 I'm really excited to be back at our Get Stuff Done podcast. This is episode 12, and I'm really excited about our guest here today, you know, a man that, you know, we grew up not too far from each other. I was in South Jamaica, Queens, and back there as young people, we were just in admiration at this great three letters, you know, Run DMC. And I'm here with one of the talented brothers from that organization and that just entertainment a pioneer, Daryl Matthews McDaniels, better known by his stage name DMC. He's a founding member of the hip hop group Run DMC and is considered one of the pioneers of hip hop culture. Who would have thought hip hop would have brought us this far? That's crazy. Welcome here in City Hall. And it's just really good to see you have a powerful story, powerful narrative, ups and down, twists and turns, but you're still here. We all do. Right? And I'm sitting here, looking at your book, Daryl McDaniels, 10 Ways Not to Commit Suicide. You have a Comet book as well, and you have a book by your child, it's your son or daughter. Well, no, that's me in the third grade. Okay. Yeah, it's a story about me in his third grade getting teased, bullied and picked on, but finding my own voice and following your dream. Love it. Because we all have dreams. Love it. What schools did you go to, by the way? Well, elementary schools, St. Pascal Baylor Elementary School in Hollis, Queens, New York. It was one of the last Catholic schools in the neighborhood. The priest in the nuns was, we can't give up on the little black kids, we got to stay here for them. So, they trouped it out, but it's crazy, Mr. Man. I took three trains and two city buses to travel from Queens to go to Rice High School, 124th Street, in Lenox, yeah, and they was known for basketball, but it was all boys' Catholic high school, and I was a small enough student to get in there, the beautiful thing about making that trip. All the kids used to say, why in the world do you take three trains and two buses? Rice was a good school, but plus, when I got there, it gave me a first-hand look at the culture of hip hop before the records. So, when I got to Rice, most of the kids in the school were from the Bronx, Manhattan, and Harlem. Never remember, Harlem has been a beautiful renaissance. Right, right. It's Harlem now. Right. It's Harlem. It's Harlem. It's Harlem. I'm super fine, all of that. So, you know, the rap records came out, the hip hop records came, the hip hop came to Queens via the live performances on the cassette tapes, the recordings. But then it was the records. Rappers are like messaging, but when I got to Rice, those kids, they grew up there. They lived there before the era of the recorded hip hop. So I'm learning about all the hip hop from 79 to 73. So I'm learning about the purpose and the motive behind these young people creating this music. Now, it was for fun, but I discovered that it was really about inspiration, motivation, education. Right, right. You know, here's who I am, here's who you are. Now, since people think we have no resources, what can we do? So I learned that the music, the art, the dance, the style, the poetry, all had a purpose to allow us to evolve. And you've got to think about it. The Bronx was burning in the 70s. Right, that's right. I grew up in Queens. Well, Harlem also, Harlem? Yeah, Harlem. South Jamaica, Queens. Yes, South. You know, all of this. Every place we were, I looked at the Supreme Team documentary that talked about during that time. You know, we were coming out of the heroin, getting ready to enter the crack. It was a different time for all of us. But when you started out, it wasn't even about making money. It was about telling your message. How was it back then, the three of you coming together? What was what was the thought back then? We grew up in the same neighborhood in the two hours or the three hours that you had at a hip hop party, block party, park party, a house party was heaven. It was to get us away from all the pressures and the hell that was outside, you know, every day lots. But it was basically based on creativity. For me, hip hop wasn't, like you said, it wasn't about entertainment and fortune and fame. I was like, oh, shoot, you could tell stories about who you are over music. Right. So it gave us a little kid down McDaniels from Queens, New York. I could tell people who I am. When did when did you realize that? Hey, I'm on to something. Well, it took a minute because, you remember, in the early years of hip hop, it was no albums, it was no videos. We wasn't on MTV. It was singles and people was like, it's a fad. Where you going to be in in three years? But I would say with the advent of MTV, because MTV was significant because it put all of us young kids, you know, from these ghettos and lower income neighborhoods, it put us in everybody's living room. Interesting. So Beverly Hills and all over people were seeing this culture, this way of life. And some of the people were a little nervous. Right. About having these. The image would have looked like and what it represented. It's almost, I was telling someone the other day, it's almost like jazz. Whenever you had those genres that were created by, you know, black and brown folks, it was actually demonized until it reached a level of acceptance. And now jazz is cool and hip. And hip hop is everywhere. It was rebellious. Yeah, right. But it was the truth. Right. You know, when you think about the seventies, people thought New York city was heaven, you know, which was cool. New York has always been a cool place to be. Right. But our reality wasn't fortune, fame and opulence. So