Music Saved Me with Darryl "DMC" McDaniels

Join Lynn Hoffman for this behind-the-scenes conversation with Darryll "DMC" McDaniels, the American rapper, actor, author and record producer known for his work as a founding member of the hip-hop group Run-DMC. Darryl is one of the pioneers of the hip-hop culture and he talks with Lynn about his career beginnings, his struggles with depression and addiction and how music has been a saving force in his life. D also talks about the role adoption played in his struggles and how today he is focused on "giving back" to students everywhere.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Music Saved Me, alcoholic suicide and metaphysical spiritual wreck who
is thinking of killing himself already but then finds out
that he's adopted. Oh, let's not forget this. During that time,
Jim I Sagen gets shaw and killing, then my farm
and eye. So I was dealing with all of that.
Please lock on it. It was the music or the music.
I look at it like this, The music had healed

(00:22):
me already.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm Len Hoffman and welcome to the Music Saved Me Podcast,
the podcast where we get to talk in depth to
up and coming artists and musicians as well as some
of the biggest names in the business about the healing
powers of music. On this episode, you are in for
a huge treat. I'm so excited to welcome one of
the very biggest names in music in the world. In fact,

(00:44):
his band run DMC is credited as being the greatest
hip hop band of all time by MTV and the
Beatles of Rap. It's like I have a Beatle here.
I like to refer to him not only as the Goat,
but also as a dear old friend who is one
of the most giving humans that I've ever met on
the planet and in the music industry. Daryl McDaniel's d
mc welcome to.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Music saved me. Thanks for having me. It's so great
to have you here.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
I would it be fair to say that music saved you?

Speaker 1 (01:16):
I hit you with the one right up front right. Yes, yes,
I could say that, but I went and said that
because the actual moment it saved me came later on
in my life. Can you But I can say music
saved me from having to figure out what I was

(01:38):
going to do for career. That's right, and literally saved
my life after that, after I got into the career
of music, it saved my life. Put in the beginning,
I was at Saint John's University. I went to Saint
John's for business management only because my best friend Douglas

(02:00):
Hey shout out to Butter and we shout him out
on rock box when Mangoes but of Love Now co
Tina Man Butter. We was together since kindergarten. So from
kindergarten in the twelfth grade, it was me and him.
If you saw a Butter, you saw me. If you
saw me, you saw a Butter. So in twelfth grade
at Rice High School, all boys Catholic High School at

(02:25):
Harlem UH the guidance Council gives you the life papers
and says, pick a career, pick a college. I didn't
know what I wanted to do. All I cared about
was comic books, That's right. And I was just good
in school. And I was like, Doug, what do I pick?
He said, hold on, pick business management, okay, and pick
Saint John's University. So I did that, and then first

(02:50):
day is Saint John's University. I get up to the
campus snow butter snow Doug. So I go to the
pay phone, I put the money in and I call him.
He's sleep. I'm like, dog, what's up. It's the first
day of school. Because we've been together first day of
school for twelve years. He goes, hold on, I ain't

(03:11):
got no classes. I'll see you later, hangs up on me.
What so now? Anxiety and fear and confusion and abandonment
and alienation and just hitting me. And I turned around.
I'm looking at the big campus of Saint John's University.
I was just like totally overwhelmed. So I went to

(03:32):
the orientation class and I didn't go to my classes
that I had that day, and went back to Alis,
went to the pool hall, and I brought forty yunths
of old English and I sat there saying, Oh my god,
I gotta grow up. I gotta get my life together,

(03:53):
this and that. So that was a journey. That was
a big, big journey, a lot of emotional issues that
I didn't know what later on exploding my life. But
fortunately the reason why I say it saved me. I
was mere and thought it was a class of eighty
two or Rice High School. So Juna eighty two, I
graduated from Rice High School. August of eighty two. My

(04:16):
friend Joseph Simmons, who I went to Saint Pasco being
one elementary school with, he calls me, says, de remember
what four years ago when I said if I ever
make a record, I'm putting you in my group. I'm like, yeah,
grab you around book, We're going in the studio. So
on August of eighty two, we went and we made
a demo for two songs called It's like That in

(04:38):
the B side, because remember it was no albums back then.
Hip hop records were like discos. It was singles and
the B side was suckeram ceas. So now I'm into
the second semester at Saint John's University, realizing I hate
business management, I don't like account What am I going

(04:58):
to do with myself? We had recorded the demo August
eighty two. So now Joseph Simmon called me again, my
brother Russell. He got us a record deal. We're gonna
be on this label called Profile Records. Hooray and he
hangs up, oh my. So that kind of was this
saving moment that music first say through me a life raft.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
It sure did, and then later on cutting through quite
a bit of your life and career, because I don't
know a lot of artists that put out their first
album and it sells a million copies, and then they
have to do another album and then it does even better.
Usually it's all the way around, and then everyone do
you keep going up the ladder?

Speaker 1 (05:42):
We had a three. I kind of look at that
early part of our career as the career of Cream.
It was like trifecta. Yeah, we put the first album OUNT,
and we put the first album OUNT in a world
where okay, we like these hip hop singles, and this
was it. There's no way anybody in this universe once

(06:05):
they hear a whole album full of this hip hop
rap stuff, so we put out the self titled Run DMC,
so five hundred thousand copies and win gold and we
got on MTV. Yeah you did so. Then that was
eighty four. Then in eighty five, when they were saying, okay,
we'll give you all that too, but there's no way
you're going to be around hip hop's are fat it's

(06:28):
gonna die like disco. What are you going to be
doing next year? So I got offended. I was like,
I'm not just doing this show. I'm not going to
be the King of Rocks. So then we did an
album where the balls and the guts to do an
album called King of Rock, and we put that out
and then it went platinum. And then we did a
video with Larry Budd Melman from The David Letterman Show

(06:48):
at the front door of a Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame museum that didn't exist yet, telling us we're
not allowed to come in here. And then look now
the Rock Roll Old Fame Museum. Everybody's like, why is
you rapping there? All of that was pathetic. So that
was eighty four Run DMC, eighty five King of Rock.
Then in eighty six we hooked up with Aerosmith, of course,

(07:13):
walked all the way, they'd walk this way, did a
song about our sneakers. I don't play no basketball and
I got a sneaky deal, just like Michael Jordan. I mean,
you can't write this stuff. You can't. It's crazy. So
who Well, music did a lot, but it definitely saved
my saved me by giving me a career. And then

(07:35):
we'll get into later on where and forget careers saved
my life?

