Speaker 1: Music Saved Me, alcoholic suicide and metaphysical spiritual wreck who
Speaker 1: is thinking of killing himself already but then finds out
Speaker 1: that he's adopted. Oh, let's not forget this. During that time,
Speaker 1: Jim I Sagen gets shaw and killing, then my farm
Speaker 1: and eye. So I was dealing with all of that.
Speaker 1: Please lock on it. It was the music or the music.
Speaker 1: I look at it like this, The music had healed
Speaker 1: me already.
Speaker 2: I'm Len Hoffman and welcome to the Music Saved Me Podcast,
Speaker 2: the podcast where we get to talk in depth to
Speaker 2: up and coming artists and musicians as well as some
Speaker 2: of the biggest names in the business about the healing
Speaker 2: powers of music. On this episode, you are in for
Speaker 2: a huge treat. I'm so excited to welcome one of
Speaker 2: the very biggest names in music in the world. In fact,
Speaker 2: his band run DMC is credited as being the greatest
Speaker 2: hip hop band of all time by MTV and the
Speaker 2: Beatles of Rap. It's like I have a Beatle here.
Speaker 2: I like to refer to him not only as the Goat,
Speaker 2: but also as a dear old friend who is one
Speaker 2: of the most giving humans that I've ever met on
Speaker 2: the planet and in the music industry. Daryl McDaniel's d
Speaker 2: mc welcome to.
Speaker 1: Music saved me. Thanks for having me. It's so great
Speaker 1: to have you here.
Speaker 2: I would it be fair to say that music saved you?
Speaker 1: I hit you with the one right up front right. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I could say that, but I went and said that
Speaker 1: because the actual moment it saved me came later on
Speaker 1: in my life. Can you But I can say music
Speaker 1: saved me from having to figure out what I was
Speaker 1: going to do for career. That's right, and literally saved
Speaker 1: my life after that, after I got into the career
Speaker 1: of music, it saved my life. Put in the beginning,
Speaker 1: I was at Saint John's University. I went to Saint
Speaker 1: John's for business management only because my best friend Douglas
Speaker 1: Hey shout out to Butter and we shout him out
Speaker 1: on rock box when Mangoes but of Love Now co
Speaker 1: Tina Man Butter. We was together since kindergarten. So from
Speaker 1: kindergarten in the twelfth grade, it was me and him.
Speaker 1: If you saw a Butter, you saw me. If you
Speaker 1: saw me, you saw a Butter. So in twelfth grade
Speaker 1: at Rice High School, all boys Catholic High School at
Speaker 1: Harlem UH the guidance Council gives you the life papers
Speaker 1: and says, pick a career, pick a college. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what I wanted to do. All I cared about
Speaker 1: was comic books, That's right. And I was just good
Speaker 1: in school. And I was like, Doug, what do I pick?
Speaker 1: He said, hold on, pick business management, okay, and pick
Speaker 1: Saint John's University. So I did that, and then first
Speaker 1: day is Saint John's University. I get up to the
Speaker 1: campus snow butter snow Doug. So I go to the
Speaker 1: pay phone, I put the money in and I call him.
Speaker 1: He's sleep. I'm like, dog, what's up. It's the first
Speaker 1: day of school. Because we've been together first day of
Speaker 1: school for twelve years. He goes, hold on, I ain't
Speaker 1: got no classes. I'll see you later, hangs up on me.
Speaker 1: What so now? Anxiety and fear and confusion and abandonment
Speaker 1: and alienation and just hitting me. And I turned around.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the big campus of Saint John's University.
Speaker 1: I was just like totally overwhelmed. So I went to
Speaker 1: the orientation class and I didn't go to my classes
Speaker 1: that I had that day, and went back to Alis,
Speaker 1: went to the pool hall, and I brought forty yunths
Speaker 1: of old English and I sat there saying, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I gotta grow up. I gotta get my life together,
Speaker 1: this and that. So that was a journey. That was
Speaker 1: a big, big journey, a lot of emotional issues that
Speaker 1: I didn't know what later on exploding my life. But
Speaker 1: fortunately the reason why I say it saved me. I
Speaker 1: was mere and thought it was a class of eighty
Speaker 1: two or Rice High School. So Juna eighty two, I
Speaker 1: graduated from Rice High School. August of eighty two. My
Speaker 1: friend Joseph Simmons, who I went to Saint Pasco being
Speaker 1: one elementary school with, he calls me, says, de remember
Speaker 1: what four years ago when I said if I ever
Speaker 1: make a record, I'm putting you in my group. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: grab you around book, We're going in the studio. So
Speaker 1: on August of eighty two, we went and we made
Speaker 1: a demo for two songs called It's like That in
Speaker 1: the B side, because remember it was no albums back then.
Speaker 1: Hip hop records were like discos. It was singles and
Speaker 1: the B side was suckeram ceas. So now I'm into
Speaker 1: the second semester at Saint John's University, realizing I hate
Speaker 1: business management, I don't like account What am I going
Speaker 1: to do with myself? We had recorded the demo August
Speaker 1: eighty two. So now Joseph Simmon called me again, my
Speaker 1: brother Russell. He got us a record deal. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be on this label called Profile Records. Hooray and he
Speaker 1: hangs up, oh my. So that kind of was this
Speaker 1: saving moment that music first say through me a life raft.
Speaker 2: It sure did, and then later on cutting through quite
Speaker 2: a bit of your life and career, because I don't
Speaker 2: know a lot of artists that put out their first
Speaker 2: album and it sells a million copies, and then they
Speaker 2: have to do another album and then it does even better.
Speaker 2: Usually it's all the way around, and then everyone do
Speaker 2: you keep going up the ladder?
Speaker 1: We had a three. I kind of look at that
Speaker 1: early part of our career as the career of Cream.
Speaker 1: It was like trifecta. Yeah, we put the first album OUNT,
Speaker 1: and we put the first album OUNT in a world
Speaker 1: where okay, we like these hip hop singles, and this
Speaker 1: was it. There's no way anybody in this universe once
Speaker 1: they hear a whole album full of this hip hop
Speaker 1: rap stuff, so we put out the self titled Run DMC,
Speaker 1: so five hundred thousand copies and win gold and we
Speaker 1: got on MTV. Yeah you did so. Then that was
Speaker 1: eighty four. Then in eighty five, when they were saying, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll give you all that too, but there's no way
Speaker 1: you're going to be around hip hop's are fat it's
Speaker 1: gonna die like disco. What are you going to be
Speaker 1: doing next year? So I got offended. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not just doing this show. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be the King of Rocks. So then we did an
Speaker 1: album where the balls and the guts to do an
Speaker 1: album called King of Rock, and we put that out
Speaker 1: and then it went platinum. And then we did a
Speaker 1: video with Larry Budd Melman from The David Letterman Show
Speaker 1: at the front door of a Rock and Roll Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame museum that didn't exist yet, telling us we're
Speaker 1: not allowed to come in here. And then look now
Speaker 1: the Rock Roll Old Fame Museum. Everybody's like, why is
Speaker 1: you rapping there? All of that was pathetic. So that
Speaker 1: was eighty four Run DMC, eighty five King of Rock.
Speaker 1: Then in eighty six we hooked up with Aerosmith, of course,
Speaker 1: walked all the way, they'd walk this way, did a
Speaker 1: song about our sneakers. I don't play no basketball and
Speaker 1: I got a sneaky deal, just like Michael Jordan. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't write this stuff. You can't. It's crazy. So
Speaker 1: who Well, music did a lot, but it definitely saved
Speaker 1: my saved me by giving me a career. And then
Speaker 1: we'll get into later on where and forget careers saved
Speaker 1: my life?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sure did well. Before we go there, I
Speaker 2: want to bring up something that you just said about
Speaker 2: fifty years of hip hop. Well you didn't say it.
Speaker 2: I'm saying it. Last year celebrated fifty years and it
Speaker 2: was supposed to be a flash in the pan.
Speaker 1: They were telling you, right, I I thought it would
Speaker 1: have win single you had.
Speaker 2: You had everything to do with it. You run, Jason,
Speaker 2: you did it all. I mean you took something that
Speaker 2: was underground and you made it right right.
Speaker 1: We did on Adidas. I say, what Run DMC did.