hip hop basically allowed real people to tell their story and it allowed us not to be ashamed of our conditions, but by sharing those truths. By having that communication, by having that interaction. It was like, what could we do next? The message was the message. Right, right, right. It's like a jungle. The message was a mental health record. It's like a jungle sometime. Don't push me. But then Planet Rock was close to the edge, right? I'm close to the edge. I'm trying not to. But then Planet Rock was we know a place where everybody could eat, but we don't have to fight where we don't have to sell drugs in our own communities and it's the arts that allowed us to make those dreams come true, though, the Aerosmith piece sort of took it to another level. And I was reading something the other day, how there was a lot of tension behind that Aerosmith collaboration of people were angry. It was taboo. It was really right. Yeah, the the white, dedicated, religious rock fan. This is blast for me. Who these black young rappers, you know, it was like, what are they doing? But what they didn't understand was it's all rock and roll. Now, first of all, let's be true. Blues is the roots. Everything else is the fruits. So you could talk to the greatest white rock stars in God. Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Stephen Tyler, Joe Perry, for Aerosmith. You'll sit down and talk to them about them. They will talk about the black blues artists that started it. So for us, in the beginning, we didn't have access to studios. So we had to find things to wrap over. So we took the break beats. Of course, we took it from James Brown. We always had a funky drummer beat. Of course, we took it from Parliament Funk and Della, because they had the funk. Of course, like you just mentioned, we took it from jazz. It was a lot of instrumentals. When the when the world drew disco away, another man's trash is another man. Give it to us. So we started using it. But also in the crates of Grandmaster Flash, Cool Herc, in the Grand Wizard Theatre were rock records. Love it. You know, a movie I saw the other day, I was on a plane and didn't even realize I would like it, but I really enjoyed it. Elvis was incredible. He and he talks about his beginning and, you know, going to the movie. Who was he hanging with? There you go. That's right. Who was he hanging with? It went into the Black Church. He saw it. Right. Right. And it just showed a little Richard for advice. Right. Right. Honey, just do your thing. You know, you know, you sounded like little Richard. Exactly. What's interesting is that don't push me. I'm close to the edge, you know, you were close to the edge. And that's what your book is about. Ten ways not to commit suicide. You know, talking about this mental health piece, something that really men of color don't like to really talk about. Right. Because they think it's not cool. Right. There's this stigma. Oh, you ain't supposed to have feelings. You ain't. The most powerful thing that you can do is talk about when you're weak, scared, afraid and vulnerable. Then your power will come to you, but we have been programmed and hypnotized not to do that. So over the course of many generations, we mask our true feelings and our emotions. And how do we do that by harmful, destructive behaviors? If something's going on with me, I'm going to go fight everybody. Right. If I don't want to fight anybody, I'm going to abuse myself. I'm going to take drugs. I'm going to take alcohol to try to calm those feelings down. And if I don't want to hurt you and if I don't want to hurt myself, you think your only outlet is suicide. I don't want to be here to deal with this. So I grew up, had a great life, had the best parents ever. Ever coming up in St. Alvin's, Queens, mom and dad, mom and dad, Bifrit, son of Bifrit, brother of Al, banners, my mother runs my pal. It's McDaniels, not McDonald's. These roms are Daryls, those burgers are Ronald. I ran down my family tree, my mother, my father, my brother and me. Oh, so I had a great life. And then I got the opportunity to have hip hop culture. Bless me to give me a purpose to help inspire, motivate and educate people. But I'm still human. I still go through things. A lot of us, we mask our feelings through harmful and destructive behaviors. So long story short, in 1993, at the height of my career, everybody run DMC, you are God, you are pioneers, you are legends. When people was praising me, I felt like killing myself. And I didn't know why it was just this void in my life. And I thought, oh, if I die tomorrow, people know Run DMC, there's records, there's videos, there's books. But I want you to know Daryl. Daryl is no different from any human being on the face of the earth. So I call my mother up. Now, I should have said, mom, I'm dealing with something and snap, but you don't want to worry your parents. And I'm saying, so what I was doing, I was dealing with my own things. So I call my mom's up and say, mom, I want to write a book. You know, I got my records. What time was I born? What hospital? What day? She tells me everything. I knew my birthday was May 31st. So hung up the phone. Hour goes by, Mr. Mayor. So all I wanted to do was say, in addition to my music, my Adidas contract, walking this way with Errol Smith and my tricky songs. I'm really just Daryl McDaniels, like all of you. Hour goes by, she calls back with my father on the phone. Hey, son, hey, dad, what's up? We have something else to tell you. I was 35 years old. I was an alcoholic, metaphysical, suicidal wreck who was thinking of killing herself. They came with this. We have something