Daryl I see running I see Russell and Camorra And I never see what's going on with you And I remember sitting in that meeting I'll hear in Hollywood And someone said Let this motherfucker know

Well I just found out that I was adopted At age 35 and this and that I might have done And he kept the secret, I just hit him with it. And the beautiful thing he did, it was the first time I saw somebody have compassion for me. Even not knowing what to do, I can't possibly understand how you feel.

Wow, thank you for that. But I think there's somebody you should meet. Sheila was in his office depressed and down because she knew she was adopted since she was 14, but she was doing searches for biological parents that kept hitting dead ends. So he just figured, you just found out she, Maybe y'all can meet and something good will come out of it.

So when I met Sheila, the one thing that it did for me was let me know I'm not alone. I'm looking at Sheila like this, a real live adoptive person like me. And then we went on to form, the Felix organization that gives opportunities of kids in foster care. But the saving thing is this. After me and Sheila meet, Sheila goes, oh, by the way, Mark Wahlberg, one of my clients, gives us his office in Santa Monica once a month. and we go in there, we have adoption anonymous meetings. And I go, what's that about?

All adoptees, there's no agenda. You just go in there and talk about how you feel. You could be mad, you could be angry, you could cry. So I started going on that. And then about the seventh one, they asked the big question. Don't you want to know who your birth parents are? Nope, don't take me down that, row. You heard the record, son of Christmas time in Hollis, Queens, D.M.C., that's it.

And they were like, that's cool. You know, they instigate. That's cool. but that's not the beginning of your story. And they convinced me, D. Oh, the reason why I did search for my birth bump is because of this. A famous adopting lady, not celebrity famous.

She's famous to us because she said this. She said, the reason why an adopted person should, you don't have to. It's your story you handle it. But she hit me with this. The reason why you should search for your adopted parents besides medical. Because imagine me grown up.

My father had diabetes. No. I don't know my real father, my biological father, I got to find that so I could know my son's history. But she said, the reason why you should search this because of this was like, what, Sheila? Why? What's the big read? She said, you never start a book from chapter two. And then I realized I was living my life.

Hollis is part of my story, but there's a whole chapter I don't know about. So in order for me to go down that road, I knew I had to be of sound mind and body. so it forced me to go to rehab. So when I went to rehab, I found the most powerful thing that you can do. It's not weakness. It's the most powerful thing that you can do.

Admit you're scared. Admit you're afraid. Admit you're vulnerable. Admit you're confused. I found this thing called therapy. And I'm sitting, I said, I can cry right now. Yes.

You can be angry right now. It's just your situation doesn't define you. You do. And my therapist said, you've been doing it all your life. You've been using the two great words in the midst of everything that's involved with you, those secrets you didn't know what you. You would get in front of the world and say, I'm the king of rock.

I'm the devastating my controller. I'm the son of bifference. So your situation didn't define you. So when I found therapy, I found a way to deal with my emotions without having to pick up a 40-olds, which was a beautiful saving grace. I went to therapy. I was diagnosed with suppressed emotions. Huh.

And OCD. That's why I'm so neat. Oh. That's why they said your dressing room was always so neat. I'm Marfa Stewart. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember as a kid, like being that?

Crazy neat. Now that comes from, prior to me going into rehab, we met this adoptive lady that worked with foster kids and stuff. No, no matter of fact, before I had my own therapist, I was using a therapist at the New York founding. She's a therapist that deals with the foster kids. She told me about this book called The Primal Wound. And it was written by a lady who talks about when I was giving up for birth,

we conscious of what's going, but we kids, we little baby. What are you doing? I was with my mother. What are you doing? Who's this lady? Something traumatic happened to me, which created these attitudes. My brother's side of the room, if you would have came into our house when we was,

when he was in sixth grade and I was in third, his side of the room is socks. My side of the room is neat, prepared to be moved again. And I remember when my mother and father told me I was adopted, and I got off the phone, all of a sudden your mind starts remembering stuff. When my mother and father told me that and went back to one, they didn't adopt me until I was five years old.

They had me as a foster kid from one month to five years old. all the foster kids that they had, their parents came back to get them. So when nobody came back to get me, my brother says, my mother said to my father one day, Byford, honey, what are we going to do with this one?

