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