else to tell you. You was a month old when we brought you home and you're adopted, but we love you by click. So that was a life changing revelation, something that shook me to my roots. But then I calmed down and I said, wow, my Adidas walk this way, everything I ever did. I shouldn't be ashamed of being adopted or even a foster kid. So I started talking about it. That led me to say, you know what? I need to be a strong body and mind. So I went to rehab to stop drinking. And Mr. Man, when I got to rehab, I found the most gangster thing an individual man, woman, boy and girl, black, white, Puerto Rican, young, old, can do for himself. I found this thing called therapy where I was able to talk about how I felt and not be ashamed. My therapist said, you can be mad. You can be angry. You can be confused. You can have anxiety. Right. Right. So me being in hip hop, hip hop is about keeping it real. I get out of rehab and therapy and people say, yo, DMC, what's up with you? I would tell them, yo, I was going to kill myself just in that and all the celebrity stuff would leave a hundred percent of the time. Two things about me being honest with who I am and not being ashamed. These two things would happen. They would say, Darryl, thank you for telling me that. Me too, or if it wasn't them, they would go, my mother, my father, my sister, brother. So I realized that the King of Rock thing, the thing that I did with Ron and Jay, the Adidas deal was just to set up for what I was really put here to do. Finding a purpose is crucial. You know, it was interesting being told that you are adopted. You know, I'll never forget when my sister's dad died and I didn't know that she had a different father. I was in school when I got the, found out about it. And I was surprised. That tore me apart, you know? So how a child is impacted, I can only imagine you are a young man and you learn and it impacted you. That's one of the most devastating things that you can learn in life. Depression is based on traumas. Traumas that people tell you, you're too young to be thinking about that. Don't deal with that. Oh, man, up and stuff like that. No, deal with those feelings right there. You know, when kids go through stuff, you shouldn't say you're too young to, how do you feel? Why do you feel like they won't tell you? So that's why I did The Children's Book Down with Dream. All of the stuff that we go through in life as adults, our work environment, our interaction with our family, our friends, your career, everything that we go through, our playground is your work, your home, your friendship area. It's the same thing for the children, but their environment is the household, the backyard, the street, the classroom and the schoolyard. So a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear, a lot of confusion begins there. And when we bottle it up, we hold all that in so it took me 35 years to just wake up and say, I don't know what's going on with my life. What is this void in me? Sure, I was fine as DMC, but there were things and feelings that I wasn't allowed to or didn't think it was cool to address. Like if I would have known earlier than 35, I'd have been at eight years old telling everybody, I'm scared to death. I don't want to do that because I'm dealing with my truth. And by admitting I'm scared, I'm vulnerable, I'm nervous, that's your victory. I tell kids how I communicate with the kids. I say it's the hip-hop's 50th anniversary. Yeah, I've been involved for 40 of the 50 years. And I tell kids, I'm honest, I still get scared. I use these words before I go on stage. So that's just telling the kid, even if they don't know Run DMC, oh, it's cool to be scared. And you know what, there's nothing wrong with that. And people look at the celebrity status of performance. They don't know the hours working in the studio. They don't know what it's like being on the road around the stress of performance. The stress it is. Take us into that a little bit of, you know, moving around, I'll never forget one day, and it's that image stays in my mind often. You guys were coming back from performing overseas somewhere. And I saw the three of you walking to, it was Rochdale. You were walking inside Rochdale and everybody was saying, it's Run DMC. They don't know how beat down, tired and overworked we were, but we still will call you. But you gotta understand, doing your thing takes energy. It takes a lot out of you. And like you just said, I was speaking with Jesse Jackson about 25 years ago. He said, they look at people in the media. They look at celebrities. And he basically said, MTV Cribs is cool, but it shows results. It don't show process. So everybody's looking at us. They'll look at you and say, oh, his life is perfect and this and that and this and they don't know you get sad. They don't know you have thoughts of, am I sure? They don't know that you have doubts, but we mass those truths. So everybody will look at a so-called celebrity and think they're indestructible. My greatest power was having people who looked up to me all these years, realizing that the mighty king of rock, there is none higher. Sucker MC, Shakur Messiah is weak and vulnerable like all of us. And that's the breakthrough. And you know what's fascinating is that that's why you have to really find your center. You know, people talk about that. I get up early in the morning, meditate, exercise, get my green smoothie. If you don't take care of yourself, it's almost like the pilot saying when you're on an aircraft, put the mask, if the cabin pressure drops, place the mask on yourself before you do who you're traveling with. You