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, I sure did well. Before we go there, I
want to bring up something that you just said about
fifty years of hip hop. Well you didn't say it.
I'm saying it. Last year celebrated fifty years and it
was supposed to be a flash in the pan.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
They were telling you, right, I I thought it would
have win single you had.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
You had everything to do with it. You run, Jason,
you did it all. I mean you took something that
was underground and you made it right right.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
We did on Adidas. I say, what Run DMC did.
We took the beat from the street and put it
on TV. We didn't create it, but we we were
the face. People say, if you look up hip hop
in a dictionary, encyclopedia or online, now your face J. No, No, definitely,
no words, just me running J like that like that's

(08:29):
we definitely did that, that's the answer. Yeah, we definitely
did that. When were you first exposed to music as
a kid growing up? Oh you remember, yes, I definitely remember.
I probably was. Let me see, it was after kindergarten
when I started paying attention, probably six or seven years old.
It was AM radio, a lot of AM stations, but

(08:52):
it was all segregated, a separate yet the white station
you at, the black AM stations w WORL had all
of the w O R, all of these different but
it was separate. But the thing that was the exposure
to it that made me catch the cold or the flu.

(09:12):
The thing that made me catch it was seventy seven
w ABC in New York City FM Dan Ingram, Oh yeah,
Harry Harrison, that's the stud chuck in my life. That's
when I started paying attention to music because before that,
for me, prior to that, prior to seventy seven w ABC,
it was comic books, the old black and white Godzilla movies,

(09:37):
Oh my God, and the old black white nineteen thirties Horruthor,
Lawn Cheney, Bela Lagosi, Boris call it. Those are the
best movies ever made in the history of cinema. Do
you watch Single Wolf? Yeah? I love every Saturday Night
in the Avenue Costellos or Sunday Meet the Wolfburg. So

(09:58):
that was my life for seventy seven. W A b C.
Made me pay attention to music because prior to that,
Al Green, I was never in the soul music Al Green,
Marvin Gayeretha Frank, oldest people. That was my mother and
father's music. That's because they were cool, like they're always cool,
Rest in peace. But that was I'm a kid, so

(10:20):
I didn't have a music that was mine. But when
seventy seven w ABC came along, you know, you have
the black station playing Slive, James Brown and Jacks and Fire.
You had the white stations playing Crosby Still Younger, Nass,
the Beatles and the Stones, and seventy seven there we

(10:42):
used to played all together. So you would hear Crosby
Still Younger, Nass, Anyould here, Slide Family Stone, you would
hear Elwen John and Bob Dylan, and then you would
hear James Brown. A lot of that. But I started
paying attention to seventy seven w ABC because when the
rock songs came on, like Zeppelin and all that and

(11:02):
Neil Young and stuff like that. The beats and the
guitars was harder than the R and B in the
soul music. So I'm in the comic books. I was like, oh,
these drums are crazy. So I remember one of the
first songs that caught my attention over was two songs
the Beatles Let it Be, But only because I went

(11:23):
to Catholic school. So there's a line in there, and
I didn't learn this till later. There's a line in
there when Paul McCartney says, a mother Mary comes to me.
So I'm a kid something, oh the version married. Like
I'm listening to the stories telling. Later on, I found
out his mother was the name married. But my whole
life until I probably was twenty something years old when

(11:47):
I read something in Paul McCarty's mother's name Mary for
my whole life's but I'm only paying attention to Let
it Be because I'm a Catholic school kid. That was
a connected ben. It was a beautiful song, so I
was like, wow, I mean it was so bitch. He's
laying there and mother married. He saw the Virgin American
management But the other song that I always would stop

(12:09):
playing whatever it was to do was Doobie Brothers Blackwater.
Oh my gosh, hearing that on the radio, it was
just something either there were either yes ethereal you could
touch it for you. Yeah, it was just it just
did something. But those were seventy seven w ABC changed

(12:29):
my life. What touched my life? It did?

Speaker 2 (12:32):
And what do you think it is about music that
affects us? The moment? It was for me, it was
just storyteller because I'm comic book so the story so
hearing yeah, Harry Chapin, Jim Crochey.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Bad bad Leroy Brown Bad. It ain't even had a
video for it, had an animated video back then for
that he did. Yeah, yeah, but it was just it
was definitely this storytelling from Oh Foggety John Foggey Credence, like,
oh my, I can't name them all them songs, all
Knights and White. It was just there was just something

(13:12):
because I guess so was so familiar to me because
my mother and I was playing it, so I was
here and knees saw it was harmonicas it was just
it was different, but it was storytelling. It definitely was
the storytelling because most most of them, you know, Marvin
Gaye was the soul sex love man, you know what
I'm saying, which was cool, but the storytelling like a

(13:36):
foggey looking out my back door and you know Harry
Chapin's cats and it was just it was a storytelling.
It was about life. So it made the and I
know these guys were famous, but it made him seem
so normal. Relata records, what gave you the inspiration to be?

Speaker 2 (14:00):
I mean to be so relatable because when I listened
to run DMC when I was, you know, freshman in
high school, it was everything to me.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Was your first record? Nice? Right? And it was it
was like my friends, right, that's that's a great that's
a great now and no, yeah, no, it's great that
you notice that because in the beginning, most of the
hip hop was considered black ghetto music, and rightfully so,
because it was all about the conditions in the ghetto.
Sure it was the message, but even if you go back,

(14:31):
every record was a message. It was dark and depressing.
I'm a happy kid with comic books and I go
to school and I got both parents in my house,
so me hip keep it real. So it's funny you
said that I can't come and talk about broken glass everywhere.
I got both parents in my house. They pay for
me and my brother to go to Catholic school. My father,

(14:51):
they didn't have a Fleetwood or El Dorado, but he
had the poor man's Cadillac, the Buick Electra. Two twenty
five min old who's had a good life. You know.
Run used to say, it ain't Christmas in your house
on Christmas, It's Christmas in your house every day. Because
I have very very loving parents. So me coming in
the hip hop, I'm like, I can't rhyme like Mellie Mellan.