Oh. And then my father goes. They had fostered other kids. I remember cousins that I never saw again. Stop it, Daryl. I thought they moved. This and that outfit, my brother said, no, Oscar's mother came back to get him.

Teresa's mother came back. I thought they were cousins. Your parents were essentially, they were angels. They were fostering kids. They were fostering kids. Who were able to go back to those parents. So my brother said,

my mother asked my father by for, what are we going to do with this one? And I'm in there playing with my Godzilla's and stuff. My father goes, and this is going to be, I'm preparing to do a series about my life, but not the DMC part's going to be in it. But it's about the little kid,

purpose and destiny. My father goes, You know what? I think we'll adopt this one because maybe he'll do something to change the world. Stop it. Look at me.

Look at you. So I want to talk a little bit. This is something Jonathan and I are very interested. We've spoken to a couple other people on the podcast about this. You know, we want to believe kids are resilient, right? And that's what we're told. And I have, you know, I have a 15 and 18-year-old.

Jonathan has a 15-year-old. You have to believe kids are resilient for all the stuff you put them through and all the horrible things that I say when I'm mad. So you want to believe the kids are resilient. But what we know is that also, even before we're verbal, we have an awareness of where we are in space. We have an awareness of when the person who carried us and birthed us is not around, right? And like they call that like an abandonment wound or all these things.

So I have to ask, did you continue to pursue finding your birth mother? I found my birth mother in Staten Island. Staten Island. Yep. And I found two brothers and a sister I didn't know I had. I pursued it. I found them. And it's crazy when I walked in my birth mother's house.

It was the first time I saw somebody that said they were related to me that looked exact. My wife to this day said, you are your mother. You act like her. Now I know all of this stuff that you do to draw. I drew everything my birth mother do. And when I walked in the house, she had some of the same books I was reading. No.

It's too much. And she had the same Buddhist statue that I, this right here is my wife's name Zuri. It means beautiful and Swahili. On my birth mother's arm is the Peruvian symbol for beautiful. Wow. I found my birth, I found two brothers and a sister.

I didn't know I had. Now, this is going to be crazy. Older, younger? No, yeah. My brother Mark's three years old. We got different fathers, though. But his whole life, to this day, see, I look a little different now,

Lost Wade, Joe man. His whole life, Mark, and he's like me, in the comic book, Seneca Jarra. That was my whole life growing up. But his whole life from the day I got on MTV, 84 to Down with the King 93. Mark, Mark, come here. That got DMC, you look like he could be your brother.

Stop it. That's 84, 85. Mark, Mark, come here. By 88, I know DMC can be my brother. Come to find out. He's really his brother. Now, my brother Damon, Mark's three years older than me. He got all my artistic, my look and everything.

My brother Damon right now, my new vice, since I can't drink, he's going into the gym and working out. My brother Damon is bored like me right now, doesn't wear glasses, has a gold tea, and he got muscles. Wow. My sister, this is going to blow your mind. My sister met me. No.

No! I could have married, I could have been dating my sister. My son, this is going to really blow your mind. When did she meet you? She met me with Jam Master Jay. She has a picture in Jay's house. Her friend was dating Jason's brother. She came to Hollis, went in Jay's house, took a picture,

and came to a video shoot with me. Stop it. I met her high preview with him. And so your birth mother, did your birth mother know where you... Not till I called her. Stop. She didn't know. She did not know.

She didn't know she gave birth to D.M. No, she did not know. All she knew was I was going to find her one day. Oh. Because what had happened, this is funny too. So that same sister in my... Hold up. When I got clean and sober and said, I'm going to go find my birth mother.

The same year, two things happened to my birth mother. because when I got to meet her, we started talking. The first thing that happened was she told her best friend about me. I have this kid, just in it. And all her best friends said, don't worry, he's coming to get you. Then she was sitting there watching something on a life's life channel with my sister. And my sister jokingly turns to my mother and says, you ain't got like out there.