Speaker 1: We took the beat from the street and put it
Speaker 1: on TV. We didn't create it, but we we were
Speaker 1: the face. People say, if you look up hip hop
Speaker 1: in a dictionary, encyclopedia or online, now your face J. No, No, definitely,
Speaker 1: no words, just me running J like that like that's
Speaker 1: we definitely did that, that's the answer. Yeah, we definitely
Speaker 1: did that. When were you first exposed to music as
Speaker 1: a kid growing up? Oh you remember, yes, I definitely remember.
Speaker 1: I probably was. Let me see, it was after kindergarten
Speaker 1: when I started paying attention, probably six or seven years old.
Speaker 1: It was AM radio, a lot of AM stations, but
Speaker 1: it was all segregated, a separate yet the white station
Speaker 1: you at, the black AM stations w WORL had all
Speaker 1: of the w O R, all of these different but
Speaker 1: it was separate. But the thing that was the exposure
Speaker 1: to it that made me catch the cold or the flu.
Speaker 1: The thing that made me catch it was seventy seven
Speaker 1: w ABC in New York City FM Dan Ingram, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Harry Harrison, that's the stud chuck in my life. That's
Speaker 1: when I started paying attention to music because before that,
Speaker 1: for me, prior to that, prior to seventy seven w ABC,
Speaker 1: it was comic books, the old black and white Godzilla movies,
Speaker 1: Oh my God, and the old black white nineteen thirties Horruthor,
Speaker 1: Lawn Cheney, Bela Lagosi, Boris call it. Those are the
Speaker 1: best movies ever made in the history of cinema. Do
Speaker 1: you watch Single Wolf? Yeah? I love every Saturday Night
Speaker 1: in the Avenue Costellos or Sunday Meet the Wolfburg. So
Speaker 1: that was my life for seventy seven. W A b C.
Speaker 1: Made me pay attention to music because prior to that,
Speaker 1: Al Green, I was never in the soul music Al Green,
Speaker 1: Marvin Gayeretha Frank, oldest people. That was my mother and
Speaker 1: father's music. That's because they were cool, like they're always cool,
Speaker 1: Rest in peace. But that was I'm a kid, so
Speaker 1: I didn't have a music that was mine. But when
Speaker 1: seventy seven w ABC came along, you know, you have
Speaker 1: the black station playing Slive, James Brown and Jacks and Fire.
Speaker 1: You had the white stations playing Crosby Still Younger, Nass,
Speaker 1: the Beatles and the Stones, and seventy seven there we
Speaker 1: used to played all together. So you would hear Crosby
Speaker 1: Still Younger, Nass, Anyould here, Slide Family Stone, you would
Speaker 1: hear Elwen John and Bob Dylan, and then you would
Speaker 1: hear James Brown. A lot of that. But I started
Speaker 1: paying attention to seventy seven w ABC because when the
Speaker 1: rock songs came on, like Zeppelin and all that and
Speaker 1: Neil Young and stuff like that. The beats and the
Speaker 1: guitars was harder than the R and B in the
Speaker 1: soul music. So I'm in the comic books. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: these drums are crazy. So I remember one of the
Speaker 1: first songs that caught my attention over was two songs
Speaker 1: the Beatles Let it Be, But only because I went
Speaker 1: to Catholic school. So there's a line in there, and
Speaker 1: I didn't learn this till later. There's a line in
Speaker 1: there when Paul McCartney says, a mother Mary comes to me.
Speaker 1: So I'm a kid something, oh the version married. Like
Speaker 1: I'm listening to the stories telling. Later on, I found
Speaker 1: out his mother was the name married. But my whole
Speaker 1: life until I probably was twenty something years old when
Speaker 1: I read something in Paul McCarty's mother's name Mary for
Speaker 1: my whole life's but I'm only paying attention to Let
Speaker 1: it Be because I'm a Catholic school kid. That was
Speaker 1: a connected ben. It was a beautiful song, so I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, I mean it was so bitch. He's
Speaker 1: laying there and mother married. He saw the Virgin American
Speaker 1: management But the other song that I always would stop
Speaker 1: playing whatever it was to do was Doobie Brothers Blackwater.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, hearing that on the radio, it was
Speaker 1: just something either there were either yes ethereal you could
Speaker 1: touch it for you. Yeah, it was just it just
Speaker 1: did something. But those were seventy seven w ABC changed
Speaker 1: my life. What touched my life? It did?
Speaker 2: And what do you think it is about music that
Speaker 2: affects us? The moment? It was for me, it was
Speaker 2: just storyteller because I'm comic book so the story so
Speaker 2: hearing yeah, Harry Chapin, Jim Crochey.
Speaker 1: Bad bad Leroy Brown Bad. It ain't even had a
Speaker 1: video for it, had an animated video back then for
Speaker 1: that he did. Yeah, yeah, but it was just it
Speaker 1: was definitely this storytelling from Oh Foggety John Foggey Credence, like,
Speaker 1: oh my, I can't name them all them songs, all
Speaker 1: Knights and White. It was just there was just something
Speaker 1: because I guess so was so familiar to me because
Speaker 1: my mother and I was playing it, so I was
Speaker 1: here and knees saw it was harmonicas it was just
Speaker 1: it was different, but it was storytelling. It definitely was
Speaker 1: the storytelling because most most of them, you know, Marvin
Speaker 1: Gaye was the soul sex love man, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, which was cool, but the storytelling like a
Speaker 1: foggey looking out my back door and you know Harry
Speaker 1: Chapin's cats and it was just it was a storytelling.
Speaker 1: It was about life. So it made the and I
Speaker 1: know these guys were famous, but it made him seem
Speaker 1: so normal. Relata records, what gave you the inspiration to be?
Speaker 2: I mean to be so relatable because when I listened
Speaker 2: to run DMC when I was, you know, freshman in
Speaker 2: high school, it was everything to me.
Speaker 1: Was your first record? Nice? Right? And it was it
Speaker 1: was like my friends, right, that's that's a great that's
Speaker 1: a great now and no, yeah, no, it's great that
Speaker 1: you notice that because in the beginning, most of the
Speaker 1: hip hop was considered black ghetto music, and rightfully so,
Speaker 1: because it was all about the conditions in the ghetto.
Speaker 1: Sure it was the message, but even if you go back,
Speaker 1: every record was a message. It was dark and depressing.
Speaker 1: I'm a happy kid with comic books and I go
Speaker 1: to school and I got both parents in my house,
Speaker 1: so me hip keep it real. So it's funny you
Speaker 1: said that I can't come and talk about broken glass everywhere.
Speaker 1: I got both parents in my house. They pay for
Speaker 1: me and my brother to go to Catholic school. My father,
Speaker 1: they didn't have a Fleetwood or El Dorado, but he
Speaker 1: had the poor man's Cadillac, the Buick Electra. Two twenty
Speaker 1: five min old who's had a good life. You know.
Speaker 1: Run used to say, it ain't Christmas in your house
Speaker 1: on Christmas, It's Christmas in your house every day. Because
Speaker 1: I have very very loving parents. So me coming in
Speaker 1: the hip hop, I'm like, I can't rhyme like Mellie Mellan.
Speaker 1: I'm about what I don't think queens. I gotta fence
Speaker 1: around my house, and my father mows the lawn. We
Speaker 1: gotta we gotta. My dad water is the lawn and
Speaker 1: mows it. So for me, I was like, when I come,
Speaker 1: I gotta come. I gotta be like Dylan. I just
Speaker 1: got to tell the story of I'm DMC in the
Speaker 1: place to be a go to Saint John's University. But
Speaker 1: everybody was running about gangs and sticks. I'm romming about that,
Speaker 1: but those people related to them, the people in the
Speaker 1: Bronx and mad because they knew that this really existed.
Speaker 1: So I think I kind of broke the mold with
Speaker 1: hip hop because even in the dark, scary, destructive, death
Speaker 1: ridden ghetto, there was kids playing hopscotch, There was girls
Speaker 1: playing double, there was kids reading comic books and drawings.
Speaker 1: So it pisses me off that when you say the street,
Speaker 1: everybody always associates the street with negativity. But that's because
Speaker 1: of the Median house played when you say the street
Speaker 1: pimps and drugs and drugs and gang bangers, that's true,
Speaker 1: But what about every kid's cheeing bubble gum? When I
Speaker 1: came along, I said, Foggety and Dylan and John and Paul,
Speaker 1: they would write stories about what the mothers and the
Speaker 1: farmers and the bakers and the milkman said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: And you never talked down to anyone either. You just
Speaker 2: in a way run dmc led by example right exactly.
Speaker 1: You wasn't wrong for selling drugs, he wasn't wrong from
Speaker 1: being a gang. But we gave you all the alternatives
Speaker 1: that she was overlooking. So it was a very visual thing.
