November 9, 2021 • 30 mins
Darryl “DMC” McDaniels and Static join Jason to talk about their work with Road Recovery, an entertainment industry-driven non-profit organization dedicated to helping young people battle addiction and other adversities by empowering at-risk youth from all backgrounds to face their struggles, while teaching them comprehensive life skills.
Learn more and get involved:
https://www.facebook.com/roadrecovery/
https://twitter.com/RoadRecovery?s=20
https://www.instagram.com/road_recovery/
https://lavaforgood.com/righteous-convictions
Righteous Convictions with Jason Flom is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Co No1.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flomer, the podcast where
I interview folks who see the wrong in the world
and are driven to make it right. Today's guests are
both road tested tour musicians who found a common purpose
in sobriety and youth mentorship. One is a multi instrumentalist
and producer who draws on his childhood experience with learning differently.
(00:21):
The other a world famous hip hop icon and legend.
My first record was I'm DMC in the Place to Be.
I go to St. John's University and since kindergarten ourcquad
to knowledge at the twelfth grade and went straight to college.
When I roped that rum have been the attitude in
the presentation that so much of negativity in Braces, I
(00:44):
was able to touch change not only just in the
neighborhoods in people's minds. With their organization Road Recovery, they
used creative projects to empower at risk youth who are
struggling with addiction, Road Recovery, creative staff mentor Static and
the devastating Mike Controller himself, Darryl dm C McDaniels right
(01:05):
now on Righteous Convictions, Welcome Back to Righteous Convictions. This
is as you probably know by now the show where
I have the privilege of interviewing change makers, people who
(01:29):
are doing just badass ship in the world for no
reason except for the fact that they can. And today
we have not one, but two. And I'm freaking excited
because we have Darryl McDaniels, also known as the Devastating
Mike Controller from on DMC Darryl, Welcome to the show.
Thank you, thank you. Glad to be here, Ja. And
(01:50):
with Darryl we have his partner in do good illness,
the opposite of partner in crime, another phenomenal musician and performer,
and the stuff that they are doing together, I think
it's gonna inspire a lot of people. Inspires me so static.
Just glad you're here, man, I'm so happy to be here.
(02:10):
And Darryl, I mean, look, everybody knows who you are
and people have grown up to Your music has been
the soundtrack of so many of our lives. I'll never
forget the first time I heard King of Rock. I
was in my little office I just started working Atlantic Records,
and I was running around playing that record on ten
for anybody and everybody. I was like, this is the
(02:31):
craziest ship I've heard and and I grew up. For me,
my favorite band, my favorite rock star growing up with
Steven Tyler, my favorite band with Yeah Yeah. When I
when I was growing up, um for me and people
bug out. I was never in the soul music because
you got to think about it like this, That's when
my mom's and pops was still young and cool, so
(02:54):
that was them music. I didn't have a music when
I was growing up because I was too busy read
comic books and drawing anyway. But there was something about
the rock and the folk rock that attracted me, you know,
groups like Credence, Clearwater Revival, The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd,
(03:16):
Neil Young, Crosby Stills, Nash and Young, but also Jim Crocey,
Harry Chapin, those storytellers people. So I guess that was
my attraction to music, because you know, I was in
the comic books. I don't care about love and girls
and stuff like that. Most of the R and B
music was about love, you know, Al Green and Marvin Gaye,
(03:37):
and that was my mother's in the music. But it
was just phenomenal to me because I was a good
student as a kid growing up, and the rock dudes
would always talk about presidents and governments and stuff like that,
so you know, rock and folk rock was like social
studies are history and school of me. So that's what
gravitated me towards the music. So long story show. When
(03:59):
I let start making hip hop songs, I was like,
everybody's samples and uses James Brown and jazz and funk,
but nobody is using the rock records that I heard
on the radio, and the rock records that were in
the early crates of Graham, Master Flash and Africa Baan
Bad and the grant was in Theodore So Larry Smith
(04:21):
before Rick Rubin was our producer and Larry is the
greatest hip hop producer ever that nobody knows about. So
that's the movie to be made. But Larry Smith, he
knew I loved rocks, so he was like, de what
do you want to do. My thing was, I want
to make a record that's like Billy Squire's Big Beat.
So we made rock Box eighty four was rock Box,
(04:44):
eight five was King of Rock and then eighties six
let us make him walk this way. Ol Fare told
you this. When I was like six or seven, I
was obsessed with Michael Jackson for good reason in Prince
and all that. And then a few years later when
you guys came on TV, it walked this way. I
already loved run DMC and like mom, Mom checked this out.
She's like, that's Arrowsmith. I'm like, what's Arrowsmith? So I
(05:05):
learned to be a rock guitarist from you and run DMC.
It really was the world's colliding when you did that
incredible groundbreaking collaboration. But when I take from that story too, Dren,
was that you didn't have a type of music that
was your own, so you invented it right, Yes, exactly,
Yes it was. It was really more of a selfish act.
You just needed something to listen to. You like, well,
(05:26):
nobody else is going to do it, I'll do it myself.
I think that was the beauty of Run DMC because
it was Jay Down and Joe doing a bunch of
stuff that related to so many people. Because prior to
Rundy m saying, you know, hip hop was considered the
black ghetto music. And you know, I grew up in
Queen's you know what I'm saying, So when I came
(05:48):
into hip hop, you know, previously hip hop was hip
hop was the message, here's what's going on, you know,
the reality, the truth of New York City because everybody,
and well a lot of people don't notice, people thought
that New York City was heaven. Why because they saw
all of the images of what was going on in
(06:08):
Studio fifty four in Hollywood. Everybody was coming from Hollywood,
to ceo s, the entertainers, the movie stars, the athletes,
to who's who of the world was coming to New
York City. The party in Studio fifty four, and it
was Rolls Royce's, and it was bent Lee's and it
was diamonds, and it was sex, and it was jugs,
(06:30):
and it was cocaine and it was fur coats and
it was champagne everywhere, kind of like what hip hop
is today. But on that note, it took some young
brothers and sisters out the Bronx to tell the truth
or no, don't get it twisted. What you see in
the magazines and in the newspapers and on the news
every night about how great Studio fifty four is, that's
(06:51):
not the reality of New York City. So that's when
I learned to yo these kids. And the Bronx was
burning and was drugs and heroine and street kingtings that where.