And my birth member thought it was the time to complain. Yes, I do. So my sister did a double take I had this kid this and that I gave him up for adoption Yeah But I met my sister She saw I know Jason

I know Garfield We used at the video shoot football Like show Small world I mean New York is a small world I want to ask a question About I want to give some time To losing Jammaster Jay

You know This friendship, this partnership that you had. It's friendship. Yeah. That just happened to be in front of everybody. But we all grew up together. We live six blocks from each other. So we

just played, it was us playing basketball and going to other people ask me, how do you deal with all of this? I look at my life, I live in one big neighborhood. You know what I'm saying? Don't matter if I'm in Japan and this and that's just one big neighborhood. Me running J,

we just went we expanded we lived in a hood called the world but we accomplished a lot together so when Jamestor J got murdered that was like the end of Run DMC

not the end of Reverend Run and King DMC there's no Run DMC even though his name wasn't in the group it's Run DMC and Jam Master Jay or Jamestor Jay Run DMC. And people go, yeah, yeah, that's right.

And, you know, so we can't record or tour. But you can. People go, but you can go get Flash. And then you can Jazzy Jeff could DJ for you. DJ's crash can be real. That's different. And my joke is this. And everybody said, okay, we understand.

I say this, okay, you don't want to run the FC. Run DMC will get back together when the Beatles get back together. Right. Could that happen, no. Then they said, oh, I can see it. Now, if me and Run was to record, we would have to record. we would have to create a new entity sort of like David Grohl did

with Nirvana. He's not... Navani, went to foolfighters do something new. When you look at what Tom O'Rello did, when Zach and Rage Against the Machine, Chris Cornell, they went audio slave, then they went sound guard and this and that. But Rundi MC as the entity that we still exist.

We own a record and the videos. But when Jay got taken away, you took away the soul of Rundi MC. It's like taking the heartbeat, now me and running just Frankenstein. Stein walking around without the beaten heart. So it was a shock, but his, for me, it was much deeper. I'm an alcoholic suicide, a metaphysical, spiritual wreck, who just found out he got

adopted. That wasn't the only thing. Jamest's J. got murdered. Then my father died. Bifred died six months, about eight months after Jay died. And I remember my father going, who would want to kill Jay? Jay, he wouldn't harm or wasn't he?

So I was dealing with all that trauma. So that saved me by going to therapy. Not only us dealing with why I was drinking and, you know, were you mad at your mother and father for not telling you? Hell yeah. But I understood why they did it. He's doing so good. Let's not ruin this and that, you know.

But then Jay got took him from me. So for me, it was one boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom after another. What was also, I'm curious what it felt like also to have to deal with that kind of thing in public? Now I'm not realizing this is how it feels. felt when Kurt nod. This is how it felt when Jim Morris. I'm a huge rock fan. All that people look at my pictures and see what shirt he's wearing today. I'm the doors and I'm, you know what I'm saying, this and there. I'm such a fan of the rock stars that I heard. Oh, shoot. They sound up,

this is crazy for me. They say, run, Chuck D. says, run DMC and journalists and critics and stuff writers say, run DMC is the Beatles of hip-hop. We had a Beatles moment. John Lennon. I Shot. I couldn't believe you were duplicating everything of Janice Joplin. Like, we have that rock and roll death murder, overdose. I'm just fortunate I didn't overdose. I die. You know what I'm saying? I didn't die like Jim Morrison. So that's why I'm so vocal about it. I got a new rapper say, I'm sick and tired of the pain and the hurt. I do this for Chester, Chris and Kurt. Deaf is appealing so if deaf I flirt.

I tell the world how I feel and they think I'm a jerk. I'm not bugging. I'm struggling. All this guzzling is puzzling. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to stop hanging with Jack and Jim. Jack Daniels and Jim Beams. They're not my friend.

So I can fight this battle not just for me to show you you can win. It doesn't have to happen. Now, when it came to Jay, when it first happened, I think it was on MySpace where I had said, just before MySpace died, I posted, and I don't really post a lot. I posted, and I should have never did this. This is funny.

I posted, I'm not mad at the guy that shot Jay. Should have never did that. Motherfuck, I got curve. Oh, my feed went cruel because I said, let me explain myself. My problem isn't with the person that shot J. That's not my fight. My fight is the mindset of a person,

of the person that would cause to do that. So that's why I'm still here to fight again. Because, look, Jay died, Biggie died, Pock died, um, um, um, um, Keros one guy's died, um, died. So everybody, um, extension died. All these people getting shot. But what about the J's and the Parks and Biggie's dying every day that nobody care? They only care about us, like you said, because I'm in the limelight. But I understand. I felt, I never thought I I could relate to a John Lennon or the first thing of ACDC dying.