Speaker 1: And that's why you said, you even you know a
Speaker 1: white girl, you can relate to what run Y I
Speaker 1: related beyoncause those things are present in everybody.
Speaker 2: It was everything I was doing that was the Christmas
Speaker 2: time in Hollis queens and moms cooking.
Speaker 1: Check and even if you wasn't celebrating Christmas, what do
Speaker 1: people from all coaches do on festive occasions? Like right now,
Speaker 1: I can't go to the mall because Jewish people, Mostlim people,
Speaker 1: Asian people. They screamed my lyric at me about the
Speaker 1: Jewish family, DMC, it's Christmas. I guess what we're going
Speaker 1: on to listen to? You know what I'm saying, because
Speaker 1: they can relate to the essence of what was presenting.
Speaker 1: So I definitely got that from John and Paul and
Speaker 1: Neil Young and all those cats.
Speaker 2: When you're young, starting out, it's difficult to be well
Speaker 2: you expressing yourself for your music as artists. How important
Speaker 2: it is is it to be yourself?
Speaker 1: You know it's it's very important. Now. I never thought
Speaker 1: this would happened with hip hop, with with pop music.
Speaker 1: There's the thing where you can get person and you
Speaker 1: write the music for it, you choreograph them this and that.
Speaker 1: Like what I'm trying to say is no, I never
Speaker 1: thought this happened to hip hop because hip hop. You know,
Speaker 1: the whole Drake thing about ghost writing and stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's allowed now a hip hop because we're in the
Speaker 1: music business. But with or without the music business is
Speaker 1: hip hop. So I'm talking from that point. But what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say is Britney Spears is phenomenal, but
Speaker 1: she needs somebody to write it, to choreograph it. Clover
Speaker 1: just stylist and alect Sheryl Crown other hand, don't even
Speaker 1: need electricity. You give her an acoustic guitar, she'll sit
Speaker 1: on the stage in front of three thousand people and
Speaker 1: you will be entertained. So for us, coming hip hop
Speaker 1: was all about authent city. So the reason why rundium
Speaker 1: c was respected, the reason why Will Smith was respected,
Speaker 1: the sick grit was it we didn't try to reach
Speaker 1: and be something that we weren't. We were able to,
Speaker 1: like Nirvana said, come as you are, So you have
Speaker 1: to have integrity. But over the years in hip hop
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that didn't gang bang who
Speaker 1: thrown up gang size. But that's only because of this.
Speaker 1: Anything that is sacred, holy to a culture or people
Speaker 1: will get diluted, polluted, used, abused, and destroyed. Once it's commercialized,
Speaker 1: anything not just anything. So for rundium C it was
Speaker 1: we took it the responsibility us to keep it. Two
Speaker 1: turned tables, microphone and legit. You can come wrong about
Speaker 1: your drugs and all of that, and even the guys
Speaker 1: that did live that life, there was enough rule. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do this record about my gun and my drugs.
Speaker 1: But my very next record, which will be my single
Speaker 1: in hot rotation on the radio every fifteen minutes like
Speaker 1: music does, will be me the guy who just told
Speaker 1: you I shot and sold drugs, saying not to do
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. That's lacking now because now you're in
Speaker 1: the business, they want to see what's working. Get rid
Speaker 1: of that stuff. We don't care about lives, We don't
Speaker 1: care about what's going on in society. We only worried
Speaker 1: about this bottom line. So we're a run DMC, like
Speaker 1: Ice Tea said, run dm C yo RUNNINGMC made positivity gangster. Yes,
Speaker 1: you doing to the top and was standing there like
Speaker 1: what all of you all without? Well, I mean we
Speaker 1: cursed on about two records barely Barrett, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. We didn't shoot, we didn't disrespect women and
Speaker 1: l That was another guy who did it too. He
Speaker 1: never called the lady out of their name. Now he
Speaker 1: lifted women up. He never used to be in the
Speaker 1: H word, you know what I'm saying. So that's power.
Speaker 2: Power is getting on stage with one hundred thousand people
Speaker 2: at Live AID with all these rock bands saying you're
Speaker 2: the king of rock.
Speaker 1: Really were you scared? Yeah, we didn't want to do it.
Speaker 1: That's the funny joke. Because we got the call we
Speaker 1: on to we live. We're good right now, we get
Speaker 1: a call we gotta go to Philly. In the RF case,
Speaker 1: who's on the black side. Nope, nobody else trying to
Speaker 1: do No, you're trying to get us. No mean running
Speaker 1: to we literally me and run chopping it and play sick.
Speaker 1: We did a lot of stuff to get as we do.
Speaker 1: We wanted to play sick and y'all ain't sick, motherfuckers,
Speaker 1: get your nor Russell and the label get on a
Speaker 1: state it was. We didn't want to go. But I
Speaker 1: didn't even find this out. Telling years later too, they
Speaker 1: were having a meeting about to line up in Philly
Speaker 1: and Bill Graham, the great promoter producer you know who
Speaker 1: he is. Legend says yeah, run DMC and the to me.
Speaker 1: And there's people there that verified this. A lot of
Speaker 1: people say, why do you want them on this for
Speaker 1: they're not even gonna be here in five years? Hip
Speaker 1: hop's a fan like that whole thing. Yeah, I forgot
Speaker 1: who told me so? Money Individ said yeah, I was
Speaker 1: in the room. Bill Graham said, if rundym S is
Speaker 1: not on this, I'm pulling out. Wow. Wow, Bill, I said,
Speaker 1: did he did? Because you know, he's dude, he knows
Speaker 1: everything is something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And he was like, this ain't disco. This is something
Speaker 1: I don't know. Even if he didn't know what it is,
Speaker 1: he knew it was something that East. He saw this before.
Speaker 1: And fritzco you know what I'm saying, he fillmore. He
Speaker 1: said no. Bill Graham says, if Rundy's now on this,
Speaker 1: I'm pulling out. And I was like what Wow.
Speaker 2: That's It's amazing when you find out all the years later,
Speaker 2: think when you talk to people and you hear the in.
Speaker 1: The nervousness, we just I'll think us, we don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on. Let's just go out there and do
Speaker 1: what we do. So if you go on YouTube right now,
Speaker 1: you can see the performance. Everything goes wrong. When Jay's
Speaker 1: doing the beginning, the needle keeps jumping. See it's different
Speaker 1: with the band. With the band, you'd get the drama
Speaker 1: and this and that. We get up. When we showed
Speaker 1: up there, the stage crew was like, hey, where's the
Speaker 1: instruments and we don't have the turn tables. So the
Speaker 1: guys that knew about what run DMC was doing, they
Speaker 1: thought it was funny, but they're I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: hardcore rock religious monks of hip hop, was like, y'are
Speaker 1: playing goddamn records like it was. They was disgusted about it,
Speaker 1: so they set the turntables up for us. There you go,
Speaker 1: go do your thing. But when we came off stage,
Speaker 1: the same guys it was eighth was ol oh, hell yo.
Speaker 1: That was crazy, the like it's crazy.
Speaker 2: It was, I mean just the reach that you realized
Speaker 2: you had at that moment worldwide, you.
Speaker 1: Know, and when they announce starts, I mean people say
Speaker 1: no they did. That's why it was eighty twenty eighty thousand.
Speaker 1: All those people it's like, yeah, we know these guys,
Speaker 1: even know them or this is cool, but you still
Speaker 1: have the twenty boom? Did you even hear them boo? No?
Speaker 1: You know I heard them? Oh man, but everybody, a
Speaker 1: lot of people's I know, I was there. They wasn't
Speaker 1: doing it like a lot of people was. People in
Speaker 1: Philly came to see her under your CEB part of this,
Speaker 1: which was cool. Do you do you believe music has
Speaker 1: healing powers? Yes? I do, honey, it's it's it's clinically proven.
Speaker 1: Tell me how you feel that. I work with this
Speaker 1: organization called hip Hop Public Health. Doctor Williams, a lady
Speaker 1: Jo can't pronounce his name, but doctor Williams, huge hip
Speaker 1: hop guy. They used music as therapy for kids, for
Speaker 1: adults and everything. People with memory loss, people with brain problems,
Speaker 1: people with comas and concussions. They use music to you
Speaker 1: play a song, the person that didn't move or flinch
Speaker 1: will start moving their head. What's happened in that foot?