But for me, I knew that even in the darkness
and despair and the death, in the dirt of the ghetto,
there was fun, cool, creative things like crayons and comic
(07:14):
books and skateboards and coloring books. So I took it
upon myself and I did my hip hop music. You
know what I'm saying. I didn't see it as just
black ghetto music, because in the black ghetto and the
poor as ghetto and the poverty and the famine, this
kid's coloring and doing poetry and dancing and doing good things.
(07:35):
I just hate the fact that, you know, to be
in a gang or to have been to jail and
to be a drug dealer is considered street. Because even
in the streets that I grew up in Queens, you
know what I'm saying, we did creative things. Hip hop
allowed me to say, no, the truth is coming from
these places that you don't have to go to jail,
(07:56):
you don't have to be in a game, you don't
have to do or sell drugs to be powerful. And
that was the whole clashing of all of these cultures,
you know, rock and folk rock, um Harry Chateman and
Jim crow Chy and Neil Young and John Fogerty. They
taught me as Coola have fun with this music, but
(08:16):
we have a responsibility to be the representatives of the
communities that we come from. So while a lot of
people prefer to rhyme about selling drugs and going to
jail like it's a badger honor, I'm so gangs and powerful.
I'll make a record about Christmas time and make it
one of the most powerful forces on the face of
(08:38):
the earth. My first record was I'm d MC in
the place to be. I go to St. John's University
and since kindergarten, I acquired the knowledge. At the twelfth grade,
I went straight to college. When I rocked that rhyme,
the kids in my neighborhood who was like seventeen and younger,
they came to me, was like, Daryl, how the hell
are you doing hip hop? And you cool and got
(09:00):
deaders and gazellas on and and and catillacts and stuff,
and you go to school. And that was an opportunity
for me to say, not only do I go to school,
young brother a sister, I get straight these and this
and that, and I don't curse, and I'm obedient, and
I listened to my parents and teachers, and by me
having the attitude and the presentation that so much of
(09:24):
negativity in praces, I was able to touch change, alter
the states of what was going on in our neighborhoods.
But not only just in the neighborhoods and people's minds. Daryl,
in your memoir Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide, you
talked about a lot of these things that influence you
growing up, comic books and the different types of music
(09:47):
and stuff. But you also talked very openly about your
struggles with alcohol, addiction and depression, and it almost killed you, right,
I mean almost killed me too by the way. I
ended up in and rehab myself when I was twenty six.
But can you talk about how that influenced your work
(10:09):
that we're gonna turn to talking about now, um, where
you're helping so many people and leading by example. You know,
everybody knows Daryl from the God has told the world
to walk this way and their Adidas. So they saw,
you know, everything from Raisin Hell, King of Rock Rock,
(10:29):
everything that we did. They saw that, but they didn't
see the side of me that was no different from
who they are, and especially that side. Even as a
young kid, when I got into the music business, it
was like, oh shoot, you can tell stories about who
you are over music. That was my thing. It was
like me writing a comic book. But within all the
(10:52):
pressures and struggles that anybody in any given occupation or
career a situation gets, I got all this anxiety and
all of this stuff. I started to look for stuff
outside of me to survive. So, to make a long
story short, I became an alcoholic suicide of metaphysical spiritual
(11:15):
wreck who almost died, almost odeed, almost drunk myself to death.
Then when that wasn't working, I was thinking about jumping
off a roof and all of that. But my saving
grace came from after people telling me over and over, Darrol,
this isn't good behavior, this isn't good for you, over
and over. And I was functional, you know, I was
(11:37):
a functional drunk. You know. I was never late, always
showed up one time, completed my task. But what was
going on inside of me was the thing that was
destroying and killing me. So a long story short, the
thing that saved me is when I went to rehab
to stop drinking, and the reason why that happened was
in the midst of being an alcoholic suicide of metaphysical
(12:00):
spiritual record was about to jump off the roof. When
I was thirty five years old, I found out something
about myself that was known that everybody in my family
and neighborhood, in the schools that I went to. I
found out that I was adopted at age thirty five,
which totally, totally, really made me want to jump. But
then somebody brought to my knowledge that, um, yo, you
(12:23):
could find your birth mother and you could find your
birth father and you could solve that mystery. So that
was the thing that made me say, Okay, if I'm
gonna do this, if I'm gonna go through this, I
gotta get sober. So when I went to rehab to
stop drinking, I discovered the most powerful thing in existence
that any man, boy, woman or girl could do for themselves.
(12:44):
I discovered the stink card therapy, and therapy was the
thing that set me free. And when I got out
of rehab, and when I got out of therapy, I
would run into people and people would have pro me
on the d m C. King of Rock level, Like, Yo,
you changed my life, walk this way, my dita's all
(13:08):
of that, and it was basically like, Yo, we always
see Run, we always see Russell, we always see Camor
and the kids. We never see you. And they would
ask me, and this's what led me to coming into
contact with people like Row Recovery. They would say, we
never see you where you've been at? And I'm always
an honest guy. Everything I always said on my record
(13:29):
was true, and if you come to me, I'm never
going to front because hip hop, to me and rock
and roll is about keeping it real. So they would
ask me D where you been and I would go, well,
I just got out of rehab. Or I would go
well I just got out of therapy. And these people
would stop and I would see a total change on
(13:49):
them and they would go, what do you mean by that?
And I would tell them my story. In a hundred
percent of the time, two things would happen. The people
who I would speaking into they would look around first,
like to see I am was after them, and they
would go, I've never told anybody this DP, but me too.
(14:09):
If they didn't say that a hundred percent at the time,
they would go, I've never told anybody this D but
my mother, my daughter, my wife, my girlfriend, my aunt,
my grand everybody was dealing with a mental health issue.