I actually, the sex drugs and rocker roll, there's sex drugs and rocker roll elements that are, whoa, they're not supposed to get dead, but it came to me. So it makes me think about my responsibilities even more different. So it's a tragic loss in the likes of all these rock and roll icons, but it's even more tragic loss to life in general, to the doctor that could commit suicide, to the little kid that commits suicide, to the kids that getting murdered and stuff like that.

It's crazy that I have to deal with that, too. So besides therapy, I'm curious what else you do for your mental health. You like to work out. Yeah. Are you a person that meditates? Do you have a God in your life? What are the other things that keep you going? My meditation is creating now. Talk about this in my book. I just, I found The thing that drove me to the 40s, I forgot about my comic books. I forgot about just writing a rhyme just because I want and have the thought. I'm not writing a rhyme to sell it. I'm not writing around to be on the radio.

I'm not right. I was doing it anyway. When I started doing my art for a purpose, that's when it all went wrong. See, running DMC was the Yang and Yang. Run so, whoa, you could get Bentley's and stuff like that. He knew there was a music business. But then he recruited me because our Yang and Yang, will accomplish that without, with everything going perfectly.

That's why I say in the documentary, when run was being run, D was being D, J was being J, we was unstoppable. When we're making a record to sound like the people in the 80s, when we do it, that's when everything went wrong. So my meditation, somebody once told me, two instances in my life, prior to me drinking before I got adopted, I were going Barnes & Noble's. I was buying all these metaphysical books because I wanted to fill this void.

So it was Asian, it was Jewish, it was all of these, you know, the books about it. But then one of the books has said, prayer isn't the act of saying or recited prayer in a certain position. This one person said, prayer is how you live every day. Every minute of our existence is the prayer to God. So when I was so, I remember that one. And then somebody else had said meditation doesn't necessarily have to be. Um, and this and that. Meditation is a state of mind.

That now I achieve that through my creativity. You know, I'm writing so much right now. And here's the beautiful thing about it. Now that I'm not writing so that I could be on MTV, and I'm writing these songs, this is exactly how me and Run came along. I had the rhymes already anyway. I was just prepared.

I tell kids, finger paint, tapped it, just do it to do it so that when that moment comes, I'm so good at what I do because I had a billion hours of rehearsal in my basement. You know what I'm saying? So in April, I got a song with Travis Barker on drums, Mick Morris from Motley crew on guitar, Duff McCagan from Guns and Roses on bass, and me and Sebastian Bach on vocals. And that just came about because I got this idea to do Ram Jams Black Betty over.

And I sampled it, but then I said I needed, I made this record sample. Then I said, I need real, the producer of my man Sonic said, you need real musicians. I go out and I run into Travis Barker. And he says, Dee, I love you. Rock Box changed my life. If you ever need anybody, oh, by the way, send it to me these drums. Running this and Bashian Box. Dee, I love you, this and that.

If you ever, oh, everything, now that I'm sober, everything that I was doing with a lot of effort is bringing the things that came to me effortlessly. So that's my meditation as a state of mind, waking up and going, okay, what am I going to do today? You know, I feel like I'm 12 years old again and going outside to play. You never knew what the day was going to bring you,

but you were so excited about the day. I just love the meditation as a state of mind. it just sounds like that's the ultimate flow state to be creating not towards some end but just so that it is an expression of who you are right yep because it's no destination and that was one of the things that was fortunate about we had no destination let's make a song about our sneakers I tell kids I play no basketball I can't even play basketball and I got a sneaker deal like Jordan it came from that state of mind that's true I hadn't on that I'm saying Think about it. It's crazy. Can you talk a little bit about sort of your family life? You've been

married a long time. Yes, my son is here with me. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about what it's like being a dad with everything that you are kind of still. Like, when you have these kinds of things, they don't leave you. It's just you have a different way to deal with them. What's it been like for you? I honestly got to say I drive my wife and son crazy they look at me, you know, they know who I am but they would just tell you you have no idea we hate this motherfucker I guess I said no I met my wife in 1993 when we put out Down with the King

I met my wife just walk we was working on a down with the King album Run was late for the studio so Jay says yo let's walk to the grocery store We walk into the grocery store. J.C. some, this R&B girl group that he was working with with his friend Stanley Brown and one of the lead singers, we stop and we talk and I look over at my wife and some in my head says, D. That's your wife. What? Yes, like that. So I go, I start trying to get the number. I was 27.

She was 17. No. So I couldn't even start messing with until she turned 18. But here's the cute part about it. When I approached her, she didn't, she wasn't into Run DMC. Because she's 10 years younger to me. She's in a new edition. She's into Stacey Ladisor.

So she heard him Run DMC. She thought Run DMC was a white rock group. So I meet my wife. She goes home and calls her older sisters from my era. I met this guy, DMC, this and then they're, girl, you better answer that phone when you talk back. So it took a whole year for him. before I could even start dating. I had to go to Connecticut to meet her father.

So the beauty about my wife is she wasn't here for the rise of the kingdom. She started slowly learning stuff as we went on and on. And when the kingdom, when my shit went crazy, she stayed there with me. Raising my son. I mean, when I was in my alcoholic suicidal metaphysical stage, I probably spent $250,000 on alcohol.

And I'm out, never home. It's like your mistress. I mean, yeah. And then she raised that kid by herself. So my life with them is this. This is, they, they, well, you know what I'm saying? I'm not trying to be able. My wife and kid is this.

Dad, you don't know who you are. Because everywhere they go, people let them know who I am. But they never, my wife never uses that as that. She don't even, she'll go. work, she'll go to events, and people will find out years later. Why are you going to tell me you did? Because, you know, they don't see it as a big thing. But the beauty of them is they know the DMC that's normal.

Who are you listening to these days? I was just going to ask that, Jonathan. I was just going to ask, Jonathan wanted to know, who are you listening to? And I wanted to know also what you think of sort of hip-hop today and what you think of rap today. Yeah, right now, my playlists is. everything rock and folk rock from the 60s. My cutoff point is probably grunge, but I'm into the black crows and stuff like that.

There's a serious cutoff point. When it comes to hip hop, I got on CD. Hold on a second. What do you like from the 60s and 70s? Do you like Jackson Brown? You like Beatles. Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young.

Do you like Dylan? Are you a Bob Dylan? Dylan, Neil Young, stuff like that. Procol Harum. Yes. All of that stuff. Oh, yeah. White or shade of pale.

That's right. So that's my vibe. So 60 and a folk rock. You know, Jim Croce. Jim Croce. Jim Croce. Harry Chippin. Harry Chippin.

Well, yeah. Amazing. I mean, I was raised on Peter Paul and Mary and like, you know, all those like duets of like Joan Baez. Yeah, Joe Bayez. Yeah, so that's, I'm the classic. I'm the classic rock guy, up to grunge.

But, Classic doesn't mean, oh, I check people. Classic means better than everything that comes after it for eternity. Do you like, like, are you, do you like 50s music? Like, do you like, kind of, do you like Motown? Certain songs. No, I never like Motown is my mom and farthest music. Right.

And mine, thank you. That's why I discovered folk in all of that stuff. Yeah, yeah. That's my mom and Farmer's music. That's my, if I were on a desert island and I had to pick one genre, it would be Motown. I'm a huge Motown person. But, like, 50s, like, were you into sort of like, early little Richard was that like

no no no I only learned about that because of happy days and TV you know TV shows and stuff like that okay so you're like a pure like 60s thing of rock yeah what do you like hip hop like do you like rap is that something you enjoy listening to or does it feel

so different from your musical taste? Yeah it's it's it's it's not that it doesn't connect with me I can never critique another person's creativity it is what it is the whole mumble rap stuff like that,

it just doesn't, it doesn't grab me. You know, a lot of the classic rock that I listen to, a lot of the classic rock that I listen to, it's not just, I'm discovering old music, but it's new to me because I never heard it again. You know what I'm saying? The new, now here's the thing with hip-hop, and I can say this because I'm DMC or run DMC.

You can say whatever you want. Right. So what has happened over the last couple of years, you know, the mumble rap thing and stuff like, that like hip hop came from disco, but hip hop isn't disco. We are our own thing and we never put, they threw disco away.