Speaker 1: Or people would speak things. You got to learn to
Speaker 1: speak all over again. Oh, don't give them phonics, but
Speaker 1: you don't say put a song on, I start singing.
Speaker 1: So it definitely has because it's music. Is the vibration
Speaker 1: of life percent on it.
Speaker 2: When it got late later in your career, and you
Speaker 2: were talking about it earlier, about how the management would
Speaker 2: start telling you, oh, after all this what to do and.
Speaker 1: How to do it, and you do it and you're
Speaker 1: just doing it and everything that somebody would want in
Speaker 1: the music business is happening. But once it's happening, people
Speaker 1: that don't understand the business, no, the life and the
Speaker 1: joy and the data. They're not coming from where you are.
Speaker 1: So you're getting you're getting charted, you're getting on the radio,
Speaker 1: you're touring, and you're making money. People around you start
Speaker 1: saying you need to chart, you need to get on
Speaker 1: the radio, you need to tour, you need to make money.
Speaker 1: That's when I started going, I need to so not
Speaker 1: just because they're saying that I'm getting scared, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: what if I let people down? And then all of
Speaker 1: that comes in anxiety, and and then I said, doctor,
Speaker 1: if I need to do it, what you have to
Speaker 1: start thinking what if I can't. So then I started
Speaker 1: reaching for something outside of my body to give me strength,
Speaker 1: which was the alcohol, to help me deal with those
Speaker 1: emotions and feelings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they also tried to make you play music
Speaker 2: that you didn't even want to play.
Speaker 1: Yeah against the rappers big and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: against Jane Rest in peace. But remember New Jack swing up? Yes, yes, yeh.
Speaker 1: Talk about this in my book Jay One. Jay was
Speaker 1: the guy, the new style. You know, Jay, he was
Speaker 1: the he was the he was, he was the how
Speaker 1: you say that, the current, He was the flavor. So
Speaker 1: anything just the gold change shake. I never brought a
Speaker 1: gold change in my life. Jay brought me my dookie world.
Speaker 1: I didn't want one. So Jay was like, Yo, we
Speaker 1: gotta do these New Jack and they were all right records,
Speaker 1: and I did them, knowing it wasn't for me though.
Speaker 1: I didn't know the reality of doing something to ease
Speaker 1: others and it will kill you, yes, because I started
Speaker 1: drinking myself to death. My therapist was told me, do
Speaker 1: you What she should have did is say you sit
Speaker 1: down and say no, yes, no, no, come back to me.
Speaker 1: When y'all get yourself your system. I'll be But I didn't.
Speaker 2: No, you didn't, And that would probably bring you around
Speaker 2: to the next time that music saved you. We'll be
Speaker 2: right back with more of the Music Saved Me podcast.
Speaker 2: And by the way, if you like this podcast, you
Speaker 2: are going to love our companion podcast called Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2: It's hosted by my dear friend Buzz Night and you
Speaker 2: can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back
Speaker 2: to the Music Saved Me podcast, the podcast where we
Speaker 2: discussed the healing powers of music with some of the
Speaker 2: biggest names in music as well as up and comers.
Speaker 2: I remember you told me a story the first time,
Speaker 2: maybe the second time I met you. I think it
Speaker 2: was VH one, and we sat on the couch and
Speaker 2: it was all very professional, and you told me a
Speaker 2: story and my jaw hit the floor. I think it
Speaker 2: was around the time you went to search for your
Speaker 2: birth mom.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and that was right. I was an alcoholic
Speaker 1: suicide of metaphysical correct. But that's a funny, Joe. It came.
Speaker 1: All of this came in a good time. All through
Speaker 1: the eighties everything we just talked about, and the nineties
Speaker 1: hip hop had changed. We were still run demn Cibard,
Speaker 1: Jet Tupac, Biggie n w A, Slick Rick, Naughty by Nature,
Speaker 1: Chop or Daylight sold It. We were still run DMC,
Speaker 1: but we wasn't participating as much. But then in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three, one of the guys who were inspired by
Speaker 1: us run Pete Rock, Pete Rock, seal smooth, they reminiss
Speaker 1: over range.
Speaker 3: Oh he didn't he do that the King? He produced
Speaker 3: down with the car, Down with the King. That's right, right,
Speaker 3: he produces down with the King. This is funny. People
Speaker 3: do this down with the King. Oh this is even deeper.
Speaker 1: Everybody people saying run demn C brought Aerosmith back by
Speaker 1: doing walked this way over with them. Yea, So the
Speaker 1: same thing that we did for Aerosmith in eighty six,
Speaker 1: Pete Rock did for us in ninety three when he
Speaker 1: did Down with the King. For us, him and CEO
Speaker 1: did our first verses off of Succrum Ceas gallenty Ting
Speaker 1: put us back on a chart, back on the radio,
Speaker 1: back on MTV with the video, and back on the roll.
Speaker 1: So here we all were back again. As soon as
Speaker 1: that happened to me, I woke up the next day
Speaker 1: wanting to kill myself. Oh no know why just all
Speaker 1: of this happen. We're back on a roll, back on MTV,
Speaker 1: back on the chart, back tour, and now we're touring
Speaker 1: and everybody from day I sold in Naughty My Nature
Speaker 1: and tripqalk Quest, they're saying they're only where they're at
Speaker 1: because of us. So now we're back in where the
Speaker 1: old g's. We're back in with them. And you know,
Speaker 1: in the eighties was getting the eighties pay day. Now
Speaker 1: in the nineties were getting the nineties pay day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, which is now now these rappers is getting
Speaker 1: two fifty and up. So now we're back into that
Speaker 1: and we're back on MTV, back on the chart, back touring.
Speaker 1: And I just woke up the next the day I
Speaker 1: to the video down, went to King video dropped on MTV.
Speaker 1: Easy E was in it, Redman was in it. It was chryonic,
Speaker 1: so it was crazy. I woke up in the next
Speaker 1: morning wanted to come and sol, not knowing why. It
Speaker 1: was just all that happened. It was what's this? And
Speaker 1: something in my spirits said something's missing and I couldn't
Speaker 1: put my hand on it. And I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let me look at my life from Darryl McDaniels from Alice, Queens,
Speaker 1: New York Byferd and Banner's my mother, Alfred's my brother
Speaker 1: runs my friend. You remember the rock son of byfriend,
Speaker 1: brother of al Banner's my mother runs my pal. It's McDaniels,
Speaker 1: not McDonald's these rhymes are Darrel's, those burgers are donald's.
Speaker 1: I ran down my family tree, my mother, my father,
Speaker 1: my brother and me. Okay, and then Jay joins the group.
Speaker 1: We put out one single, put on another single, and
Speaker 1: then the album's first album said first to go go
Speaker 1: first and go platinum first one the cover roller Stone
Speaker 1: first with the Sneaker deals first with the Victor's first,
Speaker 1: with the Dope movie. Everything that hip hop is doing.
Speaker 1: They say it's because of me running, me running j
Speaker 1: But why am I feeling it? And I had no
Speaker 1: idea what it was, so I'm walking around in this hage.
Speaker 1: But it didn't And now because the adoption thing came
Speaker 1: because I'm feeling this void and it got uncomfortable, not
Speaker 1: knowing what to I'm dmc the Mighty King or rot,
Speaker 1: not knowing what to do. So my stupid brain goes,
Speaker 1: I don't want to live with this anymore. So now
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I killing myself. How crazy is that? But
Speaker 1: then I go, hold up, if I die tomorrow, people
Speaker 1: know the music, I got the albums, they got the videos,
Speaker 1: but they don't know who Daryl is. So just in
Speaker 1: case I kill myself, I want to write a book,
Speaker 1: and I want to start the book. Hey world, I'm
Speaker 1: Daryl McDaniels from the groundbreaking run DMC. You know me.
Speaker 1: First of go go first, go platting for all of
Speaker 1: that stuff, but really, just Daryl McDaniels. I'm from Hollis Queens,
Speaker 1: New York. I was born May thirty, first ninety. Said
Speaker 1: then I just realized, Oh, I know my birthday, but
Speaker 1: I don't know no details about it. So just to
Speaker 1: make it more interesting for the reader, I call my
Speaker 1: mother up. Now I'm looking back, I should have called mom.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling I'm sure, but you know, the stigma. Don't
Speaker 1: want to be troubled with nobody's I supposed to be strong.
Speaker 1: I'm a black man rapper, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I called my mother up and instead of saying
Speaker 1: and she's my mother, she would have did and she
Speaker 1: was a nurse, she would have known what to do.