gotta take care of yourself. And we're not doing that. We're so busy. Giving to other people, but you won't be effective if you're not okay. Well said. And you know, you are doing something amazing that I like. In 2006, you started and founded the Felix Organization to help children and foster care. We're doing some amazing stuff around foster care that was important to me. Whatever you need me to do, I'm there. Love it. I think the numbers, when a child aged out of not having the support that they deserve, we did something called Fair Futures, allow children to age out and learn at a later age with life cultures. We're paying college tuition for those who want to go to college and giving them a stipend for if they go to a one in all schools without a doubt. People, they don't want to be babysacked. They just need an opportunity. That's beautiful that you do. No, without a doubt. Tell me the exact reason why we started the Felix Organization. Tell me what it is about and what are you doing? What is up? Well. And tell me about the name Felix. Well, we found out later that Felix means happiness. Okay. Well, we named it Felix to explain the people, to make people understand what adoption of foster care is. So we had to come up with an example. So we grew up with Felix the cat on TV. So we created this. In his bag. In his bag of tricks, you know what I'm saying? He can make anything happen. We came up with a scenario where a dog gets adopted by a cat family. And they won't name them Rover. They don't name them Fido. They give them a cat name. But he grows up and he realizes, why can't climb trees? Why? I don't like playing with yarn in this scenario. Why? I don't like milk. And they go, Felix, sorry, never told you, but you're not really a cat. But then when they tell him that they tell him, you're still perfect just the way you are. The situation doesn't define who you are. Matter of fact, since you're a dog, you can still be the greatest cat that ever existed. So we gave him inspiration to let him know and these children, the situation doesn't define who you are. You do. Take advantage of every opportunity, especially the ones that's educational, artistic and creative. And there's nothing in this world that you won't be able to do. My therapist had to tell me because I was acting differently when I found out I was adopted. She said, that's just your situation. Right, right. Don't become that label. You could be a doctor, a lawyer, whatever, whatever. I could. So what you're doing is regardless of a person's situation, you allowing them to become the people they were put here to be. I searched for my birth mother. I grew up in Queens. She was in Staten Island. I searched for her. I found her. Two brothers and a sister and I didn't know I had. But when I met my birth mother, the first thing she said was this, I know you're dying to know why I gave you up. I was like, shoot, lady, that's an understatement. She looked me in the eyes and she said, to give you a chance. And when I sat back and looked at, so what you're doing is giving these children these youth a chance. I went to school early in life. I took a trip to Fort Worth, Texas to go to DeVy Institute of Technology. And I took the bus down and on my way down, I stopped at Waco, in Waco, Texas. And I was on the college campus and everybody was calling me Kevin. Kevin, Kevin. And I was like, my name is Eric. Little did I know I had a brother around the same age as me from Brooklyn at Waco College. My dad had a whole other family, man. You know that. And you walked in there, Kevin. Right. Looked like everybody, they were calling me Kevin. I lost him a couple of years ago. He got caught up on crack when I was in the 88th Precinct. He got arrested one time and the prisoner van came by and he said, that's my brother inside there. So we don't know the roles in the journey we are. And sometimes people look over our lives and it sounds so unreal that it's hard for them to understand this is the life we live. Exactly. We didn't go home to Father Knows Best. Exactly. Somebody wasn't standing there waiting for us. We had to figure it out. In many cases, we didn't have all the answers. It's like those boys and girls in the Bronx that created hip hop. People thought they had nothing but they had everything necessary inside of them. And that's the beautiful thing. I tell people, everybody has a story that could change and save a life. Well said. Don't call me a celebrity because that is something I could never be. I am you and you are me. But people don't know that unless we share and communicate. Mr. Mayor, there's no such thing as a generation gap. With the OGs and the young Gs don't get along. It's a communication and sharing of information gap. Well said. The reason why hip hop is so great is we looked at what James Brown was doing. We looked at what Slot and the Family Stone was doing. We looked at what the Reefler was doing and Curtis Mayfield. Even the rock stars re-read about what David Bowie was doing. We educated ourselves with the information so that when we got up on that mic, when we got up on that stage, okay, we're gonna get some money. Okay, it's all fortune and fame but there's a responsibility to you in that position. That's something that grandmaster flashed in the first five tortoise to funky four plus one. The plus one was a female girl, shy rocked the only one. At the beginning of time, one girl in the midst of all of these dudes, bold enough to get on that mic and show that she belonged there. And opened the door for so many more. It's so many more. Adidas, you weren't that big endorsement. First non-athlete endorsement but I do want to touch on something before we close. It had to have been a dark moment in your life when you lost, you know. Jen and Master Jen. Yes. To gun violence. To gun violence, people often don't realize it was gun violence, something that we fought for. Even he couldn't get away from it. Right, something we fought against. Where were you? How did you get here? I remember that we were supposed to go to the next day down on Washington DC to perform half time after Washington Wizards game. So I'm at home and first it was the 10 o'clock news. Channel five and channel nine. Jam as to Jay shot in studio. So now I go, all right, maybe somebody did get shot because it was Queens as high as, but not Jay. They're just saying, Jam as to Jay shot. So it didn't sink in. So 11 o'clock, turn it to two, turn it to four, turn it to seven. Okay, this must be something. But then again, maybe somebody did get shot up in there but it wasn't Jay. So my manager, Eric, who is here with me now is daughter calls, crying. They killed Jay. Still didn't believe it. I'm living in Jersey at this time. I get them out, me and my wife, we get in the car, we get a babysitter, we drive the Queens. 165th Terminals where the studio is at. I know it very well. Across the street from the precinct. Hold up. Right across the street from the precinct. Yeah. So this is when it was reality, Mr. Mayor. I pull up, I see Chuck D of public enemy. And I see Ed Lover from your MTV raps, balling like little kids. And what's crazy is Jay could have his studio in Hollywood. He could have his studio in Manhattan down the block from Puffy's studio. He chose to keep his studio five minutes from where he grew up. Cause he found the doorway out. He left that doorway open for all of us. And I remember I was on line and I put, I put, I typed in. I'm not mad at the dude that shot Jay. I should've never did that, Mr. Mayor. I got cursed out like my stream was like crazy, crazy. I said, no, let me explain myself. I said, my fight isn't against the brother, the person that shot Jay. My fight is so, I said, our fights are so much bigger. What do you mean, DMC? My fight is against the mentality that will cause a person to do that. He didn't just stop Jay. He's like, he stopped the next producer, the next manager, the next film maker, stuff like that. So when I started explaining him like, when I started to explain myself like that, it was like, yo, D, that's right. Cause that got it pulled to trigger to realize he didn't have to. So hip hop for us, you know, our parents can tell us stuff. You know, we can read about it in history books. We can, we can get chaperoned and we could get taught not to do these things. The one thing that was so powerful hip hop, it was us young people talking to each other. The Zulu Nation was the biggest street gang in New York City who said, we got to stop being a gang and shooting and selling drugs in our community. Let's become the Zulu Nation. So how are we going to get through? Instead of shooting and selling drugs, we going to dance. We going to play some music. We going to do art. Graffiti was wrong. Right, right, right. I tell you, graffiti was wrong cause we was writing on property we didn't own. But when those people in the properties that didn't want us writing on their wall said, yo, let's give them a canvas. Right, right. So we created the attention to have people give us opportunity but we were showing something that was positive and had a lot of potential to change us. So the young brothers and sisters, Jay and Poc and Big Dian, oh, it hurts my heart. But what hurts my heart more is the Jay Pocs and Bigs that die every day. That's right, that's right. That's who we fighting for, Mr. Man. And what goals in the grave with them? Yes. So as we close, what's next? The next thing for me to do is continue to do what I've been doing ever since I was put in this position. I used to just go to colleges to speak for the paid lectures, right? And I would go and speak and tell my story. And those college professors was like, D, you got to take that story to the high school. So I go to the high school and when I get to the high school, they nervous cause, you know, a lot of the kids, I don't want to take the money out the school systems. They want to pay me. I go, no, keeping them for the kids. And I'll speak at the high school. Then those teachers are going, you got to take this to the middle school. So I'm like, okay, I go to the middle school and then I get to the middle school. D, you got to go to the elementary school. So for me to go to elementary school, I had to put myself in a scenario that kids can relate to. So I don't know after dominating the world, walking this way in my Ditas with Errol Smith and Jay to tell the world how tricky life can be. I'm in colleges, I'm in high schools, I'm in elementary schools, I'm in group homes, I'm in foster care agencies. I speak all over the world for mental health. What's next is this, Mr. Mayor, wherever you need me to be or anybody listening to be, that's where I'm supposed to be. You know what? Let me tell you something. And I'll rock a good rhyme when I'm there too. Let's not forget that. All I know is who would have thought hip hop would have taken us this far and I'm gonna do the rest of my life. I'm just gonna walk this way. Yes. And it's gonna be a good walk while we at it. My man. Thank you. Good to see you, man. And you know what? I'm gonna read this book. Thank you. Adele McDaniels, 10 Ways Not To Commit Suicide. And then we don't have. Thank you. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you. Thank you.