They called it garbage, disco sucks. We said, no, it don't, and we embraced it, and we used it and stuff like that. The hip hop, the mumble rap, and Eric Sherman of EPMD was saying his first which gave me comfort. I always thought like that. The new hip-hop stuff,

that the core isn't hip-hop. It came from hip-hop. But what has happened is deeper than me addressing genre and saying what it is. Anything that's sacred and holy to people, nation, culture will get diluted, polluted, and destroying once it's commercialized for financial gain. They don't care about the audience. They don't care about the history and not like that. So what has happened now?

And we need to start checking the music business on this. They have taken ignorance, profanity, disrespect, homicide and genocide, and they have promoted it as acceptable to the masses by labeling it hip-hop, just labeling hip-hop. They're using our, what hip-hop is, not just run DMC.

Like we said in the documentary, Ice-T, Chuck D, there's a rule to this. There's a sacred rule to this. But they have taken ignorance, stupidity, violence, and stuff like that, and mass marketed, just label it hip-hop, because if you call it hip-hop, people go and accept it. And what we're saying is, you can rhyme about the gun.

This is hip-hop. Make a record about the gun being used, but your very next single that is playing on the radio every 20 minutes, better be the song about not using it. They don't do that anymore. You can rhyme about the strip club. People go to the strip clubs, but everybody don't go to the strip clubs. So where's the records about to fully. clothed women that don't shake their butts and call

themselves bitches and holes themselves. Where's the women now being put big budgets behind into promoting sell the market, calling themselves queen like Latifah? Where the MC light rappers? You and I are going to make that album. We're going to make that album? We're going to make that album. So to answer your question, there's a lot of good hip-hop

out there. I talk about authentic DJ MC. What has happened with a hip-hop? culture, they totally threw responsibility in the garbage. And just because it's making a few bucks, everybody's saying it's good and it's great and it's false and it's a lie. They're using negativity as a false sense of power. So, Debbie and said, I was speaking at a high school in the Bronx. I go to high schools now. I go to middle schools now. And I go to elementary schools because of my kids. And I speak to kids. But at this one high school, the high school guy asked me, Mr. DMC, what do you think

about mumble rap. Now, he wants me to be 59 years old and hate it. Oh, I hate it. You young whippered this and that. I hit him with this. I go, yo, I could relate to it. And it caught him off ground. He looked at me like, what do you mean? He's supposed to hate that? I said, no, I can't hate it. I said, the only difference between my generation and your generation is you're not being truthful. You're not owning up to your responsibility. And you got to understand. They said the same thing they say about mumble rap. It's nonsense. It ain't saying nothing. They said it about us. They're hop, the hibbit, the hibbit. But the difference is when we got criticized,

we stopped mumbling and hipping and hopping, and we wrote us like that. We wrote the message. We wrote hard times. We wrote Planet Rock. I said, Tupac is not worshiped because he had thug life tattooed on his chest and he went to jail and he got shot.

He's worship for two reasons. I'm telling these kids there. What's that, Mr. DMC? Dear Mama and Brenda had a baby. And you sure heard the kid, yo, that dear mama record sounds ill. I didn't have somebody in his ear saying, Park, write this for, you know, financial gay.

He took it upon his young self-to-s. I'm going to write about teenage pregnancy because I'm in a position to exist, to address the things that's the, um, affect in my community. Listen to how beautiful dear mama is. The music, it's very emotional. So now to set,

and it's nothing to roll. They didn't call punk rock folk rock. They didn't call punk rock and folk rock class, but they all coexist. Mm-hmm. They have taste. making my hip-hop culture from me labeled ignorance and stupid. I ain't going to say it's not good.

It's what they do. But like Eric Sherrin said, they should have called it something else because it's not hip-hop. It came from hip-hop. They're putting beats on and they're talking over the music, but it's not, I'm saying this, and the God is saying it. It's not hip-hop, but it came from hip-hop.

So I can't listen to it. And the reason why I can't listen to it, it doesn't do to me what Neil Young does to me. Neil Young, Chuck D. Ice Cube, de la Soe does this thing to me. I know that, like, you and I are very different people, but it's very, it's really healing to hear that because there's a certain,

there is a certain level of music that, that my kids will listen to, that, um, especially the, the way that we talk about having sex with women, in particular on these songs. It's like it, you can only hear so much of it.

And then it's like, okay, I get it. And it's funny because, you know, my, my assumption is, you know, I'm a fuddy-duddy. No. I don't get it. I'm a prude. I'm a this. But it's kind of like I don't, there's a certain level that I can't. You had that in there when you were younger.

See, I hate when my old. It's because I'm real hip-hop. That's what I need to tell them. Your mom's real hip-hop. Yeah. Yes. No, I'll have to say, here's what it is. We were very mature.

We wanted quality. I hate when my friends say, I must be getting old because I don't know. No, no. When we were younger, the typical, I broke his mind. The typical rapper was 12 to 25 years old growing up. Right. And we knew we had to be creative.

We had to come. But we knew there was a responsibility. I wasn't just rhyming to impress my 18-year-old friends. I wanted the educators and the leaders. And I wanted Bon Jovi to do what he did when we played the first MTV music awards. We the guys that's not going to be here in two years. But Bon Jovi and Cher, those icon, those guys, we love what you guys are doing, man. Oh, I love your song. Keep it up. We wasn't just hip hop to hip, we was making song, you know what I'm saying? When Cher heard,

I'm DMC in a place to be, I go to St. John, sure, honey, honey, listen. Like, you know what I'm saying? We wanted to impress the Dillans. We wanted to impress the James Browns and stuff like that. So it's nothing wrong with what they're doing. I'm like Eric Serman. I'm pissed off that these labels have taken my culture and labeled violence, genocide, homicide, ignorance, disrespect, or women just to sell it. It's not hip-hop.

Call it something else. Here's the problem. If they were to label it something else, people would see the truth in it, and it wouldn't be selling. Yeah, I said it. That's true. If they were to call it something else, it would have did what they were saying run DMC was going to do in a minute.

It would have came out. Pitchhole, shoot. shoot, shoot, shoot. And here's what's crazy, like you just said. It's okay, but why is everybody saying the same thing? It all sounds like. I said, I get it. I get it.

He had sex with her and used that term and called her body that. Exactly. Anyway, you have so many amazing things you do before we let you go. I just want to give extra fantastic shoutouts. You do a lot of things. To make people smile in a good way. There's cookies. And that came up from a joke.

Darrell makes cookies. I've met a baker and I said, I'm going to make some cookies. DMC is going to stand for Darrell makes cookies. They are. I can't. Darrell makes cookies. Darryl makes comics.

But I started my comic book company seven years ago. I go to all the Comic-Con. You might see me at the L.A. Comic-Con. That's unbelievable. You might see me at the same. I'm back where I started. I mean, it's like you don't have to make believe. That's your, I mean.

And also this delightful, really, really adorable kids' book, it's called Daryl's Dream. It's me in the third grade. All I want to do is say my poem. It's so sweet with the glasses and his little microphone. And he's wearing Adidas. The Felix organization you mentioned is a beautiful nonprofit that services kids in the foster system. We have a West Coast Felix organization too.

Oh, awesome. Awesome. The memoir, your memoir is 10 ways not to commit suicide. You don't have to do it. And Peacocks, the doocies series, Kings from Queens. The Run DMC story is out. It is absolutely phenomenal. It's just, it's such a pleasure to get to, to get to talk to you.

One thing before we let you go, it's such a strange crossover that Jonathan and I need to ask about. There's a connection with the Sarah McLaughlin story. Yeah. Can you please share us that connection? I mean, everybody's got a story about that song, but I think yours might top them all. You know what? Here's, it's better than this. Yes.

I'm going to just leave it at this. There's a, there's a site called The Moth. The morph.org? Yeah, I think so. Everybody listening, go listen to the morph, punching DMC's angel story. Go listen to the morph story. And all I want to say is,

Sarah MacLoxin's song literally saved my life. So go to the morph.org, punching Darrell McDaniel's DMC Angel story, and watch what happens. I just pulled it up. Check it out. That is so awesome. Thank you so much for being here.

It's really an honor to get to meet you. I mean, it's like something I never imagined that I would ever get to cross paths with you. Well, me too. I'm like, wow. It's like you was part of my life. Oh, my God. No, for real.

You're like a rock star. You're poor, you know what I'm saying? That's really weird. And like you said, you said you're real hip-hop. I always tell kids, hip-hop didn't just create rappers. It created you, created doctors and lawyers and educators. It created designers, you created bakers and chefs.

It created salmon and lightmen. You know what I'm saying? It didn't just create rappers. I was just a little Jewish girl with New Yorker parents who like let me listen to your music. Right, but you are hip-hop because you artistically, creatively,

creatively, um, compassionately, emotionally, and humanly say this is who I am. Thank you. It's really such a blessing to talk to you. This is a shout out to Josh Netburn and Aaron Matts who wrote this for, we were on a synagogue retreat

and you had to, I don't remember what the assignment was, but I think that we were divided, you know what I do remember, I just remembered, we were divided up into groups and everyone was given one portion

of like the prayer service and they had to do some creative representation of the prayer that they were given. So for anybody who's ever been to synagogue, there's, you know, like, I don't know, there's like a dozen prayers. let's say that you could break up or moments in the service and we were broken up into all these groups so i was in this group with josh netburn and aaron mats who were obsessed with run dmc and

beastie boys and all sorts of things at that time and um the prayer that we were given was called the bar and uh there was i believe that there might have been break dancing on my part that was done while this was wrapped it started my adidas i walked through temple floors and roam all over. Sorry, I can't. Sorry. I tried again. My Adidas. I walk through temple doors and roam all over synagogue floors. I step on the Bima from Paris to Lima and say the Bar-Hu all the way through. It's fantastic. We've got to get a beat underneath it. Anyway, it was powerful. And it was our, my Adidas was brought to that. That was a fantastic bit of music history.

I just like I could talk to him about any of those things for an entire hour. I just, I kind of lost track of time. But just an amazing story, an amazing story, an amazing, an amazing tribute to the power of creativity. And, you know, Jonathan, I wasn't kidding. You send me all these Rick Rubin things. Like, this is what he talks about. the power of just creating for the sake of creating and honing that internal instinct of,

is it good to you? And I love the way Daryl described Rick Rubin. Well, is it good to you? And why do you want to create that? And how does it feel to you? I was like, he's the psychologist of creativity. I was also really taken with, you know, I think that's what true humility looks like,

meaning he really sees himself exactly as he is in music history, but he also was so aware and really acknowledges the whole system that existed to create this phenomenon, you know, that they were. He had the support of so many people, the encouragement of so many people, and it took so many people coming together to believe this could be. And he was literally the guy with the rhymes, like in his little journal, in his diary. And he didn't even want to share them.

It was so cute. Seeing your face when he said that his father turned to his mom and said, I think we'll adopt him, he may do something to change the world. I can't. There's a level of divine intervention in his life at so many points

that seem otherworldly. And the notion that he said he felt like part of him always knew it was waiting for someone to pick him up. Like someone's going to take him. I mean, that's so powerful. And also, like, he had such a deep, his body and his experience had such a deep understanding

of something that he didn't even name until he was a grown man. He had such an awareness of it. He didn't say this in the interview, but we've read elsewhere, he had said, all his cousins knew, all his teachers knew, all the doctors knew, all the nuns knew that he was adopted.

You can feel that. You can feel that something is off. You can't name it, but there's no way that you can go through your life with everyone else knowing around you and you not having a sense that something is off. I want to finish here with a beautiful quote of his. Hip-hop is about keeping it real, telling the truth.

Once I started telling my story, I realized I was doing a lot of interviews for the black community because a lot of black men, men in general, fight the stigma that admitting you have a problem is a sign of weakness. A lot of men, they're fronting. They're hiding the truth. lie, they take substances, they act tough, they're violent. They talk a lot to hide the fact that

they're going through something. Admitting that you have a mental health issue is not being soft. It's the hardest, most powerful thing you can do for yourself. And I would venture to say that's not just true for men, it's true for everyone. And I love that he's using his platform to be such an advocate for something that he pushed away for so long. And there's such a repair that he's doing not just for himself, but for all of the people he touches, all the kids he talks to, and all of the things that he brings with the numerous things that he puts his time and energy into. Absolutely, check out kings from Queens. It's such a fascinating portrait of a time in history that we will never witness again. Yeah, from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, keep it real.

It's my and be all-x breakdown. She's going to break it down. She's going to break it down. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two One fiction one and now she's gonna break down to