Speaker 1: But let me skip past her. I just go, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm writing this book, and just to make it more
Speaker 1: interest for the reader, I want to know three things.
Speaker 1: How much should I weigh? She told me what time
Speaker 1: I was born? She told me, well hospital, she told me,
Speaker 1: I love you. So I love you toom. I hung up.
Speaker 1: So now at this point in my life, I'm an
Speaker 1: alcoholic suicide and metaphysical spiritual wreck with a void inside
Speaker 1: them that don't know what's going on. An hour goes by,
Speaker 1: she calls back with my father son, Hey Dad, They go,
Speaker 1: we have something else to tell you. Now I'm thinking
Speaker 1: they're gonna go, well, when you was born, there was
Speaker 1: a power eutish in the hospital and we gave birth
Speaker 1: to you my handlelight something like that. No, they didn't
Speaker 1: hit me with that. They was like this, we have
Speaker 1: something else to tell you, And I go, what you
Speaker 1: was a month old when we brought you home and
Speaker 1: your adopted, but we love you by click, So madder
Speaker 1: me dealing with all the stuff that I was dealing with.
Speaker 1: Now I just found right. They didn't know it. But
Speaker 1: what happened was when I asked those questions, my mother
Speaker 1: hung up and ran on my father. Byfriend, he's about
Speaker 1: to write a book and he's asking questions. So this
Speaker 1: thing they hid from me my whole life. Don't never
Speaker 1: tell him he's a straight A student. They never tell
Speaker 1: him he's on an honor row. Don't never tell him
Speaker 1: he made it. The Saint John you first, and he
Speaker 1: wouldn't know. My brother, who's their biologically said, d don't
Speaker 1: you after all this came out, don't you know if
Speaker 1: you never asked that question, they would have never told you.
Speaker 1: But she goes with my father. He's about to shit.
Speaker 1: We gotta tell him. So they called me back. Now
Speaker 1: they could have don I did better. But you gotta
Speaker 1: understand in the nineties and seventies, you know, but I
Speaker 1: heard they didn't even have the book that they give
Speaker 1: to the parents. And you're telling yourself it was something
Speaker 1: that you don't tell them. Yeah, yeah, So they called
Speaker 1: me back and they're like, he was a month old
Speaker 1: when we brought you home and you're adopted. So that
Speaker 1: just crushed me in before I really killed myself. Now
Speaker 1: to killer thing about that is, from nineteen ninety to
Speaker 1: ninety to this revelation of finding out that I was adopted,
Speaker 1: I got to go back some I had a cute
Speaker 1: pancreatitis in nineteen ninety because I was drinking a case
Speaker 1: of Old English. Today and the reason why that that
Speaker 1: is significant is a lot of harmful, harmful behaviors and
Speaker 1: everybody's community is celebrated. The guy that could take twenty shots.
Speaker 1: Nobody stops at at number five and says, what's wrong
Speaker 1: the girl sleeping with every the guy that did No,
Speaker 1: guy's fighting and beating everybody up in the neighborhood. He's
Speaker 1: just beating everybody's ass. Nobody stops him and said, who's
Speaker 1: abusing you or who's meeting you? So I'm going to
Speaker 1: stuff that has been existing for eons. But so from
Speaker 1: ninety I was drinking a case ling, not one in
Speaker 1: a case twelve. I was so alcoholic I put a
Speaker 1: figgerator in the back of my truck. No, I didn't
Speaker 1: have to stop at the deli. So caught up with
Speaker 1: me in nineteen ninety out of q pancret titus to
Speaker 1: doctor says to me, dy, when they I was in
Speaker 1: the hospital for like a month and a half. When
Speaker 1: they discharged me, doctor just says, son, you have two
Speaker 1: choices in life. You can drink and die or not
Speaker 1: drink and live. So I was good, but now you're mourful.
Speaker 1: When we brought you, so imagine this. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I didn't know about therapy. I didn't know this agency,
Speaker 1: and so I went right back to the thing that
Speaker 1: I knew, the self medication, So I started drinking. So
Speaker 1: I'm drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking,
Speaker 1: getting depressed, depressed, depressed, depressed, the press. So that was
Speaker 1: my life when Down went the King out, I was
Speaker 1: a functional alcoholic getting depressed, depressed, depressed, wrest So then
Speaker 1: what manifest emotionally, Well, what's going on emotionally will manifest
Speaker 1: itself physically. So down with the King are we back
Speaker 1: on the road, returing by the sixth show, my voice leaves,
Speaker 1: just bye, bye bye. So my alcoholic, depressed man who
Speaker 1: just found out that he was adopted, who's back on
Speaker 1: the charts with a powerhouse song, back out there doing
Speaker 1: what I was doing in the eighties, with this void
Speaker 1: and all this mental stuff going on, not doing any
Speaker 1: thing about it. That alcohol is not helping. I felt
Speaker 1: ill when I was drunk, but not realizing when the
Speaker 1: high way down the problem sit here. So then my
Speaker 1: voice says bye, I'm leaving. So now I go I
Speaker 1: can't rhyme no more, thinking that's the only reason I
Speaker 1: was put here to be. But because my voice is gone,
Speaker 1: I think that I have no reason to be here now.
Speaker 1: So now I'm making a decisions. I gotta kill myself
Speaker 1: because I can't. And now I'm thinking, even without a voice,
Speaker 1: I can still live a productive, wonderful life, but in
Speaker 1: this depressed state. So now I'm gonna kill myself. So
Speaker 1: we come home from Europe and this is gonna be funny.
Speaker 1: You want a good Jersey story. Oh, I was living
Speaker 1: in Jersey at the time, So all of this has
Speaker 1: happened to me. Lynn, the pancreatitis, now the adoption thing.
Speaker 1: My voice is gone and I'm still run and I'm
Speaker 1: still I should have It was better that I was
Speaker 1: on the road struggling than sitting at because I might
Speaker 1: have really killed myself. But running Jay was like, de
Speaker 1: we'll help you. We gotta get this check. So now
Speaker 1: without a voice, I still got to perform, but not
Speaker 1: because I needed to. I don't want let run in Jada.
Speaker 1: So I'm out the right and they're doing over dumbs.
Speaker 1: They're playing the vocal versions in the record. So imagine
Speaker 1: how that felt. Imagine being at a Montrose jazz festival
Speaker 1: and can't run, but I gotta go out there and
Speaker 1: act happy. That was killer. So in all story, show
Speaker 1: up real quickly. This is this is gonna be funny
Speaker 1: to everybody. So we're coming home from Europe. We go
Speaker 1: to Europe and my travel agent calls, Now, this is
Speaker 1: gonna be funny because you are everybody here travels. It
Speaker 1: could have been anything. It could have been like some
Speaker 1: traumatic event. Could have been an earthquake, a tornado. For
Speaker 1: my My trowel agent calls me, and this is funny,
Speaker 1: Shelley d Nunzio. She's scared to tell me that. She said,
Speaker 1: Darryl old On, I don't know how to tell you this.
Speaker 1: What is it, Shelley, there's no flights into Newark. You
Speaker 1: gotta go to JFK. How what she tells me that
Speaker 1: I go, I'm definitely killing myself down in this song,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to go to JFK. True story,
Speaker 1: lend that little thing. I don't all. I'm already on
Speaker 1: my alcoholic bankrupt she and she's scared to tell me this.
Speaker 1: You gotta go to JFK. There's no other no. And
Speaker 1: in my mind when I get home, I'm killing myself
Speaker 1: what because that's how bad it was. But people can't
Speaker 1: understand want to go to JFK. So that was God's
Speaker 1: message to me. Yes, it's that bad. So I get
Speaker 1: to JFK. I'm thinking, Am I gonna drink? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: am I gonna drink the poison? Am I gonna shoot myself?
Speaker 1: Am I gonna hang myself? I'm thinking about it. There
Speaker 1: was times, and I gotta be honest, there was times
Speaker 1: where oh I said, I'm gonna take a gun and
Speaker 1: go to the morning and kill people. Whoa WHOA true?
Speaker 1: Because you're gonna that was there? Just yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: bad it were. So I get to JFK and it's
Speaker 1: a guy standing there with the sign real professional, that's me. Cool?