(15:12):
I'm about what I don't think queens. I gotta fence
around my house, and my father mows the lawn. We
gotta we gotta. My dad water is the lawn and
mows it. So for me, I was like, when I come,
I gotta come. I gotta be like Dylan. I just
got to tell the story of I'm DMC in the

(15:33):
place to be a go to Saint John's University. But
everybody was running about gangs and sticks. I'm romming about that,
but those people related to them, the people in the
Bronx and mad because they knew that this really existed.
So I think I kind of broke the mold with
hip hop because even in the dark, scary, destructive, death

(15:59):
ridden ghetto, there was kids playing hopscotch, There was girls
playing double, there was kids reading comic books and drawings.
So it pisses me off that when you say the street,
everybody always associates the street with negativity. But that's because
of the Median house played when you say the street
pimps and drugs and drugs and gang bangers, that's true,

(16:20):
But what about every kid's cheeing bubble gum? When I
came along, I said, Foggety and Dylan and John and Paul,
they would write stories about what the mothers and the
farmers and the bakers and the milkman said, I'm gonna
do that.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
And you never talked down to anyone either. You just
in a way run dmc led by example right exactly.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
You wasn't wrong for selling drugs, he wasn't wrong from
being a gang. But we gave you all the alternatives
that she was overlooking. So it was a very visual thing.
And that's why you said, you even you know a
white girl, you can relate to what run Y I
related beyoncause those things are present in everybody.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
It was everything I was doing that was the Christmas
time in Hollis queens and moms cooking.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Check and even if you wasn't celebrating Christmas, what do
people from all coaches do on festive occasions? Like right now,
I can't go to the mall because Jewish people, Mostlim people,
Asian people. They screamed my lyric at me about the
Jewish family, DMC, it's Christmas. I guess what we're going

(17:29):
on to listen to? You know what I'm saying, because
they can relate to the essence of what was presenting.
So I definitely got that from John and Paul and
Neil Young and all those cats.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
When you're young, starting out, it's difficult to be well
you expressing yourself for your music as artists. How important
it is is it to be yourself?

Speaker 1 (17:59):
You know it's it's very important. Now. I never thought
this would happened with hip hop, with with pop music.
There's the thing where you can get person and you
write the music for it, you choreograph them this and that.
Like what I'm trying to say is no, I never
thought this happened to hip hop because hip hop. You know,

(18:22):
the whole Drake thing about ghost writing and stuff like that. Yeah,
that's allowed now a hip hop because we're in the
music business. But with or without the music business is
hip hop. So I'm talking from that point. But what
I'm trying to say is Britney Spears is phenomenal, but
she needs somebody to write it, to choreograph it. Clover

(18:44):
just stylist and alect Sheryl Crown other hand, don't even
need electricity. You give her an acoustic guitar, she'll sit
on the stage in front of three thousand people and
you will be entertained. So for us, coming hip hop
was all about authent city. So the reason why rundium
c was respected, the reason why Will Smith was respected,

(19:06):
the sick grit was it we didn't try to reach
and be something that we weren't. We were able to,
like Nirvana said, come as you are, So you have
to have integrity. But over the years in hip hop
there's a lot of people that didn't gang bang who

(19:26):
thrown up gang size. But that's only because of this.
Anything that is sacred, holy to a culture or people
will get diluted, polluted, used, abused, and destroyed. Once it's commercialized,
anything not just anything. So for rundium C it was

(19:47):
we took it the responsibility us to keep it. Two
turned tables, microphone and legit. You can come wrong about
your drugs and all of that, and even the guys
that did live that life, there was enough rule. I'm
gonna do this record about my gun and my drugs.
But my very next record, which will be my single
in hot rotation on the radio every fifteen minutes like

(20:11):
music does, will be me the guy who just told
you I shot and sold drugs, saying not to do
what I'm doing. That's lacking now because now you're in
the business, they want to see what's working. Get rid
of that stuff. We don't care about lives, We don't
care about what's going on in society. We only worried
about this bottom line. So we're a run DMC, like

(20:32):
Ice Tea said, run dm C yo RUNNINGMC made positivity gangster. Yes,
you doing to the top and was standing there like
what all of you all without? Well, I mean we
cursed on about two records barely Barrett, you know what
I'm saying. We didn't shoot, we didn't disrespect women and
l That was another guy who did it too. He
never called the lady out of their name. Now he

(20:55):
lifted women up. He never used to be in the
H word, you know what I'm saying. So that's power.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Power is getting on stage with one hundred thousand people
at Live AID with all these rock bands saying you're
the king of rock.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Really were you scared? Yeah, we didn't want to do it.
That's the funny joke. Because we got the call we
on to we live. We're good right now, we get
a call we gotta go to Philly. In the RF case,
who's on the black side. Nope, nobody else trying to
do No, you're trying to get us. No mean running
to we literally me and run chopping it and play sick.

(21:30):
We did a lot of stuff to get as we do.
We wanted to play sick and y'all ain't sick, motherfuckers,
get your nor Russell and the label get on a
state it was. We didn't want to go. But I
didn't even find this out. Telling years later too, they
were having a meeting about to line up in Philly

(21:51):
and Bill Graham, the great promoter producer you know who
he is. Legend says yeah, run DMC and the to me.
And there's people there that verified this. A lot of
people say, why do you want them on this for
they're not even gonna be here in five years? Hip
hop's a fan like that whole thing. Yeah, I forgot

(22:13):
who told me so? Money Individ said yeah, I was
in the room. Bill Graham said, if rundym S is
not on this, I'm pulling out. Wow. Wow, Bill, I said,
did he did? Because you know, he's dude, he knows
everything is something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying.
And he was like, this ain't disco. This is something

(22:36):
I don't know. Even if he didn't know what it is,
he knew it was something that East. He saw this before.
And fritzco you know what I'm saying, he fillmore. He
said no. Bill Graham says, if Rundy's now on this,
I'm pulling out. And I was like what Wow.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
That's It's amazing when you find out all the years later,
think when you talk to people and you hear the in.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
The nervousness, we just I'll think us, we don't know
what's going on. Let's just go out there and do
what we do. So if you go on YouTube right now,
you can see the performance. Everything goes wrong. When Jay's
doing the beginning, the needle keeps jumping. See it's different
with the band. With the band, you'd get the drama
and this and that. We get up. When we showed

(23:18):
up there, the stage crew was like, hey, where's the
instruments and we don't have the turn tables. So the
guys that knew about what run DMC was doing, they
thought it was funny, but they're I'm talking about the
hardcore rock religious monks of hip hop, was like, y'are
playing goddamn records like it was. They was disgusted about it,

(23:42):
so they set the turntables up for us. There you go,
go do your thing. But when we came off stage,
the same guys it was eighth was ol oh, hell yo.
That was crazy, the like it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
It was, I mean just the reach that you realized
you had at that moment worldwide, you.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Know, and when they announce starts, I mean people say
no they did. That's why it was eighty twenty eighty thousand.
All those people it's like, yeah, we know these guys,
even know them or this is cool, but you still
have the twenty boom? Did you even hear them boo? No?
You know I heard them? Oh man, but everybody, a
lot of people's I know, I was there. They wasn't

(24:22):
doing it like a lot of people was. People in
Philly came to see her under your CEB part of this,
which was cool. Do you do you believe music has
healing powers? Yes? I do, honey, it's it's it's clinically proven.
Tell me how you feel that. I work with this

(24:44):
organization called hip Hop Public Health. Doctor Williams, a lady
Jo can't pronounce his name, but doctor Williams, huge hip
hop guy. They used music as therapy for kids, for
adults and everything. People with memory loss, people with brain problems,
people with comas and concussions. They use music to you

(25:09):
play a song, the person that didn't move or flinch
will start moving their head. What's happened in that foot?
Or people would speak things. You got to learn to
speak all over again. Oh, don't give them phonics, but
you don't say put a song on, I start singing.