And then it all came to me, Jason, the King
of Rock thing, to discovery that I was adopted, to
(14:34):
all the things that happened to get me to that point.
I realized this whole King or Rock thing was just
to set up for Darryl McDaniels to be put here
to do what he was supposed to do. Static you've
(15:12):
had a crazy journey as well to get to this point.
I know you overcame like severe learning disabilities. My mom
actually started what many people considered the best school in
the country, four kids with severe learning disabilities. My brother
was the first student at the Gateway School, and he
went on to get a PhD in psychometrics. And you know,
(15:32):
I turned out to be the one who didn't excel
at school. After all, you didn't have to, Yeah, exactly
and uh and that became my my muse. Tell us
about your childhood and how you got involved with road recovery.
The backtrack a little bit. You know, I had lost
struggles in school. I thankfully found guitar after I still
(15:55):
walked this way, but um, I found guitar. In middle school,
I felt like I could finally do something like Wow,
I get this instrument. And I couldn't learn like everybody else.
I couldn't read music at all. I just put the
records on and learn it, play it back. And then
around that early part of high school, I was struggling
so bad, you know, I was pretty much gonna fail out.
And I really love that story about your family in
(16:15):
the school because we didn't really have that even in
New Jersey too much, Like they had a great education program,
but they didn't have how to deal with everybody's differences
in learning. You know. The truth is I wanted to
be a rock star at that point and play rock
and roll that whole vibe. So I was following and
emulating maybe the wrong aspects of rock and roll, drinking
and experimenting with drugs as well. But that got me through.
(16:37):
You know that I was the kid who always compensated.
So now it was fast forward. I end up joining
an awesome band in my early twenties called Hours, and
I was in the band for almost sixteen years and
we actually got to make a record of group in
as well, so we got that in a common dy.
I did develop a bit of an alcohol and substance
abuse problem. I got sober around thirty four years old.
To be it was a little about nine years in March,
and I always knew Road Recovery in Jack and Jeana
(17:00):
way back, even with the band I was in. We
always supported their events, and I wasn't you know, like
like D described, I was functional, but I did my thing.
I had a reason why I needed to get sober.
So I mentioned Gene and Jack. So it's Gene Bone
and Jack book Binder are the co founders of Road Recovery.
They both had full careers in the music industry and
they created this amazing organization. We do these programs where
(17:21):
we go to either clubhouses or group homes and we
do this art music. But really what's going on. We're
trying to teach communication and life skills through our own experiences,
and it's not about addiction only. He reminded me of that.
He was just about showing up, being vulnerable and meeting
them where they're at. So I show up, I'm like,
I guess I'm still in my thirties at that point.
(17:42):
I'm like a little over a year sober. And I
realized when I walked into that room and this group
home that even though my you know, getting through sobriety
and working at was almost secondary to the fact that
when I related to these kids, I brought me right
back to high school when I dealt with these learning disabilities,
and that's how I was able to relate. So it
(18:03):
got under my skin. And now we're talking years later.
I mean, I guess I've been with Roll Recovery since
two thousand thirteen. In two thousand fourteen or thirteen, D
and I met, but in fourteen we collaborated on a
local group home organization New Jersey. We did a benefit
to help kids in therapeutic foster care, so we already
had that bond. When when Static was like, Yo, I'm
(18:24):
working with these people called Role Recovery, I was like,
what do they do? They was like, Yo, we keep
kids out the streets, we educate them, we give them
an opportunity to be creative. And anybody struggling with any
substance abuse to drugs and mental things. I mean, because
that was me. I see myself in all those kids.
(18:45):
So Road Recovery it's just another form of rock and
roll or just another form of hip hop. Without having
to specifically only use music. We use music as debate,
but we get a man and we recreate these souls
and spirits. Basically, road Recovery is it's entertainment industry professionals.
(19:08):
It's a nonprofit and everybody is considered like we kind
of become mentors and Road Recovery creates a way for
young people to communicate and build up their life skills.
But we use music, like the says, like like a bait.
But we use music or dance, or poetry or painting
or any form of art or expression. But the idea
is the way we line out the programs with the
(19:29):
creative staff mentors. We always have like a check in meeting,
so we want to create the dialogue and it's like
a business meeting after that of like life skills, so
we say, well, you're working on that project. That is great,
but to do that, can you at least commit to
next week that we have this much done. So even
though these kids are brilliant and we love the quality
of the work they do, it's not necessarily about how
(19:51):
good the final product is. It's about being engaged in
that journey. So it sets everybody up with life skills
and even me as a creative staff member after doing
the cycle, I have better life skills just from communicating
to the young people and getting like we're all learning
from each other. But that's that's essentially what you know
Road Recovery does and the project we were doing in
the Bronx But that's why I contacted you, like, hey,
(20:12):
Jeane wants to meet up and Daryl comes down to you.
I guess it's Clay Street. We worked in the organization
at the time. Road Recovery was partnered with Bronx Connect.
It's called RTG. We're doing the show, Darrel. The shows
up and he's talking to all the young people. They
know who you are. They know and you're saying when
I it was snowing, and I was when I walk outside,
the snow that falls on me is the same snow
(20:33):
that falls on you. And that vulnerability, which is everything
we try to do with the creative staff at Road Recovery.
Daryl is embodied in seconds enough for a bunch of
the young people to walk up to him and say, hey, hey, DMC,
we have a song. Do you think you could be
on it? Because because he was that open and vulnerable
and Key says yes. They basically wrote the lyrics Twinkle Twinkle,
(20:54):
Little Start. They changed it and they talked about stopping
the violence on the streets. The phenomenal on they came
up with and allowed me to participate on. It's called
Twinkle Twinkle. RTG released the grip tell you I don't
(21:20):
drink anymore. I am done with coals, being sober every day.
It's brunder full before I get I gotta pay my duels.