Speaker 1: How many ba? I got two bags? So I'm pissed
Speaker 1: with all other stuff that's really more important to be
Speaker 1: wearing about Darrow. But that was just the sum to
Speaker 1: sum it all up. So we get in the car
Speaker 1: and we're leaving j f K and the drivers I'm here,
Speaker 1: you know, on the passenger I'm on the passenger's side
Speaker 1: in the back, and the drivers in the front, and
Speaker 1: you know, you got the rear view venue. So I'm
Speaker 1: like this, but I feel something and I look up
Speaker 1: into the mirror and it was the drive. He was
Speaker 1: looking at me because he can't believe DMC's backing. But
Speaker 1: every time I would look up. He would turn his
Speaker 1: head and he did it like two times. And we
Speaker 1: coming out of JFK. It's like three lights. So I said,
Speaker 1: when we get to the last night, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: looking in the mirror. When he turns to look at me,
Speaker 1: we're gonna hit eye to eye. So we hit eye
Speaker 1: of eye. Boom boom, boom boom. And in that moment
Speaker 1: he's driving and he just turns to me. I said, DC,
Speaker 1: please don't tell nobody this man. Your music saved me.
Speaker 1: It got me to the roughest tombs in my life.
Speaker 1: I had the worst Paris ever, and every time my
Speaker 1: knuckle had Paris do do something, I would go into
Speaker 1: my bedroom with my Raisin Helk. It's that tape and
Speaker 1: that thing would make me feel that I was in heaven.
Speaker 1: So I'm like and then he goes, can y'all get
Speaker 1: an autograph? And I'm like, I'll take a What you doing?
Speaker 1: So he opened? Now right he's open. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: really cool. So we driving. He says, said, just make
Speaker 1: sure you don't tell my boy. So we're driving it
Speaker 1: because I'm DMC in New York City. He goes, could
Speaker 1: I turn the radio on now? The last thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear was any music. I can't speak, I
Speaker 1: can't go on. The last thing I wanted to hear
Speaker 1: was any hip hop music because I can't do the
Speaker 1: thing that I'm really good at normal. So I say, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could turn it off. He turns into Hot ninety
Speaker 1: seven buff station and busts on and slick ricks on.
Speaker 1: I say, yo, turn it to any any surprise, turn
Speaker 1: it to anything except that. So he turns it to
Speaker 1: light of f him. And at the time he turns
Speaker 1: it light and all I hear was this piano and
Speaker 1: this angelic voice going in the arms of an angel.
Speaker 1: Flyaway in the dark cold hold Sarah Mclochlan's Angel is on.
Speaker 1: And at that moment in the car, something me says,
Speaker 1: you know how you talk like right now, I was
Speaker 1: talking to Yah. When you talk to yourself, you hear
Speaker 1: yourself talking out said so now that don't yourself right
Speaker 1: That voice says, Daryld. Life may be fucked up, but
Speaker 1: if something this beautiful exists, it's good to be alive. Wow.
Speaker 1: So from that day on, all I did was listening
Speaker 1: to Sam McLachlan's Angel. I go home to my wife,
Speaker 1: remember it was in the movie City of Angels with
Speaker 1: Nicholas Cage, mag Ran Meg Ryan, Right, yes, remember that
Speaker 1: movie was on that side. So I go, honey, did
Speaker 1: you hit that record? And she said yeah, I said
Speaker 1: the movie. So for Christmas, she buys me the sound
Speaker 1: check of that album to sign. Yeah, and then she
Speaker 1: goes out and buys me All Listener and mc lachlan's
Speaker 1: album and stuff like that. But she had no idea
Speaker 1: what was going on with me. I'm listening to that
Speaker 1: record because of what the did it to me in
Speaker 1: a car. So for one whole year all I listened
Speaker 1: to was Sam maclarker. And It's funny. When I finally
Speaker 1: went to therapy and rehab, my therapist said, do you
Speaker 1: have a lot of willpower? Because even through all of
Speaker 1: the pancreat titus to all the forties and when I
Speaker 1: started drinking again because of the adoption revelation, I was
Speaker 1: still going to the gym. But now when I look back,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I will go to the gym some mornings
Speaker 1: and I'd be on the treadmill and everybody would be
Speaker 1: on that side of the gym, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure there's indeed the fucking alcohol is coming on your poors.
Speaker 1: You probably smelt like fucking garbage lawns some research. So anyway,
Speaker 1: you're like, everyone's always coming to me, and now he's saying, hey,
Speaker 1: but they ain't coming over there because I was drinking
Speaker 1: from five in the morning to five in the morning.
Speaker 1: Wow wow, and you look amazing. You wouldn't even know.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. So for one whole year, listen Sarah McLoughlin. Eric,
Speaker 1: who's here with me right now, Him and Tracy Miller,
Speaker 1: who he spoked to. They know something's wrong. Keep him busy,
Speaker 1: so they're trying to keep you busy. Eric gets tickets
Speaker 1: to go to Clive davis grammy party. He comes to
Speaker 1: me and he says, D we're going to cover this
Speaker 1: is me fuck Clive Davis. But I can't run on.
Speaker 1: I fuck the music. Just in there. I tell Eric this,
Speaker 1: all I want to do is sit in my room
Speaker 1: and listen to Sarah mc lockley. So Eric goes, and
Speaker 1: you gotta understand this is funny too. He goes, he
Speaker 1: got two tickets right, He looks at me. He cauldn't
Speaker 1: get three, but he got two for dmc. He says, D,
Speaker 1: I worked really hard to get these tickets, and it
Speaker 1: was funny. Lining I remember the way he said that
Speaker 1: to me. I just looked at him and in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm crazy. Now, this fool probably done sold his soul
Speaker 1: to the devil just to go to Love Davis Grammy.
Speaker 1: So I'm going up for me for him. But that's
Speaker 1: how you are. That's up. So I said, okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go whatever. So we go to Clid davis Grammy
Speaker 1: party and I'm telling him I'm only staying one hour,
Speaker 1: and he's doing the management thing because he thinks he's
Speaker 1: gonna get me to do the red carpet this and that.
Speaker 1: So we get there. First of all, we get there,
Speaker 1: the door is a mile away. It's no way we
Speaker 1: get into that door. But Eric's funny. He just said,
Speaker 1: de I know you don't want to do it. Just
Speaker 1: wear your hat, Okay. So I walk up to Clive
Speaker 1: Davis Grammy Park. The big bounces for the size of
Speaker 1: Snoop Dogg's bouncers seize the hat way in the back.
Speaker 1: Just true story, all right, Everybody moved to the fucking
Speaker 1: they put it, and Eric smiling because he even smart,
Speaker 1: we walk I'm walking past. My joke is I saw God,
Speaker 1: Jesus and Moses, and I'm like, hey, God, hey Jesus.
Speaker 1: I'm getting in about the way. So we get in
Speaker 1: and Eric goes, you'll go do the rect But this
Speaker 1: is I said, motherfucker. And he can tell you, O
Speaker 1: d you was fucking me. I said, motherfucker. Only came
Speaker 1: in for you. I'm sitting right here by his door
Speaker 1: and I'm leaving in one hour, and he's trying to
Speaker 1: do in the management thing I saw going fifty nine
Speaker 1: fifty eight doing my account. So he just walks away,
Speaker 1: hands and airs. I'm sitting there. Busting Rome comes in,
Speaker 1: Oh my God, giving me love yo, and it Buster
Speaker 1: makes an announcement, ladies and gentlemen. They didn't just change music,
Speaker 1: they changed everything. They changed fast and aStyle. So Busting
Speaker 1: walks away. I was like, the last person I wanted
Speaker 1: to see was Busting and I'm saying, then I always
Speaker 1: say this, and this is Trudeau. Buster comes in, and
Speaker 1: then Stevie Wonder comes in, but he didn't see me.
Speaker 1: What I mean by that is Steevie Wonder comes in,
Speaker 1: but he didn't see me because his boy saw me.
Speaker 1: Hold up his boy. Stevie's just being Stevie. His boy
Speaker 1: sees me and takes Stevie's true story. He sees me
Speaker 1: sitting in my depressed and his boy sees me and
Speaker 1: he goes see me. Dmc wants to meet you. That's
Speaker 1: real funny. The god tells that. So he brings Stevie
Speaker 1: over and Stevie yokat you cats and starts telling how
Speaker 1: much Stevie wanted telling me how much he loves her MC.
Speaker 1: But I'm still not at the point where the this
Speaker 1: is good to be alive. If you never rhyme again,
Speaker 1: you touch like Alicia Keyes comes in, Hey, I know Russell,
Speaker 1: I know Kamara, I know running the family and kids.
Speaker 1: I never got to meet you. And she says, honored
Speaker 1: to meet you. D boom boom, and she walks away.