(25:31):
So it definitely has because it's music. Is the vibration
of life percent on it.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
When it got late later in your career, and you
were talking about it earlier, about how the management would
start telling you, oh, after all this what to do and.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
How to do it, and you do it and you're
just doing it and everything that somebody would want in
the music business is happening. But once it's happening, people
that don't understand the business, no, the life and the
joy and the data. They're not coming from where you are.

(26:08):
So you're getting you're getting charted, you're getting on the radio,
you're touring, and you're making money. People around you start
saying you need to chart, you need to get on
the radio, you need to tour, you need to make money.
That's when I started going, I need to so not
just because they're saying that I'm getting scared, Oh my god,

(26:30):
what if I let people down? And then all of
that comes in anxiety, and and then I said, doctor,
if I need to do it, what you have to
start thinking what if I can't. So then I started
reaching for something outside of my body to give me strength,
which was the alcohol, to help me deal with those
emotions and feelings.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, and they also tried to make you play music
that you didn't even want to play.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah against the rappers big and stuff like that, and
against Jane Rest in peace. But remember New Jack swing up? Yes, yes, yeh.
Talk about this in my book Jay One. Jay was
the guy, the new style. You know, Jay, he was
the he was the he was, he was the how
you say that, the current, He was the flavor. So

(27:18):
anything just the gold change shake. I never brought a
gold change in my life. Jay brought me my dookie world.
I didn't want one. So Jay was like, Yo, we
gotta do these New Jack and they were all right records,
and I did them, knowing it wasn't for me though.
I didn't know the reality of doing something to ease

(27:38):
others and it will kill you, yes, because I started
drinking myself to death. My therapist was told me, do
you What she should have did is say you sit
down and say no, yes, no, no, come back to me.
When y'all get yourself your system. I'll be But I didn't.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
No, you didn't, And that would probably bring you around
to the next time that music saved you. We'll be
right back with more of the Music Saved Me podcast.
And by the way, if you like this podcast, you
are going to love our companion podcast called Taking a Walk.
It's hosted by my dear friend Buzz Night and you
can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back

(28:25):
to the Music Saved Me podcast, the podcast where we
discussed the healing powers of music with some of the
biggest names in music as well as up and comers.
I remember you told me a story the first time,
maybe the second time I met you. I think it
was VH one, and we sat on the couch and
it was all very professional, and you told me a

(28:47):
story and my jaw hit the floor. I think it
was around the time you went to search for your
birth mom.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
Right, Yeah, and that was right. I was an alcoholic
suicide of metaphysical correct. But that's a funny, Joe. It came.
All of this came in a good time. All through
the eighties everything we just talked about, and the nineties
hip hop had changed. We were still run demn Cibard,
Jet Tupac, Biggie n w A, Slick Rick, Naughty by Nature,

(29:15):
Chop or Daylight sold It. We were still run DMC,
but we wasn't participating as much. But then in nineteen
ninety three, one of the guys who were inspired by
us run Pete Rock, Pete Rock, seal smooth, they reminiss
over range.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
Oh he didn't he do that the King? He produced
down with the car, Down with the King. That's right, right,
he produces down with the King. This is funny. People
do this down with the King. Oh this is even deeper.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Everybody people saying run demn C brought Aerosmith back by
doing walked this way over with them. Yea, So the
same thing that we did for Aerosmith in eighty six,
Pete Rock did for us in ninety three when he
did Down with the King. For us, him and CEO
did our first verses off of Succrum Ceas gallenty Ting

(30:05):
put us back on a chart, back on the radio,
back on MTV with the video, and back on the roll.
So here we all were back again. As soon as
that happened to me, I woke up the next day
wanting to kill myself. Oh no know why just all
of this happen. We're back on a roll, back on MTV,
back on the chart, back tour, and now we're touring

(30:27):
and everybody from day I sold in Naughty My Nature
and tripqalk Quest, they're saying they're only where they're at
because of us. So now we're back in where the
old g's. We're back in with them. And you know,
in the eighties was getting the eighties pay day. Now
in the nineties were getting the nineties pay day. Yeah,

(30:48):
I'm saying, which is now now these rappers is getting
two fifty and up. So now we're back into that
and we're back on MTV, back on the chart, back touring.
And I just woke up the next the day I
to the video down, went to King video dropped on MTV.
Easy E was in it, Redman was in it. It was chryonic,
so it was crazy. I woke up in the next

(31:09):
morning wanted to come and sol, not knowing why. It
was just all that happened. It was what's this? And
something in my spirits said something's missing and I couldn't
put my hand on it. And I was like, Okay,
let me look at my life from Darryl McDaniels from Alice, Queens,
New York Byferd and Banner's my mother, Alfred's my brother

(31:30):
runs my friend. You remember the rock son of byfriend,
brother of al Banner's my mother runs my pal. It's McDaniels,
not McDonald's these rhymes are Darrel's, those burgers are donald's.
I ran down my family tree, my mother, my father,
my brother and me. Okay, and then Jay joins the group.
We put out one single, put on another single, and

(31:52):
then the album's first album said first to go go
first and go platinum first one the cover roller Stone
first with the Sneaker deals first with the Victor's first,
with the Dope movie. Everything that hip hop is doing.
They say it's because of me running, me running j
But why am I feeling it? And I had no
idea what it was, so I'm walking around in this hage.
But it didn't And now because the adoption thing came

(32:18):
because I'm feeling this void and it got uncomfortable, not
knowing what to I'm dmc the Mighty King or rot,
not knowing what to do. So my stupid brain goes,
I don't want to live with this anymore. So now
I'm thinking I killing myself. How crazy is that? But
then I go, hold up, if I die tomorrow, people

(32:39):
know the music, I got the albums, they got the videos,
but they don't know who Daryl is. So just in
case I kill myself, I want to write a book,
and I want to start the book. Hey world, I'm
Daryl McDaniels from the groundbreaking run DMC. You know me.
First of go go first, go platting for all of
that stuff, but really, just Daryl McDaniels. I'm from Hollis Queens,
New York. I was born May thirty, first ninety. Said

(33:01):
then I just realized, Oh, I know my birthday, but
I don't know no details about it. So just to
make it more interesting for the reader, I call my
mother up. Now I'm looking back, I should have called mom.
I'm feeling I'm sure, but you know, the stigma. Don't
want to be troubled with nobody's I supposed to be strong.

(33:21):
I'm a black man rapper, you know what I'm saying.
So I called my mother up and instead of saying
and she's my mother, she would have did and she
was a nurse, she would have known what to do.
But let me skip past her. I just go, Mom,
I'm writing this book, and just to make it more
interest for the reader, I want to know three things.
How much should I weigh? She told me what time

(33:41):
I was born? She told me, well hospital, she told me,
I love you. So I love you toom. I hung up.
So now at this point in my life, I'm an
alcoholic suicide and metaphysical spiritual wreck with a void inside
them that don't know what's going on. An hour goes by,
she calls back with my father son, Hey Dad, They go,
we have something else to tell you. Now I'm thinking

(34:04):
they're gonna go, well, when you was born, there was
a power eutish in the hospital and we gave birth
to you my handlelight something like that. No, they didn't
hit me with that. They was like this, we have
something else to tell you, And I go, what you
was a month old when we brought you home and
your adopted, but we love you by click, So madder
me dealing with all the stuff that I was dealing with.

(34:24):
Now I just found right. They didn't know it. But
what happened was when I asked those questions, my mother
hung up and ran on my father. Byfriend, he's about
to write a book and he's asking questions. So this
thing they hid from me my whole life. Don't never
tell him he's a straight A student. They never tell
him he's on an honor row. Don't never tell him
he made it. The Saint John you first, and he
wouldn't know. My brother, who's their biologically said, d don't

(34:47):
you after all this came out, don't you know if
you never asked that question, they would have never told you.
But she goes with my father. He's about to shit.
We gotta tell him. So they called me back. Now
they could have don I did better. But you gotta
understand in the nineties and seventies, you know, but I
heard they didn't even have the book that they give
to the parents. And you're telling yourself it was something

(35:08):
that you don't tell them. Yeah, yeah, So they called
me back and they're like, he was a month old
when we brought you home and you're adopted. So that
just crushed me in before I really killed myself. Now
to killer thing about that is, from nineteen ninety to
ninety to this revelation of finding out that I was adopted,

(35:32):
I got to go back some I had a cute
pancreatitis in nineteen ninety because I was drinking a case
of Old English. Today and the reason why that that
is significant is a lot of harmful, harmful behaviors and
everybody's community is celebrated. The guy that could take twenty shots.

(35:56):
Nobody stops at at number five and says, what's wrong
the girl sleeping with every the guy that did No,
guy's fighting and beating everybody up in the neighborhood. He's
just beating everybody's ass. Nobody stops him and said, who's
abusing you or who's meeting you? So I'm going to
stuff that has been existing for eons. But so from

(36:18):
ninety I was drinking a case ling, not one in
a case twelve. I was so alcoholic I put a
figgerator in the back of my truck. No, I didn't
have to stop at the deli. So caught up with
me in nineteen ninety out of q pancret titus to
doctor says to me, dy, when they I was in

(36:38):
the hospital for like a month and a half. When
they discharged me, doctor just says, son, you have two
choices in life. You can drink and die or not
drink and live. So I was good, but now you're mourful.
When we brought you, so imagine this. I didn't know
what I didn't know about therapy. I didn't know this agency,

(37:00):
and so I went right back to the thing that
I knew, the self medication, So I started drinking. So
I'm drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking,
getting depressed, depressed, depressed, depressed, the press. So that was
my life when Down went the King out, I was
a functional alcoholic getting depressed, depressed, depressed, wrest So then

(37:22):
what manifest emotionally, Well, what's going on emotionally will manifest
itself physically. So down with the King are we back
on the road, returing by the sixth show, my voice leaves,
just bye, bye bye. So my alcoholic, depressed man who

(37:45):
just found out that he was adopted, who's back on
the charts with a powerhouse song, back out there doing
what I was doing in the eighties, with this void
and all this mental stuff going on, not doing any
thing about it. That alcohol is not helping. I felt
ill when I was drunk, but not realizing when the
high way down the problem sit here. So then my

(38:08):
voice says bye, I'm leaving. So now I go I
can't rhyme no more, thinking that's the only reason I
was put here to be. But because my voice is gone,
I think that I have no reason to be here now.
So now I'm making a decisions. I gotta kill myself

(38:30):
because I can't. And now I'm thinking, even without a voice,
I can still live a productive, wonderful life, but in
this depressed state. So now I'm gonna kill myself. So
we come home from Europe and this is gonna be funny.
You want a good Jersey story. Oh, I was living

(38:50):
in Jersey at the time, So all of this has
happened to me. Lynn, the pancreatitis, now the adoption thing.
My voice is gone and I'm still run and I'm
still I should have It was better that I was
on the road struggling than sitting at because I might
have really killed myself. But running Jay was like, de

(39:11):
we'll help you. We gotta get this check. So now
without a voice, I still got to perform, but not
because I needed to. I don't want let run in Jada.
So I'm out the right and they're doing over dumbs.
They're playing the vocal versions in the record. So imagine
how that felt. Imagine being at a Montrose jazz festival

(39:34):
and can't run, but I gotta go out there and
act happy. That was killer. So in all story, show
up real quickly. This is this is gonna be funny
to everybody. So we're coming home from Europe. We go
to Europe and my travel agent calls, Now, this is
gonna be funny because you are everybody here travels. It

(39:57):
could have been anything. It could have been like some
traumatic event. Could have been an earthquake, a tornado. For
my My trowel agent calls me, and this is funny,
Shelley d Nunzio. She's scared to tell me that. She said,
Darryl old On, I don't know how to tell you this.

(40:19):
What is it, Shelley, there's no flights into Newark. You
gotta go to JFK. How what she tells me that
I go, I'm definitely killing myself down in this song,
and you don't want to go to JFK. True story,
lend that little thing. I don't all. I'm already on

(40:41):
my alcoholic bankrupt she and she's scared to tell me this.
You gotta go to JFK. There's no other no. And
in my mind when I get home, I'm killing myself
what because that's how bad it was. But people can't
understand want to go to JFK. So that was God's

(41:02):
message to me. Yes, it's that bad. So I get
to JFK. I'm thinking, Am I gonna drink? Oh? No,
am I gonna drink the poison? Am I gonna shoot myself?
Am I gonna hang myself? I'm thinking about it. There
was times, and I gotta be honest, there was times
where oh I said, I'm gonna take a gun and

(41:24):
go to the morning and kill people. Whoa WHOA true?
Because you're gonna that was there? Just yeah, that's how
bad it were. So I get to JFK and it's
a guy standing there with the sign real professional, that's me. Cool?
How many ba? I got two bags? So I'm pissed

(41:48):
with all other stuff that's really more important to be
wearing about Darrow. But that was just the sum to
sum it all up. So we get in the car
and we're leaving j f K and the drivers I'm here,
you know, on the passenger I'm on the passenger's side
in the back, and the drivers in the front, and
you know, you got the rear view venue. So I'm
like this, but I feel something and I look up

(42:12):
into the mirror and it was the drive. He was
looking at me because he can't believe DMC's backing. But
every time I would look up. He would turn his
head and he did it like two times. And we
coming out of JFK. It's like three lights. So I said,
when we get to the last night, I'm gonna be
looking in the mirror. When he turns to look at me,
we're gonna hit eye to eye. So we hit eye
of eye. Boom boom, boom boom. And in that moment

(42:34):
he's driving and he just turns to me. I said, DC,
please don't tell nobody this man. Your music saved me.
It got me to the roughest tombs in my life.
I had the worst Paris ever, and every time my
knuckle had Paris do do something, I would go into
my bedroom with my Raisin Helk. It's that tape and
that thing would make me feel that I was in heaven.

(42:54):
So I'm like and then he goes, can y'all get
an autograph? And I'm like, I'll take a What you doing?
So he opened? Now right he's open. He's like, oh,
really cool. So we driving. He says, said, just make
sure you don't tell my boy. So we're driving it
because I'm DMC in New York City. He goes, could
I turn the radio on now? The last thing I

(43:15):
wanted to hear was any music. I can't speak, I
can't go on. The last thing I wanted to hear
was any hip hop music because I can't do the
thing that I'm really good at normal. So I say, yeah,
you could turn it off. He turns into Hot ninety
seven buff station and busts on and slick ricks on.
I say, yo, turn it to any any surprise, turn

(43:39):
it to anything except that. So he turns it to
light of f him. And at the time he turns
it light and all I hear was this piano and
this angelic voice going in the arms of an angel.
Flyaway in the dark cold hold Sarah Mclochlan's Angel is on.

(44:02):
And at that moment in the car, something me says,
you know how you talk like right now, I was
talking to Yah. When you talk to yourself, you hear
yourself talking out said so now that don't yourself right
That voice says, Daryld. Life may be fucked up, but
if something this beautiful exists, it's good to be alive. Wow.

(44:24):
So from that day on, all I did was listening
to Sam McLachlan's Angel. I go home to my wife,
remember it was in the movie City of Angels with
Nicholas Cage, mag Ran Meg Ryan, Right, yes, remember that
movie was on that side. So I go, honey, did
you hit that record? And she said yeah, I said

(44:47):
the movie. So for Christmas, she buys me the sound
check of that album to sign. Yeah, and then she
goes out and buys me All Listener and mc lachlan's
album and stuff like that. But she had no idea
what was going on with me. I'm listening to that
record because of what the did it to me in
a car. So for one whole year all I listened
to was Sam maclarker. And It's funny. When I finally

(45:07):
went to therapy and rehab, my therapist said, do you
have a lot of willpower? Because even through all of
the pancreat titus to all the forties and when I
started drinking again because of the adoption revelation, I was
still going to the gym. But now when I look back,
I'm like, I will go to the gym some mornings
and I'd be on the treadmill and everybody would be

(45:29):
on that side of the gym, and I'm trying to
figure there's indeed the fucking alcohol is coming on your poors.
You probably smelt like fucking garbage lawns some research. So anyway,
you're like, everyone's always coming to me, and now he's saying, hey,
but they ain't coming over there because I was drinking
from five in the morning to five in the morning.

(45:50):
Wow wow, and you look amazing. You wouldn't even know.
It's crazy. So for one whole year, listen Sarah McLoughlin. Eric,
who's here with me right now, Him and Tracy Miller,
who he spoked to. They know something's wrong. Keep him busy,
so they're trying to keep you busy. Eric gets tickets

(46:11):
to go to Clive davis grammy party. He comes to
me and he says, D we're going to cover this
is me fuck Clive Davis. But I can't run on.
I fuck the music. Just in there. I tell Eric this,
all I want to do is sit in my room
and listen to Sarah mc lockley. So Eric goes, and
you gotta understand this is funny too. He goes, he

(46:32):
got two tickets right, He looks at me. He cauldn't
get three, but he got two for dmc. He says, D,
I worked really hard to get these tickets, and it
was funny. Lining I remember the way he said that
to me. I just looked at him and in my mind,
I'm crazy. Now, this fool probably done sold his soul
to the devil just to go to Love Davis Grammy.

(46:56):
So I'm going up for me for him. But that's
how you are. That's up. So I said, okay, we're
gonna go whatever. So we go to Clid davis Grammy
party and I'm telling him I'm only staying one hour,
and he's doing the management thing because he thinks he's
gonna get me to do the red carpet this and that.
So we get there. First of all, we get there,

(47:19):
the door is a mile away. It's no way we
get into that door. But Eric's funny. He just said,
de I know you don't want to do it. Just
wear your hat, Okay. So I walk up to Clive
Davis Grammy Park. The big bounces for the size of
Snoop Dogg's bouncers seize the hat way in the back.
Just true story, all right, Everybody moved to the fucking

(47:43):
they put it, and Eric smiling because he even smart,
we walk I'm walking past. My joke is I saw God,
Jesus and Moses, and I'm like, hey, God, hey Jesus.
I'm getting in about the way. So we get in
and Eric goes, you'll go do the rect But this
is I said, motherfucker. And he can tell you, O

(48:03):
d you was fucking me. I said, motherfucker. Only came
in for you. I'm sitting right here by his door
and I'm leaving in one hour, and he's trying to
do in the management thing I saw going fifty nine
fifty eight doing my account. So he just walks away,
hands and airs. I'm sitting there. Busting Rome comes in,
Oh my God, giving me love yo, and it Buster

(48:24):
makes an announcement, ladies and gentlemen. They didn't just change music,
they changed everything. They changed fast and aStyle. So Busting
walks away. I was like, the last person I wanted
to see was Busting and I'm saying, then I always
say this, and this is Trudeau. Buster comes in, and
then Stevie Wonder comes in, but he didn't see me.

(48:44):
What I mean by that is Steevie Wonder comes in,
but he didn't see me because his boy saw me.
Hold up his boy. Stevie's just being Stevie. His boy
sees me and takes Stevie's true story. He sees me
sitting in my depressed and his boy sees me and
he goes see me. Dmc wants to meet you. That's
real funny. The god tells that. So he brings Stevie

(49:08):
over and Stevie yokat you cats and starts telling how
much Stevie wanted telling me how much he loves her MC.
But I'm still not at the point where the this
is good to be alive. If you never rhyme again,
you touch like Alicia Keyes comes in, Hey, I know Russell,
I know Kamara, I know running the family and kids.
I never got to meet you. And she says, honored

(49:28):
to meet you. D boom boom, and she walks away.
Then I'm sitting there. I can't wait to go back
to my room just to put in if the Walkman,
I had a CD of it, put Angel beck On,
who walks in?

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Sarah McLoughlin, Oh, now what happens?

Speaker 1 (49:47):
What do I do this and that in the voice again?
Do you just get up and go tell her what
her music did for you? So I walk over to Sarah.
She sees because I have to have one run, dmc.
This trick you to rock and run, rock and run.
Sarah was amazing and she was like yeah, she was
like rock y'all, I love you guys, and this and that.
I said, miss mc loughlow, I just want to tell

(50:09):
you the name of the song is Angel. You sound
like Angel. People are saying Angel, but you're another angel
to me, your God. And I go went to listen
to your record every day for twenty four hours for
the last and so when I finished, she's looking at
me like, yeah, I was just trying to say your
ass right, But then she says this, She says, thank you,
this is powerful for this music save me. She goes

(50:31):
she said I had I was gonna kill me. And
she says, thank you for telling me that, Daryl, because
that's what music is supposed to do, shakes my hand
and walks away. Wow. Wow, Now what's crazy is I
had never experienced that because the closest I got to
it was the guy in the car telling me, did

(50:52):
I have to work for the music? Saved me? Ain't
never happened to me, but it did. It was happening
to me. Do all of that. And then she told
me that, and I was like, oh wow, So I
think it's crazier there. I got no voice. But when
she tells me that the Daryl thing, oh my god,

(51:14):
I gotta do something because now I'm thinking there's probably
a billion adopted kids like me who have these same
feelings in the motion. I gotta do something that's gonna
help those people who feel like I feel the same
way Sarah's record did for me. So this is mind black,
so I said. Seventy seven w ABC, there was this

(51:35):
record by this guy named Harry Chapman called Cats in
a Cradle. It was this song about a father who
had no time for the kids. Child is born just
the other day, came into the world in the usual way.
But the Cats in the Cradle in the silverspone and
that the drums drop. It was so hip hop to me.
So I said, I know what I'm gonna I'm gonna
take cat This is crazy, this but crazy, it's beautiful.

(51:58):
I'm gonna take Cats in a Cradle and I'm gonna
write a rap about how good my parents were to me,
because Cat's in the Cradle was about parents, said father,
but that didn't have time. I said, I'll talk about
by from the man and what they did to me.
Then that light bulb comes on. I'm gonna get that
lady who just Sarah mcglachlin and do the chorus for me.
Siting I call Eric. Eric said, what's going on? He was,

(52:20):
I do Cats in a Cradle. I'm writing my mom
and he you gotta find Sarah mcglochlin for me. But
what's this about. Don't worry, just find it. So about
six days go by, I'm at dinner with my son
and my wife and Eric calls me, de Sarah's gonna
call you. Sarah's gonna call you. Pick up the phone.
So she calls me, and I got miss McLoughlin. Remember
when I met you and I told you what music

(52:41):
did to me. Yeah, yeah, Well I just found out
that I was adopted and I want to do this record.
Boom boom. So we do the record. But here's a
killer thing. When I fly I told Sarah I'm gonna
fly you to New York City to work at the
Hit Factory. In fact, she says, no, you could come
to my house, So I'll go to Vancouver. We're in
the studio. So what happened was I hear her record.

(53:05):
I'm struggling going through this. I go to a party
that I didn't want to go to and I get
to meet her this and that, finding out that I
was adopted and all that stuff. She tells me that
she says, D, there's something I need to tell you,
and I go what she goes, I was adopted too,
and I did not know that. So when I heard
her record, I didn't know she was adopted too. No,
think about that, that's amazing. So she the feared the

(53:28):
vibrations and the music. So we do the record on
the record comes out. Well, we do the record and
then I'm meeting another adopted person, and then another adopted
person goes, d aren't you curious of meeting your birth parents?
And I go, no, you know the record Son of Byfer,
brother of Al Christmas time in Hollis Queens, whatever, whatever, whatever.

(53:50):
It's a deep down side I didn't want to know.
So they let it go for about seven you know,
meetings with other adopted people and stuff like that, and
then I go, yes, I definitely want to know. So
I knew in order for me to go fard my
birth parents, I had to be of sound mind. And
so I said Okay. The revelation of me finding out

(54:13):
that I was adopted the old Sarah thing gave me
the confidence and couragesy you know what. And people were
telling me that for the longest, you need to go
to rehab. So I went into rehab and Sierra Tucson
in Arizona. I'm going into Sierra tu Son in Arizona.

(54:34):
And when I walked in, I'll never forget the day.
The intake room that got the ten characteristics of an
addictive personality. So I look at the black boll and
I'm like, and I'll say, wow, I'm all of them.
And then everybody in the room I'm clapping and I'm like,
what are you doing that for? You on your way
to healing? Yes, now you're amitting. So I went to
Sarah Sierra Tucson for one whole month, got sober, came

(54:59):
out the adopted lady, Shila Jaffy, who is a casting
director in La She casts sopranos and entourage just do
it tardy with her. Yes, yes, we started feeling somebody.
They said last was short. When I came out, Sheila
connected me to the private Eye for the adopted guy.

(55:21):
And the reason why I say that just this private
eye lady that does private eye work only for adoptees
because we have so much trouble finding it. So lossoy
short the private eye for the adopted guy finds my
birth mother. Wow, it took two weeks to find and
I found my birth mother, two brothers and a sister
that I didn't know that I had, and everything turned

(55:43):
out great because of Sarah maclachlan's angel song.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
That's amazing, what an amazing story. It's crazy And I
met you right after that happened, and you would never
I said.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
This guy, there's no way, yeah, just crazy wow, alcoholic
suicide and metaphysical spiritual wreck who is thinking of killing
himself already but then finds out that he's adopted. Oh,
let's not forget this. During that time, Jim I Sagen
gets shot and killing in my pharm and died. So
I was dealing with all of that, but it was
the music. I don't think a pill would have did it.

(56:21):
I don't think the therapy became good because my therapist
just basically said, the therapist doesn't help you. I was like, then,
why do you come The therapist is a decoy so
you could do two things, and I'm realizing this in therapy. Therapy,
you say stuff to yourself that you said to yourself
that you didn't listen to. Oh, you start saying stuff

(56:42):
that you need to tell yourself. But you can't look
at yourself in the mirror. So you need another person
so you can say this not thinking you're talking to you.
But it's not going They don't need it. They're looking
at you like they're just right. You need to be
there right. So the music was the catalyst or the music.

(57:03):
I look at it like this. The music had healed
me already, so I didn't have to go through I
didn't have to use anything outside of them, a foreign substance.
I didn't need no anxiety pills. I didn't need it.
You know, some people do because the chemical things going on.
But my thing was all emotional. So I was diagnosed
when they let me out to see hera Tucson, I

(57:25):
was diagnosed with suppressed emotions. That was my daughter. I said,
what's that about? They said, here's what happened. They asked
me this. Well. One of the first questions that when
I got into City Era Tucson. My doctor he was
I was thirty five so he probably was like forty
six white guy with the white cloak and the pad

(57:46):
and everything. The first question he asked me was doing
your career at running m seeing did anybody do anything
to make you upset? So I'm sitting in I'm I'm deflected.
I go, no, I'll never forget this day. This is
the first day. Guy. I was in rehab for thirty days.
The first day. That was one of the questions. After

(58:07):
I went through the intake room. He goes, did anybody
ever do anything during your career run your seat to
make you upset? I go, I'm sitting damn no, I'll
never forget this. He stands up right and he starts
unbuttoning his white cloak. So I'm thinking, where do you
think put my eyes? But he only did that to
break the ice. He takes off his cloak and he

(58:27):
got on the AC DC shirts that always wear, and
I think he did this to get real over and
he put it down right, He put it down, He
put the bag, and he took his glasses off, and
he sat down closer to me, and he looked me
in my eye and he said, you're a goddamn motherfucking
liar and when he said that, Yeah, man, in nineteen
eighty four, Joe did this. I had all the rememories

(58:48):
of stuff when people did stuff that I didn't like,
but I didn't speak up. Instead of speaking up and
not just expressing my opinion my feeling. And he was like,
you got expression fear. They'll get over it. They do
it all day around you. But instead of doing that,
I would do this. So I got diagnosed with suppressed
emotions coming out there. He said, deep, every time you

(59:11):
had an opportunity to save yourself. See, it took the
music to save me, to save yourself, you renigged on
that opportunity and let the alcohol. And he said that
was killing you. He said you should have said, look, guys,
just nu Jack city. Now. I don't have nothing against
nujack music, but it's not for me. And to this Daylen,

(59:36):
we got a song called Pause and there's a video,
and I'm in the Pause video with a green and
purple only to please Jake, a green and purple suit
doing the Bobby Brown running man. I'm sober now and
I'm showing that every time I see this video and

(59:56):
hear that song and see those images, it's the worst
feeling but the rehab had helped me. But I was
diagnosed with suppressed emotions. Wow, And I was also I
didn't have to shoot myself, paying myself or drink the poison.
I was subconsciously killing myself because my subconscious was saying,

(01:00:21):
you're not supposed to drink alcohol because you have pancreatitis.
So I went back and this is I would eventually
killed myself and I'll never forget my wife. And one thing, guys,
I got to say about women, that the truth they
know you're lying. When on I started drinking again, my

(01:00:42):
excuse for my wife was pick up. I'm drinking to
celebrate the new farm part of my identity, the fact
that I because when I found out that I was adopted,
the void was filled. I'm Don McDaniels hot Queens, New York,
sonner by friend and I'm adopted, So that filled it.
But that didn't deal with your she wasn't the issues
and stuff like that. So I told my wife, I'm

(01:01:03):
drinking to celebrate this newfound revelation. I'll never forget my wife. Zury.
She says this to me. This was I don't think
no psychologist's book has this or anything Sigmund Freud or
whatever his name is. I said, I'm drinking to celebrate
this new found part of mine. She said, motherfucker you.
I don't never forget this. You are drinking because you

(01:01:24):
can't emotionally handle the fact that your ass is adopted.
And she was right, because I was hurt that my
mother and father didn't tell me. You didn't address it ever,
and I didn't address it. So that there's another funny thing.
When my mother and father told me that he was
a month of where we brought you him and you adopted.
After that, they called up all my uncle, aunts and

(01:01:46):
uncles during it as a kid, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's promotions,
Birthday part. Everybody always came to Daryn McDaniel's house. We're
going to miss McDaniels. The next day, after my mother
tells me, I get a call from Robin. I get
a call from Donnie. I get a call from all
my cousins who were younger than me. They said, d man,

(01:02:11):
we're so glad your mother told you that we've been
holding that secret. And they oh, my cousin, yes, they said,
just what would happened, kids, is fourth of July. We're
going to the McDaniel's house, cookout. Come to the living room.
It's Christmas. Come to the liver room, Thanksgiving, Oh, I said,
Alfred said, Darrel's brother's birthday. It's Miss McDaniel's promoting it.
Come to the living room. What's the rule? Kids? Nobody

(01:02:31):
let Darryl know he's adopted. They all held that secret
in so I had that feeling in me all the time.
I had a lot of healing to do. Even though
the traumatic revelation was the thing that I thought was
going to kill me, it was the music that allowed

(01:02:55):
me to get to a place where I could go
into therapy and not be There's a thing I always
say about when we're going through whether it's sexual abuse
and are gambling, whatever, it is the problem with the
mental health issues. Stigma exists because if we don't remove

(01:03:17):
the guilt and shame, you don't remove the pain of
the situation. So guilt and shame allows stigma to remain.
And also in my case, if you don't admit how
you feel, whether good or bad, you never healed. But
it took the music to get me to that place
to realize, oh, I'm not the only adopted kid. I'm

(01:03:39):
not the only alcohol, and just so many people just
like so it took the music. What is music is universal?
It breaks down. Stephen Tyler shows what music does. I've
been to South Sudan, which was crazy but beautiful South
Sudan Awar Zone. They love Naughty by Nature in public,

(01:04:00):
enemy and slickreck. You would never guess. I've been to
Russia and Ukraine in the same touring. Out of those
two countries of fighting. Here's the power of music. To
this day, I can go to somewhere I've never been.
And this has been going on since eighty six, when
I went to South Sudan, when I went to Venezuela,
when I went to Russia, and when I went to Ukraine.

(01:04:23):
People always come to me and say this dmnse. Don't
you know in nineteen ninety six, when Steven Tyler took
that mic stand and knocked down the walls that was
separating y'all in the video, it didn't just happened in
the video, really happened in the world. I sure did.
So all of the stuff people have told me, all
of the stuff to people tell me, now I can

(01:04:43):
relate to that because it happened to me. With that
angel record.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
Hey, thanks so much for listening to this powerful episode
of Music Saved Me with Darryl McDaniels.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Keep an eye out for part two.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
I surprised Darryl with a rising artist on Glass Note
Records who happened to be on the podcast a few
months ago, and when he told me he was a
huge fan of Run DMC and there were a major
influence on him.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
Well, I just had to introduce the two.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Please come back and join me at Part two on
Music Save Me with Daryl McDaniels coming up soon.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
Thanks so much for listening.