I can't turn the battle and come to loose. You
can't have a world that's rumber fold took hands in
the head yet run but chose I'm here to fix it,
So I come with two. I got a message for
the kits when I comes to school, don't rock put
(21:42):
a shit on rock at all. I walked on. I said,
I did not fall. To call me a bowl because
I don't fall. Call me better but the better than y'all,
or something like a poll in his overall so as
he trump, the guys said it over y'all. If you
need a superhero, come who to call. I'm not simper
one of the tipping all the dome. I'm on the
(22:03):
road to recover bread just like cool you want to
discover me, you gotta be shotting like the thums to
the supercol inside of you. I'm on the road to
recover bread, just like, Oh, you want to discover me,
gotta be shotting like the dumas to be supercool inside
of you. Don't tell you, you still tell you now
(22:50):
listen on this show, we have a couple of traditions.
The first one is something we call the magic wand question,
and that means I'm gonna ask you first, Darryl, if
you had a magic wand and could wave it and
to fix one thing, what would it be? Oh? Man,
I would fix poverty. I wouldn't make sure kind of
(23:13):
um Harry Chapin's mission and I work with World Hunger
and all of those people shout out to the mountain
in Long Island. I wouldn't make sure that the last
thing people will be worrying about is where they could
get a meal, because once they're nourished, they can use
the fatality of the physical because the men too will
(23:36):
be empowered, and then we could fix everything that's needed
to fix with our hands in our minds. I would
fix poverty. How about you? Static? Wow? So magic? I
would Basically, if there's a way to have people, whenever
they encounter anybody have complete sense of empathy and openness
(23:58):
and only view that person with no other prior knowledge,
like lose all sense of prejuice. I go even beyond
like bigotry, like just you encounter a person with an
open heart and empathy and you just wait and pause
enough for two people to figure out who you are.
And if you're carrying empathy in your heart even if
you're in need, I would hope you wouldn't, because people
(24:20):
sometimes do bad things that disparity. A lot of our
our horror has come out of desperate situations and misunderstanding.
So if you could just encounter everybody with a sense
of empathy in that open heart understanding just to grow,
I think a lot of things would come out of
that as a ripple effect. Those are great answers. So
if people who want to get involved with the great
work that you guys are doing, how do they do that?
(24:42):
Is there? A website? Is there? And Instagram or any
other way they can get involved. Road Recovery dot Org
is the website at road Underscore Recovery is our Instagram
and the Instagram is awesome because it's growing more and
more due to lockdown era, because we've gotten so much
amazing cottage of young people creating stuff. So just expect
(25:02):
that to be a great place to see what we
actually do. Yeah, for anybody out there wondering, you could
find us on a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube at Road Recovery,
and we're gonna make it super easy for you. There
will be a link in our bio to all the
information you need to join the movement, get involved, volunteer,
teach sing right, do whatever it is you can do
(25:26):
to help these kids and to help Darryl and Static
in their mission. And please tune in next week when
we speak with the Lieutenant Governor of the great state
of Pennsylvania, who I hope we will all soon be
calling U S. Senator John Fetterman. And now the closing
of our show is something we call words of Wisdom,
and it's super simple. This is where I first of all,
(25:49):
thank you both for being here and just for doing
all the incredible stuff that you're doing. And so words
of wisdom works like this. I just turned my microphone off,
kick back in my chair, close my eyes, my headphones on,
and let you share anything else at all. That you
would think we didn't cover and then maybe we should have.
So static, why don't you go first and we'll let
(26:12):
Darryl that clean up. Right before I do that, I
just want to thank you in mind that UM, you
came to actually do something with us at Road Recovery
in the Bronx and that was a great day for
those kids, for young people, and I really appreciate that
the whole organization does UM. For me, I want to
kind of sell up some of the things that I
heard from Darryl, and I think normalizing mental health asking
(26:35):
for help is so important and UM in this it's
just that feeling like if you could just it's tough,
we're in it, we don't we isolate, but if we
could just get out of it and reach out to others,
there's so much that could come out of that. And
when we bring in this WE factor, you know, like
a lot of recovery programs that are WE programs and
road Recovery just power of WE as UM for good reason,
(26:58):
because when you're not alone, you don't you just feel
like you can face anything. And I've benefited off that
feeling even again with this world of you know, navigating
a d h D as an adult found the support
groups first thing I did, and I literally listened to
you know, ten or twelve different people sound just like me,
And I really think that's that comes from thoughtful communication,
(27:20):
that comes from being open and vulnerable. But the more
people could just, I guess, be open to the idea
of like finding that first tribe to let you rejoin
the rest of the tribe. So whatever is eating at you,
whatever is bothering you, like, just go for the help.
Because whoever you are, I don't know all of you,
but I want everyone to be on this planet as
long as they're supposed to be here, and just don't
(27:42):
be afraid to ask for help. That's pretty much it.
Let's normalize mental health. That's awesome. Um, yes, thank you, Jason,
because you've gotta understand how important you are in all this,
because you're giving us a chance to have dialogue, You're
giving us a chance to be heard. What I want
to say is this, here's some words of wisdom. Every
(28:05):
problem that we face in this world today can be
solved in the blank of an eye if we all
sit down, come together and work together to solving the problem.
And one of the first ways to have victory in
(28:28):
all communities, across all racial boundaries, race, creeds, colors and nations.
Is the o GS and the Young Geez doing what
we do at wrote Recovery, getting together and sharing the
dialogue to the young people out there. Old people are
(28:49):
not old, They are walking experience. That means they didn't die,
they didn't know d and they're not in jail. They
didn't get destroyed in the wars and the struggles of
this human experience. And the O g s listen to
the young people because they have the new ideas. In
(29:13):
order to solve the problem, government has to change, politics
has to change, and religion has to change. You learn
from the elders, but you also learn how to execute
from the young people. If we combine those two things,
we can eradicate all of the problems that we have
(29:36):
across the boarder words of wisdom. We gotta come together
and work together every day. You just can't give out
turkeys on Thanksgiving, and you just can't give out gifts
on Christmas and expect things to get better. M thank
(30:06):
you for listening to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam. I'd
like to thank our production team, Connor Hall Jeff Clyburne
and Kevin Wardis. The music in this production was supplied
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Follow us
on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Twitter at wrong Conviction,
and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Righteous Convictions with
(30:27):
Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
and association with Signal Company Number one
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flomer, the podcast where
I interview folks who see the wrong in the world
and are driven to make it right. Today's guests are
both road tested tour musicians who found a common purpose
in sobriety and youth mentorship. One is a multi instrumentalist
and producer who draws on his childhood experience with learning differently.
(00:21):
The other a world famous hip hop icon and legend.
My first record was I'm DMC in the Place to Be.
I go to St. John's University and since kindergarten ourcquad
to knowledge at the twelfth grade and went straight to college.
When I roped that rum have been the attitude in
the presentation that so much of negativity in Braces, I
(00:44):
was able to touch change not only just in the
neighborhoods in people's minds. With their organization Road Recovery, they
used creative projects to empower at risk youth who are
struggling with addiction, Road Recovery, creative staff mentor Static and
the devastating Mike Controller himself, Darryl dm C McDaniels right
(01:05):
now on Righteous Convictions, Welcome Back to Righteous Convictions. This
is as you probably know by now the show where
I have the privilege of interviewing change makers, people who
(01:29):
are doing just badass ship in the world for no
reason except for the fact that they can. And today
we have not one, but two. And I'm freaking excited
because we have Darryl McDaniels, also known as the Devastating
Mike Controller from on DMC Darryl, Welcome to the show.
Thank you, thank you. Glad to be here, Ja. And
(01:50):
with Darryl we have his partner in do good illness,
the opposite of partner in crime, another phenomenal musician and performer,
and the stuff that they are doing together, I think
it's gonna inspire a lot of people. Inspires me so static.
Just glad you're here, man, I'm so happy to be here.
(02:10):
And Darryl, I mean, look, everybody knows who you are
and people have grown up to Your music has been
the soundtrack of so many of our lives. I'll never
forget the first time I heard King of Rock. I
was in my little office I just started working Atlantic Records,
and I was running around playing that record on ten
for anybody and everybody. I was like, this is the
(02:31):
craziest ship I've heard and and I grew up. For me,
my favorite band, my favorite rock star growing up with
Steven Tyler, my favorite band with Yeah Yeah. When I
when I was growing up, um for me and people
bug out. I was never in the soul music because
you got to think about it like this, That's when
my mom's and pops was still young and cool, so
(02:54):
that was them music. I didn't have a music when
I was growing up because I was too busy read
comic books and drawing anyway. But there was something about
the rock and the folk rock that attracted me, you know,
groups like Credence, Clearwater Revival, The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd,
(03:16):
Neil Young, Crosby Stills, Nash and Young, but also Jim Crocey,
Harry Chapin, those storytellers people. So I guess that was
my attraction to music, because you know, I was in
the comic books. I don't care about love and girls
and stuff like that. Most of the R and B
music was about love, you know, Al Green and Marvin Gaye,
(03:37):
and that was my mother's in the music. But it
was just phenomenal to me because I was a good
student as a kid growing up, and the rock dudes
would always talk about presidents and governments and stuff like that,
so you know, rock and folk rock was like social
studies are history and school of me. So that's what
gravitated me towards the music. So long story show. When
(03:59):
I let start making hip hop songs, I was like,
everybody's samples and uses James Brown and jazz and funk,
but nobody is using the rock records that I heard
on the radio, and the rock records that were in
the early crates of Graham, Master Flash and Africa Baan
Bad and the grant was in Theodore So Larry Smith
(04:21):
before Rick Rubin was our producer and Larry is the
greatest hip hop producer ever that nobody knows about. So
that's the movie to be made. But Larry Smith, he
knew I loved rocks, so he was like, de what
do you want to do. My thing was, I want
to make a record that's like Billy Squire's Big Beat.
So we made rock Box eighty four was rock Box,
(04:44):
eight five was King of Rock and then eighties six
let us make him walk this way. Ol Fare told
you this. When I was like six or seven, I
was obsessed with Michael Jackson for good reason in Prince
and all that. And then a few years later when
you guys came on TV, it walked this way. I
already loved run DMC and like mom, Mom checked this out.
She's like, that's Arrowsmith. I'm like, what's Arrowsmith? So I
(05:05):
learned to be a rock guitarist from you and run DMC.
It really was the world's colliding when you did that
incredible groundbreaking collaboration. But when I take from that story too, Dren,
was that you didn't have a type of music that
was your own, so you invented it right, Yes, exactly,
Yes it was. It was really more of a selfish act.
You just needed something to listen to. You like, well,
(05:26):
nobody else is going to do it, I'll do it myself.
I think that was the beauty of Run DMC because
it was Jay Down and Joe doing a bunch of
stuff that related to so many people. Because prior to
Rundy m saying, you know, hip hop was considered the
black ghetto music. And you know, I grew up in
Queen's you know what I'm saying, So when I came
(05:48):
into hip hop, you know, previously hip hop was hip
hop was the message, here's what's going on, you know,
the reality, the truth of New York City because everybody,
and well a lot of people don't notice, people thought
that New York City was heaven. Why because they saw
all of the images of what was going on in
(06:08):
Studio fifty four in Hollywood. Everybody was coming from Hollywood,
to ceo s, the entertainers, the movie stars, the athletes,
to who's who of the world was coming to New
York City. The party in Studio fifty four, and it
was Rolls Royce's, and it was bent Lee's and it
was diamonds, and it was sex, and it was jugs,
(06:30):
and it was cocaine and it was fur coats and
it was champagne everywhere, kind of like what hip hop
is today. But on that note, it took some young
brothers and sisters out the Bronx to tell the truth
or no, don't get it twisted. What you see in
the magazines and in the newspapers and on the news
every night about how great Studio fifty four is, that's
(06:51):
not the reality of New York City. So that's when
I learned to yo these kids. And the Bronx was
burning and was drugs and heroine and street kingtings that where.