Speaker 1: Then I'm sitting there. I can't wait to go back
Speaker 1: to my room just to put in if the Walkman,
Speaker 1: I had a CD of it, put Angel beck On,
Speaker 1: who walks in?
Speaker 2: Sarah McLoughlin, Oh, now what happens?
Speaker 1: What do I do this and that in the voice again?
Speaker 1: Do you just get up and go tell her what
Speaker 1: her music did for you? So I walk over to Sarah.
Speaker 1: She sees because I have to have one run, dmc.
Speaker 1: This trick you to rock and run, rock and run.
Speaker 1: Sarah was amazing and she was like yeah, she was
Speaker 1: like rock y'all, I love you guys, and this and that.
Speaker 1: I said, miss mc loughlow, I just want to tell
Speaker 1: you the name of the song is Angel. You sound
Speaker 1: like Angel. People are saying Angel, but you're another angel
Speaker 1: to me, your God. And I go went to listen
Speaker 1: to your record every day for twenty four hours for
Speaker 1: the last and so when I finished, she's looking at
Speaker 1: me like, yeah, I was just trying to say your
Speaker 1: ass right, But then she says this, She says, thank you,
Speaker 1: this is powerful for this music save me. She goes
Speaker 1: she said I had I was gonna kill me. And
Speaker 1: she says, thank you for telling me that, Daryl, because
Speaker 1: that's what music is supposed to do, shakes my hand
Speaker 1: and walks away. Wow. Wow, Now what's crazy is I
Speaker 1: had never experienced that because the closest I got to
Speaker 1: it was the guy in the car telling me, did
Speaker 1: I have to work for the music? Saved me? Ain't
Speaker 1: never happened to me, but it did. It was happening
Speaker 1: to me. Do all of that. And then she told
Speaker 1: me that, and I was like, oh wow, So I
Speaker 1: think it's crazier there. I got no voice. But when
Speaker 1: she tells me that the Daryl thing, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I gotta do something because now I'm thinking there's probably
Speaker 1: a billion adopted kids like me who have these same
Speaker 1: feelings in the motion. I gotta do something that's gonna
Speaker 1: help those people who feel like I feel the same
Speaker 1: way Sarah's record did for me. So this is mind black,
Speaker 1: so I said. Seventy seven w ABC, there was this
Speaker 1: record by this guy named Harry Chapman called Cats in
Speaker 1: a Cradle. It was this song about a father who
Speaker 1: had no time for the kids. Child is born just
Speaker 1: the other day, came into the world in the usual way.
Speaker 1: But the Cats in the Cradle in the silverspone and
Speaker 1: that the drums drop. It was so hip hop to me.
Speaker 1: So I said, I know what I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take cat This is crazy, this but crazy, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take Cats in a Cradle and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: write a rap about how good my parents were to me,
Speaker 1: because Cat's in the Cradle was about parents, said father,
Speaker 1: but that didn't have time. I said, I'll talk about
Speaker 1: by from the man and what they did to me.
Speaker 1: Then that light bulb comes on. I'm gonna get that
Speaker 1: lady who just Sarah mcglachlin and do the chorus for me.
Speaker 1: Siting I call Eric. Eric said, what's going on? He was,
Speaker 1: I do Cats in a Cradle. I'm writing my mom
Speaker 1: and he you gotta find Sarah mcglochlin for me. But
Speaker 1: what's this about. Don't worry, just find it. So about
Speaker 1: six days go by, I'm at dinner with my son
Speaker 1: and my wife and Eric calls me, de Sarah's gonna
Speaker 1: call you. Sarah's gonna call you. Pick up the phone.
Speaker 1: So she calls me, and I got miss McLoughlin. Remember
Speaker 1: when I met you and I told you what music
Speaker 1: did to me. Yeah, yeah, Well I just found out
Speaker 1: that I was adopted and I want to do this record.
Speaker 1: Boom boom. So we do the record. But here's a
Speaker 1: killer thing. When I fly I told Sarah I'm gonna
Speaker 1: fly you to New York City to work at the
Speaker 1: Hit Factory. In fact, she says, no, you could come
Speaker 1: to my house, So I'll go to Vancouver. We're in
Speaker 1: the studio. So what happened was I hear her record.
Speaker 1: I'm struggling going through this. I go to a party
Speaker 1: that I didn't want to go to and I get
Speaker 1: to meet her this and that, finding out that I
Speaker 1: was adopted and all that stuff. She tells me that
Speaker 1: she says, D, there's something I need to tell you,
Speaker 1: and I go what she goes, I was adopted too,
Speaker 1: and I did not know that. So when I heard
Speaker 1: her record, I didn't know she was adopted too. No,
Speaker 1: think about that, that's amazing. So she the feared the
Speaker 1: vibrations and the music. So we do the record on
Speaker 1: the record comes out. Well, we do the record and
Speaker 1: then I'm meeting another adopted person, and then another adopted
Speaker 1: person goes, d aren't you curious of meeting your birth parents?
Speaker 1: And I go, no, you know the record Son of Byfer,
Speaker 1: brother of Al Christmas time in Hollis Queens, whatever, whatever, whatever.
Speaker 1: It's a deep down side I didn't want to know.
Speaker 1: So they let it go for about seven you know,
Speaker 1: meetings with other adopted people and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: then I go, yes, I definitely want to know. So
Speaker 1: I knew in order for me to go fard my
Speaker 1: birth parents, I had to be of sound mind. And
Speaker 1: so I said Okay. The revelation of me finding out
Speaker 1: that I was adopted the old Sarah thing gave me
Speaker 1: the confidence and couragesy you know what. And people were
Speaker 1: telling me that for the longest, you need to go
Speaker 1: to rehab. So I went into rehab and Sierra Tucson
Speaker 1: in Arizona. I'm going into Sierra tu Son in Arizona.
Speaker 1: And when I walked in, I'll never forget the day.
Speaker 1: The intake room that got the ten characteristics of an
Speaker 1: addictive personality. So I look at the black boll and
Speaker 1: I'm like, and I'll say, wow, I'm all of them.
Speaker 1: And then everybody in the room I'm clapping and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing that for? You on your way
Speaker 1: to healing? Yes, now you're amitting. So I went to
Speaker 1: Sarah Sierra Tucson for one whole month, got sober, came
Speaker 1: out the adopted lady, Shila Jaffy, who is a casting
Speaker 1: director in La She casts sopranos and entourage just do
Speaker 1: it tardy with her. Yes, yes, we started feeling somebody.
Speaker 1: They said last was short. When I came out, Sheila
Speaker 1: connected me to the private Eye for the adopted guy.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I say that just this private
Speaker 1: eye lady that does private eye work only for adoptees
Speaker 1: because we have so much trouble finding it. So lossoy
Speaker 1: short the private eye for the adopted guy finds my
Speaker 1: birth mother. Wow, it took two weeks to find and
Speaker 1: I found my birth mother, two brothers and a sister
Speaker 1: that I didn't know that I had, and everything turned
Speaker 1: out great because of Sarah maclachlan's angel song.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, what an amazing story. It's crazy And I
Speaker 2: met you right after that happened, and you would never
Speaker 2: I said.
Speaker 1: This guy, there's no way, yeah, just crazy wow, alcoholic
Speaker 1: suicide and metaphysical spiritual wreck who is thinking of killing
Speaker 1: himself already but then finds out that he's adopted. Oh,
Speaker 1: let's not forget this. During that time, Jim I Sagen
Speaker 1: gets shot and killing in my pharm and died. So
Speaker 1: I was dealing with all of that, but it was
Speaker 1: the music. I don't think a pill would have did it.
Speaker 1: I don't think the therapy became good because my therapist
Speaker 1: just basically said, the therapist doesn't help you. I was like, then,
Speaker 1: why do you come The therapist is a decoy so
Speaker 1: you could do two things, and I'm realizing this in therapy. Therapy,
Speaker 1: you say stuff to yourself that you said to yourself
Speaker 1: that you didn't listen to. Oh, you start saying stuff
Speaker 1: that you need to tell yourself. But you can't look
Speaker 1: at yourself in the mirror. So you need another person
Speaker 1: so you can say this not thinking you're talking to you.
Speaker 1: But it's not going They don't need it. They're looking
Speaker 1: at you like they're just right. You need to be
Speaker 1: there right. So the music was the catalyst or the music.
Speaker 1: I look at it like this. The music had healed
Speaker 1: me already, so I didn't have to go through I
Speaker 1: didn't have to use anything outside of them, a foreign substance.