But for me, I knew that even in the darkness
and despair and the death, in the dirt of the ghetto,
there was fun, cool, creative things like crayons and comic
(07:14):
books and skateboards and coloring books. So I took it
upon myself and I did my hip hop music. You
know what I'm saying. I didn't see it as just
black ghetto music, because in the black ghetto and the
poor as ghetto and the poverty and the famine, this
kid's coloring and doing poetry and dancing and doing good things.
(07:35):
I just hate the fact that, you know, to be
in a gang or to have been to jail and
to be a drug dealer is considered street. Because even
in the streets that I grew up in Queens, you
know what I'm saying, we did creative things. Hip hop
allowed me to say, no, the truth is coming from
these places that you don't have to go to jail,
(07:56):
you don't have to be in a game, you don't
have to do or sell drugs to be powerful. And
that was the whole clashing of all of these cultures,
you know, rock and folk rock, um Harry Chateman and
Jim crow Chy and Neil Young and John Fogerty. They
taught me as Coola have fun with this music, but
(08:16):
we have a responsibility to be the representatives of the
communities that we come from. So while a lot of
people prefer to rhyme about selling drugs and going to
jail like it's a badger honor, I'm so gangs and powerful.
I'll make a record about Christmas time and make it
one of the most powerful forces on the face of
(08:38):
the earth. My first record was I'm d MC in
the place to be. I go to St. John's University
and since kindergarten, I acquired the knowledge. At the twelfth grade,
I went straight to college. When I rocked that rhyme,
the kids in my neighborhood who was like seventeen and younger,
they came to me, was like, Daryl, how the hell
are you doing hip hop? And you cool and got
(09:00):
deaders and gazellas on and and and catillacts and stuff,
and you go to school. And that was an opportunity
for me to say, not only do I go to school,
young brother a sister, I get straight these and this
and that, and I don't curse, and I'm obedient, and
I listened to my parents and teachers, and by me
having the attitude and the presentation that so much of
(09:24):
negativity in praces, I was able to touch change, alter
the states of what was going on in our neighborhoods.
But not only just in the neighborhoods and people's minds. Daryl,
in your memoir Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide, you
talked about a lot of these things that influence you
growing up, comic books and the different types of music
(09:47):
and stuff. But you also talked very openly about your
struggles with alcohol, addiction and depression, and it almost killed you, right,
I mean almost killed me too by the way. I
ended up in and rehab myself when I was twenty six.
But can you talk about how that influenced your work
(10:09):
that we're gonna turn to talking about now, um, where
you're helping so many people and leading by example. You know,
everybody knows Daryl from the God has told the world
to walk this way and their Adidas. So they saw,
you know, everything from Raisin Hell, King of Rock Rock,
(10:29):
everything that we did. They saw that, but they didn't
see the side of me that was no different from
who they are, and especially that side. Even as a
young kid, when I got into the music business, it
was like, oh shoot, you can tell stories about who
you are over music. That was my thing. It was
like me writing a comic book. But within all the
(10:52):
pressures and struggles that anybody in any given occupation or
career a situation gets, I got all this anxiety and
all of this stuff. I started to look for stuff
outside of me to survive. So, to make a long
story short, I became an alcoholic suicide of metaphysical spiritual
(11:15):
wreck who almost died, almost odeed, almost drunk myself to death.
Then when that wasn't working, I was thinking about jumping
off a roof and all of that. But my saving
grace came from after people telling me over and over, Darrol,
this isn't good behavior, this isn't good for you, over
and over. And I was functional, you know, I was
(11:37):
a functional drunk. You know. I was never late, always
showed up one time, completed my task. But what was
going on inside of me was the thing that was
destroying and killing me. So a long story short, the
thing that saved me is when I went to rehab
to stop drinking, and the reason why that happened was
in the midst of being an alcoholic suicide of metaphysical
(12:00):
spiritual record was about to jump off the roof. When
I was thirty five years old, I found out something
about myself that was known that everybody in my family
and neighborhood, in the schools that I went to. I
found out that I was adopted at age thirty five,
which totally, totally, really made me want to jump. But
then somebody brought to my knowledge that, um, yo, you
(12:23):
could find your birth mother and you could find your
birth father and you could solve that mystery. So that
was the thing that made me say, Okay, if I'm
gonna do this, if I'm gonna go through this, I
gotta get sober. So when I went to rehab to
stop drinking, I discovered the most powerful thing in existence
that any man, boy, woman or girl could do for themselves.
(12:44):
I discovered the stink card therapy, and therapy was the
thing that set me free. And when I got out
of rehab, and when I got out of therapy, I
would run into people and people would have pro me
on the d m C. King of Rock level, Like, Yo,
you changed my life, walk this way, my dita's all
(13:08):
of that, and it was basically like, Yo, we always
see Run, we always see Russell, we always see Camor
and the kids. We never see you. And they would
ask me, and this's what led me to coming into
contact with people like Row Recovery. They would say, we
never see you where you've been at? And I'm always
an honest guy. Everything I always said on my record
(13:29):
was true, and if you come to me, I'm never
going to front because hip hop, to me and rock
and roll is about keeping it real. So they would
ask me D where you been and I would go, well,
I just got out of rehab. Or I would go
well I just got out of therapy. And these people
would stop and I would see a total change on
(13:49):
them and they would go, what do you mean by that?
And I would tell them my story. In a hundred
percent of the time, two things would happen. The people
who I would speaking into they would look around first,
like to see I am was after them, and they
would go, I've never told anybody this DP, but me too.
(14:09):
If they didn't say that a hundred percent at the time,
they would go, I've never told anybody this D but
my mother, my daughter, my wife, my girlfriend, my aunt,
my grand everybody was dealing with a mental health issue.
And then it all came to me, Jason, the King
of Rock thing, to discovery that I was adopted, to
(14:34):
all the things that happened to get me to that point.
I realized this whole King or Rock thing was just
to set up for Darryl McDaniels to be put here
to do what he was supposed to do. Static you've
(15:12):
had a crazy journey as well to get to this point.
I know you overcame like severe learning disabilities. My mom
actually started what many people considered the best school in
the country, four kids with severe learning disabilities. My brother
was the first student at the Gateway School, and he
went on to get a PhD in psychometrics. And you know,
(15:32):
I turned out to be the one who didn't excel
at school. After all, you didn't have to, Yeah, exactly
and uh and that became my my muse. Tell us
about your childhood and how you got involved with road recovery.
The backtrack a little bit. You know, I had lost
struggles in school. I thankfully found guitar after I still
(15:55):
walked this way, but um, I found guitar. In middle school,
I felt like I could finally do something like Wow,
I get this instrument. And I couldn't learn like everybody else.
I couldn't read music at all. I just put the
records on and learn it, play it back. And then
around that early part of high school, I was struggling
so bad, you know, I was pretty much gonna fail out.
And I really love that story about your family in
(16:15):
the school because we didn't really have that even in
New Jersey too much, Like they had a great education program,
but they didn't have how to deal with everybody's differences
in learning. You know. The truth is I wanted to
be a rock star at that point and play rock
and roll that whole vibe. So I was following and
emulating maybe the wrong aspects of rock and roll, drinking
and experimenting with drugs as well. But that got me through.
(16:37):
You know that I was the kid who always compensated.
So now it was fast forward. I end up joining
an awesome band in my early twenties called Hours, and
I was in the band for almost sixteen years and
we actually got to make a record of group in
as well, so we got that in a common dy.
I did develop a bit of an alcohol and substance
abuse problem. I got sober around thirty four years old.
To be it was a little about nine years in March,
and I always knew Road Recovery in Jack and Jeana
(17:00):
way back, even with the band I was in. We
always supported their events, and I wasn't you know, like
like D described, I was functional, but I did my thing.
I had a reason why I needed to get sober.
So I mentioned Gene and Jack. So it's Gene Bone
and Jack book Binder are the co founders of Road Recovery.
They both had full careers in the music industry and
they created this amazing organization. We do these programs where
(17:21):
we go to either clubhouses or group homes and we
do this art music. But really what's going on. We're
trying to teach communication and life skills through our own experiences,
and it's not about addiction only. He reminded me of that.
He was just about showing up, being vulnerable and meeting
them where they're at. So I show up, I'm like,
I guess I'm still in my thirties at that point.
(17:42):
I'm like a little over a year sober. And I
realized when I walked into that room and this group
home that even though my you know, getting through sobriety
and working at was almost secondary to the fact that
when I related to these kids, I brought me right
back to high school when I dealt with these learning disabilities,
and that's how I was able to relate. So it
(18:03):
got under my skin. And now we're talking years later.
I mean, I guess I've been with Roll Recovery since
two thousand thirteen. In two thousand fourteen or thirteen, D
and I met, but in fourteen we collaborated on a
local group home organization New Jersey. We did a benefit
to help kids in therapeutic foster care, so we already
had that bond. When when Static was like, Yo, I'm
(18:24):
working with these people called Role Recovery, I was like,
what do they do? They was like, Yo, we keep
kids out the streets, we educate them, we give them
an opportunity to be creative. And anybody struggling with any
substance abuse to drugs and mental things. I mean, because
that was me. I see myself in all those kids.
(18:45):
So Road Recovery it's just another form of rock and
roll or just another form of hip hop. Without having
to specifically only use music. We use music as debate,
but we get a man and we recreate these souls
and spirits. Basically, road Recovery is it's entertainment industry professionals.
(19:08):
It's a nonprofit and everybody is considered like we kind
of become mentors and Road Recovery creates a way for
young people to communicate and build up their life skills.
But we use music, like the says, like like a bait.
But we use music or dance, or poetry or painting
or any form of art or expression. But the idea
is the way we line out the programs with the
(19:29):
creative staff mentors. We always have like a check in meeting,
so we want to create the dialogue and it's like
a business meeting after that of like life skills, so
we say, well, you're working on that project. That is great,
but to do that, can you at least commit to
next week that we have this much done. So even
though these kids are brilliant and we love the quality
of the work they do, it's not necessarily about how
(19:51):
good the final product is. It's about being engaged in
that journey. So it sets everybody up with life skills
and even me as a creative staff member after doing
the cycle, I have better life skills just from communicating
to the young people and getting like we're all learning
from each other. But that's that's essentially what you know
Road Recovery does and the project we were doing in
the Bronx But that's why I contacted you, like, hey,
(20:12):
Jeane wants to meet up and Daryl comes down to you.
I guess it's Clay Street. We worked in the organization
at the time. Road Recovery was partnered with Bronx Connect.
It's called RTG. We're doing the show, Darrel. The shows
up and he's talking to all the young people. They
know who you are. They know and you're saying when
I it was snowing, and I was when I walk outside,
the snow that falls on me is the same snow
(20:33):
that falls on you. And that vulnerability, which is everything
we try to do with the creative staff at Road Recovery.
Daryl is embodied in seconds enough for a bunch of
the young people to walk up to him and say, hey, hey, DMC,
we have a song. Do you think you could be
on it? Because because he was that open and vulnerable
and Key says yes. They basically wrote the lyrics Twinkle Twinkle,
(20:54):
Little Start. They changed it and they talked about stopping
the violence on the streets. The phenomenal on they came
up with and allowed me to participate on. It's called
Twinkle Twinkle. RTG released the grip tell you I don't
(21:20):
drink anymore. I am done with coals, being sober every day.
It's brunder full before I get I gotta pay my duels.
I can't turn the battle and come to loose. You
can't have a world that's rumber fold took hands in
the head yet run but chose I'm here to fix it,
So I come with two. I got a message for
the kits when I comes to school, don't rock put
(21:42):
a shit on rock at all. I walked on. I said,
I did not fall. To call me a bowl because
I don't fall. Call me better but the better than y'all,
or something like a poll in his overall so as
he trump, the guys said it over y'all. If you
need a superhero, come who to call. I'm not simper
one of the tipping all the dome. I'm on the
(22:03):
road to recover bread just like cool you want to
discover me, you gotta be shotting like the thums to
the supercol inside of you. I'm on the road to
recover bread, just like, Oh, you want to discover me,
gotta be shotting like the dumas to be supercool inside
of you. Don't tell you, you still tell you now
(22:50):
listen on this show, we have a couple of traditions.
The first one is something we call the magic wand question,
and that means I'm gonna ask you first, Darryl, if
you had a magic wand and could wave it and
to fix one thing, what would it be? Oh? Man,
I would fix poverty. I wouldn't make sure kind of
(23:13):
um Harry Chapin's mission and I work with World Hunger
and all of those people shout out to the mountain
in Long Island. I wouldn't make sure that the last
thing people will be worrying about is where they could
get a meal, because once they're nourished, they can use
the fatality of the physical because the men too will
(23:36):
be empowered, and then we could fix everything that's needed
to fix with our hands in our minds. I would
fix poverty. How about you? Static? Wow? So magic? I
would Basically, if there's a way to have people, whenever
they encounter anybody have complete sense of empathy and openness
(23:58):
and only view that person with no other prior knowledge,
like lose all sense of prejuice. I go even beyond
like bigotry, like just you encounter a person with an
open heart and empathy and you just wait and pause
enough for two people to figure out who you are.
And if you're carrying empathy in your heart even if
you're in need, I would hope you wouldn't, because people
(24:20):
sometimes do bad things that disparity. A lot of our
our horror has come out of desperate situations and misunderstanding.
So if you could just encounter everybody with a sense
of empathy in that open heart understanding just to grow,
I think a lot of things would come out of
that as a ripple effect. Those are great answers. So
if people who want to get involved with the great
work that you guys are doing, how do they do that?
(24:42):
Is there? A website? Is there? And Instagram or any
other way they can get involved. Road Recovery dot Org
is the website at road Underscore Recovery is our Instagram
and the Instagram is awesome because it's growing more and
more due to lockdown era, because we've gotten so much
amazing cottage of young people creating stuff. So just expect
(25:02):
that to be a great place to see what we
actually do. Yeah, for anybody out there wondering, you could
find us on a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube at Road Recovery,
and we're gonna make it super easy for you. There
will be a link in our bio to all the
information you need to join the movement, get involved, volunteer,
teach sing right, do whatever it is you can do
(25:26):
to help these kids and to help Darryl and Static
in their mission. And please tune in next week when
we speak with the Lieutenant Governor of the great state
of Pennsylvania, who I hope we will all soon be
calling U S. Senator John Fetterman. And now the closing
of our show is something we call words of Wisdom,
and it's super simple. This is where I first of all,
(25:49):
thank you both for being here and just for doing
all the incredible stuff that you're doing. And so words
of wisdom works like this. I just turned my microphone off,
kick back in my chair, close my eyes, my headphones on,
and let you share anything else at all. That you
would think we didn't cover and then maybe we should have.
So static, why don't you go first and we'll let
(26:12):
Darryl that clean up. Right before I do that, I
just want to thank you in mind that UM, you
came to actually do something with us at Road Recovery
in the Bronx and that was a great day for
those kids, for young people, and I really appreciate that
the whole organization does UM. For me, I want to
kind of sell up some of the things that I
heard from Darryl, and I think normalizing mental health asking
(26:35):
for help is so important and UM in this it's
just that feeling like if you could just it's tough,
we're in it, we don't we isolate, but if we
could just get out of it and reach out to others,
there's so much that could come out of that. And
when we bring in this WE factor, you know, like
a lot of recovery programs that are WE programs and
road Recovery just power of WE as UM for good reason,
(26:58):
because when you're not alone, you don't you just feel
like you can face anything. And I've benefited off that
feeling even again with this world of you know, navigating
a d h D as an adult found the support
groups first thing I did, and I literally listened to
you know, ten or twelve different people sound just like me,
And I really think that's that comes from thoughtful communication,
(27:20):
that comes from being open and vulnerable. But the more
people could just, I guess, be open to the idea
of like finding that first tribe to let you rejoin
the rest of the tribe. So whatever is eating at you,
whatever is bothering you, like, just go for the help.
Because whoever you are, I don't know all of you,
but I want everyone to be on this planet as
long as they're supposed to be here, and just don't
(27:42):
be afraid to ask for help. That's pretty much it.
Let's normalize mental health. That's awesome. Um, yes, thank you, Jason,
because you've gotta understand how important you are in all this,
because you're giving us a chance to have dialogue, You're
giving us a chance to be heard. What I want
to say is this, here's some words of wisdom. Every
(28:05):
problem that we face in this world today can be
solved in the blank of an eye if we all
sit down, come together and work together to solving the problem.
And one of the first ways to have victory in
(28:28):
all communities, across all racial boundaries, race, creeds, colors and nations.
Is the o GS and the Young Geez doing what
we do at wrote Recovery, getting together and sharing the
dialogue to the young people out there. Old people are
(28:49):
not old, They are walking experience. That means they didn't die,
they didn't know d and they're not in jail. They
didn't get destroyed in the wars and the struggles of
this human experience. And the O g s listen to
the young people because they have the new ideas. In
(29:13):
order to solve the problem, government has to change, politics
has to change, and religion has to change. You learn
from the elders, but you also learn how to execute
from the young people. If we combine those two things,
we can eradicate all of the problems that we have
(29:36):
across the boarder words of wisdom. We gotta come together
and work together every day. You just can't give out
turkeys on Thanksgiving, and you just can't give out gifts
on Christmas and expect things to get better. M thank
(30:06):
you for listening to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam. I'd
like to thank our production team, Connor Hall Jeff Clyburne
and Kevin Wardis. The music in this production was supplied
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Follow us
on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Twitter at wrong Conviction,
and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Righteous Convictions with
(30:27):
Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
and association with Signal Company Number one
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