Speaker 1: I didn't need no anxiety pills. I didn't need it.
Speaker 1: You know, some people do because the chemical things going on.
Speaker 1: But my thing was all emotional. So I was diagnosed
Speaker 1: when they let me out to see hera Tucson, I
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with suppressed emotions. That was my daughter. I said,
Speaker 1: what's that about? They said, here's what happened. They asked
Speaker 1: me this. Well. One of the first questions that when
Speaker 1: I got into City Era Tucson. My doctor he was
Speaker 1: I was thirty five so he probably was like forty
Speaker 1: six white guy with the white cloak and the pad
Speaker 1: and everything. The first question he asked me was doing
Speaker 1: your career at running m seeing did anybody do anything
Speaker 1: to make you upset? So I'm sitting in I'm I'm deflected.
Speaker 1: I go, no, I'll never forget this day. This is
Speaker 1: the first day. Guy. I was in rehab for thirty days.
Speaker 1: The first day. That was one of the questions. After
Speaker 1: I went through the intake room. He goes, did anybody
Speaker 1: ever do anything during your career run your seat to
Speaker 1: make you upset? I go, I'm sitting damn no, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget this. He stands up right and he starts
Speaker 1: unbuttoning his white cloak. So I'm thinking, where do you
Speaker 1: think put my eyes? But he only did that to
Speaker 1: break the ice. He takes off his cloak and he
Speaker 1: got on the AC DC shirts that always wear, and
Speaker 1: I think he did this to get real over and
Speaker 1: he put it down right, He put it down, He
Speaker 1: put the bag, and he took his glasses off, and
Speaker 1: he sat down closer to me, and he looked me
Speaker 1: in my eye and he said, you're a goddamn motherfucking
Speaker 1: liar and when he said that, Yeah, man, in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, Joe did this. I had all the rememories
Speaker 1: of stuff when people did stuff that I didn't like,
Speaker 1: but I didn't speak up. Instead of speaking up and
Speaker 1: not just expressing my opinion my feeling. And he was like,
Speaker 1: you got expression fear. They'll get over it. They do
Speaker 1: it all day around you. But instead of doing that,
Speaker 1: I would do this. So I got diagnosed with suppressed
Speaker 1: emotions coming out there. He said, deep, every time you
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to save yourself. See, it took the
Speaker 1: music to save me, to save yourself, you renigged on
Speaker 1: that opportunity and let the alcohol. And he said that
Speaker 1: was killing you. He said you should have said, look, guys,
Speaker 1: just nu Jack city. Now. I don't have nothing against
Speaker 1: nujack music, but it's not for me. And to this Daylen,
Speaker 1: we got a song called Pause and there's a video,
Speaker 1: and I'm in the Pause video with a green and
Speaker 1: purple only to please Jake, a green and purple suit
Speaker 1: doing the Bobby Brown running man. I'm sober now and
Speaker 1: I'm showing that every time I see this video and
Speaker 1: hear that song and see those images, it's the worst
Speaker 1: feeling but the rehab had helped me. But I was
Speaker 1: diagnosed with suppressed emotions. Wow, And I was also I
Speaker 1: didn't have to shoot myself, paying myself or drink the poison.
Speaker 1: I was subconsciously killing myself because my subconscious was saying,
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to drink alcohol because you have pancreatitis.
Speaker 1: So I went back and this is I would eventually
Speaker 1: killed myself and I'll never forget my wife. And one thing, guys,
Speaker 1: I got to say about women, that the truth they
Speaker 1: know you're lying. When on I started drinking again, my
Speaker 1: excuse for my wife was pick up. I'm drinking to
Speaker 1: celebrate the new farm part of my identity, the fact
Speaker 1: that I because when I found out that I was adopted,
Speaker 1: the void was filled. I'm Don McDaniels hot Queens, New York,
Speaker 1: sonner by friend and I'm adopted, So that filled it.
Speaker 1: But that didn't deal with your she wasn't the issues
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So I told my wife, I'm
Speaker 1: drinking to celebrate this newfound revelation. I'll never forget my wife. Zury.
Speaker 1: She says this to me. This was I don't think
Speaker 1: no psychologist's book has this or anything Sigmund Freud or
Speaker 1: whatever his name is. I said, I'm drinking to celebrate
Speaker 1: this new found part of mine. She said, motherfucker you.
Speaker 1: I don't never forget this. You are drinking because you
Speaker 1: can't emotionally handle the fact that your ass is adopted.
Speaker 1: And she was right, because I was hurt that my
Speaker 1: mother and father didn't tell me. You didn't address it ever,
Speaker 1: and I didn't address it. So that there's another funny thing.
Speaker 1: When my mother and father told me that he was
Speaker 1: a month of where we brought you him and you adopted.
Speaker 1: After that, they called up all my uncle, aunts and
Speaker 1: uncles during it as a kid, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's promotions,
Speaker 1: Birthday part. Everybody always came to Daryn McDaniel's house. We're
Speaker 1: going to miss McDaniels. The next day, after my mother
Speaker 1: tells me, I get a call from Robin. I get
Speaker 1: a call from Donnie. I get a call from all
Speaker 1: my cousins who were younger than me. They said, d man,
Speaker 1: we're so glad your mother told you that we've been
Speaker 1: holding that secret. And they oh, my cousin, yes, they said,
Speaker 1: just what would happened, kids, is fourth of July. We're
Speaker 1: going to the McDaniel's house, cookout. Come to the living room.
Speaker 1: It's Christmas. Come to the liver room, Thanksgiving, Oh, I said,
Speaker 1: Alfred said, Darrel's brother's birthday. It's Miss McDaniel's promoting it.
Speaker 1: Come to the living room. What's the rule? Kids? Nobody
Speaker 1: let Darryl know he's adopted. They all held that secret
Speaker 1: in so I had that feeling in me all the time.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of healing to do. Even though
Speaker 1: the traumatic revelation was the thing that I thought was
Speaker 1: going to kill me, it was the music that allowed
Speaker 1: me to get to a place where I could go
Speaker 1: into therapy and not be There's a thing I always
Speaker 1: say about when we're going through whether it's sexual abuse
Speaker 1: and are gambling, whatever, it is the problem with the
Speaker 1: mental health issues. Stigma exists because if we don't remove
Speaker 1: the guilt and shame, you don't remove the pain of
Speaker 1: the situation. So guilt and shame allows stigma to remain.
Speaker 1: And also in my case, if you don't admit how
Speaker 1: you feel, whether good or bad, you never healed. But
Speaker 1: it took the music to get me to that place
Speaker 1: to realize, oh, I'm not the only adopted kid. I'm
Speaker 1: not the only alcohol, and just so many people just
Speaker 1: like so it took the music. What is music is universal?
Speaker 1: It breaks down. Stephen Tyler shows what music does. I've
Speaker 1: been to South Sudan, which was crazy but beautiful South
Speaker 1: Sudan Awar Zone. They love Naughty by Nature in public,
Speaker 1: enemy and slickreck. You would never guess. I've been to
Speaker 1: Russia and Ukraine in the same touring. Out of those
Speaker 1: two countries of fighting. Here's the power of music. To
Speaker 1: this day, I can go to somewhere I've never been.
Speaker 1: And this has been going on since eighty six, when
Speaker 1: I went to South Sudan, when I went to Venezuela,
Speaker 1: when I went to Russia, and when I went to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: People always come to me and say this dmnse. Don't
Speaker 1: you know in nineteen ninety six, when Steven Tyler took
Speaker 1: that mic stand and knocked down the walls that was
Speaker 1: separating y'all in the video, it didn't just happened in
Speaker 1: the video, really happened in the world. I sure did.
Speaker 1: So all of the stuff people have told me, all
Speaker 1: of the stuff to people tell me, now I can
Speaker 1: relate to that because it happened to me. With that
Speaker 1: angel record.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this powerful episode
Speaker 2: of Music Saved Me with Darryl McDaniels.
Speaker 1: Keep an eye out for part two.
Speaker 2: I surprised Darryl with a rising artist on Glass Note
Speaker 2: Records who happened to be on the podcast a few
Speaker 2: months ago, and when he told me he was a
Speaker 2: huge fan of Run DMC and there were a major
Speaker 2: influence on him.
Speaker 1: Well, I just had to introduce the two.
Speaker 2: Please come back and join me at Part two on
Speaker 2: Music Save Me with Daryl McDaniels coming up soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening.