Darryl "DMC" McDaniels: The King of Rock

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. When Run DMC Sucker MC started spinning on small radio stations around New York City in nineteen eighty three. Believe it or not, this was new school, the cutting edge. Sucker MC's was the B side to Run DMC's first single, It's like that. These songs completely changed the sound of hip hop in the early eighties. They're sparse, bass, heavy beats, and aggressive rhymes. Represented the real hip hop her live at block parties and clubs and the Bronx and queens. It was a huge leap forward from the first ever hip hop releases from groups like The Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who are putting out polished R and B influenced records. Joseph run Simmons, Jason jam Maaster, j Mizelle and our guests today Darryl dmc McDaniels came together in nineteen eighty three, not long before the release of those first two songs. As Run DMC. They helped define the look and sound of hip hop in the eighties worldwide. Their true pioneers, who have had no shortage of first in their career, including the first ever hip hop group to go gold, then platinum, then multi platinum. There were also the first rappers on MTV and on the cover of Rolling Stone. Rick Reubin and DMC have been friends since the early days of Run DMC, when Rick founded Deaf Jam Records with runs older brother and produced two of the group's classic albums, and of course their collaboration with Aerosmith Walked This Way and this candid conversation between old friends. You'll hear how DMC and Run formed the group and also how despite a career full of accolades, DMC struggled for years with suicidal thoughts. The only thing that kept him alive during its darkest days was a song he heard on light FM. Brace Yourself for a wild story about Sarah McLaughlin's song Angel. You'll never hear the song the same again. This is broken record liner notes for the digital a I'm justin ma Here's Rick Rubin and Darryl dmc McDaniels. Thank you so much for doing this. First of all, thank you for having met. The last time we talked, you told me an incredible story that blew my mind. And it's been long enough now where I don't remember all of the details, but I remember I left feeling different than I felt, Like what you said changed me just hearing the story. Really Yeah, so maybe you couldn't tell me the story again? Um, well is it? Is it the Sarah McLachlan story. Yeah, about how her records saved my life? Yes, but tell me from the beginning, like, oh, in the beginning, Um, nineteen ninety three, Yeah, Down went to King, Yes, which was produced by Pete Rock, one of the greatest produces. Yes. Ever that record Pete hates when I say this, Dan went the King did for Rundy m c what walked this way? People say he did for Arrowsmith. It put us back. Prior to that, we were respected, yes, praised, pioneers, legends, but hip hop had changed. Yes, nobody cared. We're not on the radio, We're not on him TV no more. We had love, but we wasn't participating anymore. So Pete Rock produces the title track on the Down with the King album, and that record just put us back on the road, put us back on a chart, put us back on tour. Now we're in the midst of what was going on in the nineties, and you would think that that would make me happy. And the eighties was again, eighties money on the nineties were getting the nineties money when everybody was getting there. As soon as that record drop Rick, something in me said, I don't want to live no more. Was it instantaneous? Did it happen in a moment or did it build over time? It wasn't a moment. It happened. I woke up one day when everybody was like, Yo, the videos are smash and the records, you're back on a chart and you're going on the road. You're gonna open for Naughty by Nature. When we got on the road, when we started tune, we started making that money again, something in me just said, I don't want to live. And it was like disvoiding me and I was leaving. I was coming off a stage. Everything. It was a new feeling. You never had an experience that I never had experience. Out of the blue, Yes, out of the blue. And interesting too that it was triggered by things going good, not by things going bad. Right, It's interesting, right, exactly, very interesting. Yeah. I tell people that, Yo, every thing was good in this seven it's interesting. So I would go back to my hotel room and I would just lay there and it was just the dread of the world that was on me, and that happened probably for like, I don't know, I was going through that. I was going through that for six and seven. It was saying six or seven months. And then in six and seven do you remember how old you were at that time? I was thirty five, okay, thirty third, thirty four, thirty five, you know, um And the six or seventh month for that, I just laid in my band. I said, okay, what's going on with me? And I went through my life and who I was. Okay, I'm Daryl McDaniels from Hollis Queens, New York, bif and and ban is my mother, Alfred's my brother, remember, son of Bifford, brother of al bann As my mother, and runs my paler. It's McDaniels, not McDonald's. These rhymes are Daryl's. Those Burghers are Roynalds. I ran down my family tree, my mother, my father, my brother and me. Okay run my friend, Jay's my friend just think called hip hop comes over the bridge from the Bronx. We made one record that was a hit. We made another record who was a hit. We made an album Boom Boom. Idida's everything. Now I'm back on the road. Were down with King lefeisos a good? Why do I feel like this? Had no idea what it was. So I'm going through that routine every day, every day, every day, and that void in me and that feeling got so uncomfortable that now I'm thinking I don't want to learn them more. Now you would think I would have everything ale I'm DMC. I had a wife and a kid at that time. Down with the King is killing, yes, But this feeling on me made me say that I can't live like this. This is very uncomfortable, which is the worst feeling of it. So now I find myself trying to think a way to kill myself. We go over to Europe. I remember we go over to Europe one time and we was like in Um. We was in Um Austria somewhere, and we was we wasn't in the big city, was in those little towns outside of Austria. And we had did an interview and when we was up on the roof of the building, I noticed they didn't have no guardrails like most hotels after guardrails or whatnot. So after we did the interview, we went back downstairs and I remember Eric going being a lobby sixth story for sale, checking order us the routine, and I remember I went in my room and I waited, okay, run Jay and Eric should be in the room stud I go to my door and I look, nobody's in the hallway. So I said, let me run upstairs before the hotel security gout comes and locks the door again. So I remember running upstairs and this true story. Run upstairs and I get up on a ledge and I keep her aware with y'all I'm standing there, and then something in me says, y'all if I jump and down to day, people know the DMC story, run DMC story. They know just what behind the music, two books, movies, the Wikipedia, Google, you could find out what I did with me running Jay, but nobody knows about the little boy Daryl. So I jumped back down. Can I say, before I kill myself, I want to write this book. So I didn't want to kill myself right there, because I wanted to write a book and say, what's up world, I'm DMC from the groundbreaking rapt run DMC, First to Go, Go, First to Go, planting the first On the cover of Rolling Stone, Blassie blades and blue back. So that was one of my plans. So we go to Europe, then we go to Japan. I go to Japan. I'm thinking of going to the heart one storing, buying, poisoning, and killing myself. And tell me, I'm just it's bad. I come home. I'm thinking of shooting myself. Did you tell anyone at this time? No, no, nobody, nobody were living with all this pain by myself, suffering with it yourself, right, nobody knows. Nobody knows. So fast forward. We come home from Europe one trip, and I'm living in Jersey at this time. So this was the this, this was the last straw. The travel Asian couldn't fly me in the North, so she flies me in the JFK and I live in Jersey. So I remember coming home that day and I said to myself, that's it. Life is so fucking fucked up. I'm kid, I'm fucking coming home from JFK and I'm really thinking that like these little things is adding to this feeling, and so somebody, I'm gonna do it. Nothing fun, it's over now. This is proof the universe is showing me I gotta kill myself. So I come out and I get in the car. I getting a guy. The guy's talk town card is picking me up, and you know he's being He turns around, you doing mister McDaniels, Rain, New Jersey, and I'm like, yes, cool. So we're driving. As we leave in JFK, we stop at the first light because it's like two or three lights coming out of JFK, and I could I saw the guy looking at me. I felt the guy looking at me in the reverview mirror. So every time I would turn to look at him in the mirror, he would turn his head. So we got to the second light and I felt him looking again. I look up, you turn this at So it got to the third light, I caught him and when he caught my eyes, he just turned around and said, mister dmc man, please don't tell my boss man. I might get fired for this. Man. But when I was younger, your music got me through the hardest times in my life. This in that sucking seas I used to go in my room and your room, your music got me through the hardest time in your life. And I'm like, I'm going I'm like, oh cool, cool, So he said, please don't tell my boys. Man, can I get a picture with you? And I'm like, yo, that's yeah, I don't need a pitch. I'll give you an autograph. What really? So now he's open. So we drive and he says, you do your mind if I turn the radio on, and I'm like yeah. So he turns the radio to Hot ninety seven. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. And I'm like, yo, man, turn it to any of the station and except that, and he's like okay. So he turns the station, turns it to light FM. I hear these pianos boom, boom, and then I hit his voice, It's been all your time waiting for that second chance. I hear Sarah maclachlin's Arms of the Angel and something said, yo, d life may be messed up, but if something this beautiful exists, it's good to be alive every day. So for one whole year, all I did every day I walk up was listening to the song. When I went to the gym. I'm back in the gym. People looking at me. They're probably thinking I'm listening to the LEDs Zethelin or some techno or something. I had that on every day for a whole year. At the end of that year, Eric, who was still with me now him and Tracy Miller, our publicist, was like, keep Darryl busy. We know he's going to something, so he was just trying to keep me busy. So Eric gets tickets to come out here to LA to Clive davis Grammy party. He comes to me and said, jo d Man, We're going to LA. I got two tickets to grow fuck Clive Davis LA. For all I need to do is stay here and listen to the Sarah mclochny story. He's like, Yo, come on here. I said, no, I don't need to do nothing, and he just looks at me and this only this is funny, this only bething. He looks at me and said, yo, d I worked real hard to get these tickets because it's I said, this fool probably gonna sold his soul to the devil to go to Clive david stupid party. And I say, okay, Ja, Eric, I'm gonna go with you. So Eric is like, Yo, he's doing a manager, Yo, go do the red carpet. You know, he's thinking business, this networking stuff like that. I said, motherfucker, I only came here because of your ass wanted to come to the stupid party. I'm staying one album. I'm pulling up a chair right head by this door, and the one album going back to my room to listen to Sarah Mclocklin because it was just something in that record, the vibal of it made me feel not alone no more. Do you think it's the words or the music or the combination. I think it was a combination of it, especially in this dark, cold hotel room. She knows because that's what I was doing, I see. And she felt like she was singing to you. Yep, like she made that, like that record was made for me. Yes, you know what I'm saying. So I go to the I'm Clive Davis party and Eric it's like yo, come on, and I'm like countdown now, but again it's fifty ninety seven. So he walks away frustrated. So I'm sitting there, hey, um by the front door. Stevie Wonder comes in. His boy seen me, and his boy turns Steven to be like, yo, Stevie, come over him. N DMC wanted me too, So Stevie comes over to me and I'm in my head, I'm that just true story work. I'm like this, I'm talking to myself, Stevie, fucking wonder the motherfucker fallen busses. Yeah, really like the fun don't yeah, don't come on the fuck Steve before like I was, I said that, Wow, so his boy come. I'm smiling, Hey, Stevie, listening it. You guys are great. Whatever. He walks away and it had nothing to do with him. It just like all of this is bullshit, all the fucking see. Yeah, he walks away. Next person cause Alicia Keys comes in. She sees me, oh dmc oh, I know Ryn, I know, Russellulan Camre. I never see you. How you doing? Fucking Alicia killed the fucking piano falls and breaks your finger. Like I'm just thinking, and I'm laughing now because I can't believe it was thinking like that, get away from me, like fucking come over here, like and she walks away. I look up, who's coming in? A lady that made that record? Oh my god, Sarah, and you and you recognize that, yes, oh my god, that's that lady who made that record. Like I knew of northing, but I didn't even know. Oh shoot, so some let me see r D get up and go over there and tell her about what her music did. So I'm walking over to Sarah and she sees me run DMC. It's tricky to rocker Ryn, rocker Ryn, it's right on time. My didas she does the being boys stands like, yo, you guys are great whatever whatever. So in my head I go, yo, See Daryl, that's the reason to stay alive. Even Sarah McLaughlin like your music, so I just go, Miss McLaughlin, I just want to tell you the name of the record is an Angel. You sound like an angel. People say you're an angel, but you're not an angel to me. Your God. Every day of my living there for the last year, all I do is listen to your record. It's the crutch that I stand on. It's the thing that gets me to my day. I just rant and raved us. So I finished. I'm standing in the sweating So she's looking at me like this, So Shana what to say? She was like, damn, I just wanted to say how it is ass, But she looks at me and says, thank you for telling me that, Daryl, that's what music is supposed to do, shakes my hand and walks away. So you know me the fay. I'm never watching this hand again. I'm just feeling good, like that was the best thing ever and stuff like that. Eric comes over. I'm shining like the sun. Now what happened to yo? I'm just met Sara mcluklin and this and it so that made me today. So I go home and I go, um, y'all finally, you know, I want to write this book. I'm gonna write this book. So I said in a book I want to do that. I'm gonna say, yo, what's up world. I'm Daryl McDaniels from Holles Queens, New York, from the groundbreaking rap group run DMC, first to Go Go First, to go Platinum, first on the cover Rolling Stone, for all of that stuff. But I'm really just Darrel Matthews McDaniels from hollesce Queen's, New York. Was born May thirty first, nineteen sixty four. And when I got to that part of my identity, I was like, oh, I know my birthday, but I don't know no details about the dad was born. So I called my mother and I go, hey, Mom, I'm writing this book. I didn't say I'm writing this book just in case I die and kill myself because she would have lost it. I just want to know a couple of more details about the dad was born, how much did I weigh? What time I always born in my hospital? So she tells me, thank you, Mama, I love you. Hang up the phone. An hour goes by, the phone rings. It's my mother and my father. Hey son, Hey dad, what's going on? We have something else to tell you. So I'm a metaphysical suicidal religious emotional records about to commit suicide. The only thing keeping me from jumping is this Sarah mclock corectly. My mother father hit me with this. Um, we have something else to tell you, Okay, what is it? You was a month old when we brought you home, and you're adopted, but we love you by click wow wing stop ricking wow my god. Now you know when I heard that, I wasn't with you me. I'm not Byford and Paris and you're my whole fan. I rhymed about you Christmas time and I was queen. But what the hell is going on? Universe? That's unbelievable. And it was really a short conversation that that quick. We have someone else to tell you, Okay, what is it? You was a month old when we brought you home and we love you by click because it was when I think because they were just they didn't know how to handle. They said, we have to tell him. My mother hung up the phone and said, Byford, he's writing a book and he's about there. My father was like, we gotta call him back and let him know. It was a secret. They hit from me, my whole life. Yes, even though it's as trum manica, is that retive revelation was Yes, all of that trauma, in the shock, the destroying capacity of that revelation. Yes, something happened where a calm just came over me, Something made me realize devoid in me that started making me what the hell is going on? Down with the king? Is it? There was a missing piece to my identity. Wow. I'm John McDaniels, Hollies, Queens, New York, son of Bye friend Man Diet has walked this way. But I'm adopting just a quick break and we'll get right back into DMC's story. We're back with DMC, who's telling a powerful story about his depression. After years of fighting suicidal thoughts, he received a phone call from his parents informing him that he was adopted. There was a missing piece to my identity. I'm John McDaniels, Hollies, Queens, New York, son of Bye friend man Diet has walked this way, but I'm adopting. Wow. So I came to the revelation. I didn't fight that, yes, well this and that. I said, Okay, I know what that means because I'm a good student. That means I have another mother and the father, and there's this whole other part of me. But now that I'm adopted, that's just part of who I am. And then the next thing was, oh, maybe I can help somebody, beautiful, Maybe I can help somebody. Now, I gotta don't kill yourself, D, because you can rhyme and you make records for a reason. So I was like, oh, I'm gonna get that lady who made a record that helped me. I'm gonna make I'm gonna make it with her. So I'm like, Eric, get Sarah on the phone. D. What's the hell? You don't know what the hell is going on? You know what I'm saying. I'm say, just getting on the phone. Kill Okay. Um. It took like probably it was a day later, Eric calls me, yo, d pick up your phone. In five minute, Sarah's gonna call you phone ring, Hi, Daryl, It's Sarah. So now Rick, you know, I'm like, oh man, I'm sweating. Now I'm like, oh man. And she thought it was crazy, you know. And this was a period of three years after I met her. I forgot to tell you that. This was three years later when all this happened, and you've had no contacts and no contact with her. At the party, yeah, you talked to her for two minutes yep. And then oh yeah, but I'm listening to the right you know. On top of that, here's the funny part about there. On top of that, it all started with the Angel record. But after that, my wife goes out and Boss building a mystery and all the previous albums, So now I know all those others songs. So Sarah's on the phone and I go, hey, miss mclaucher, how are you doing. She says, how are you doing? And I was like, she's funny, I said, remember when I met you three years ago. She says, how could I forget you? You call me god? So she was like she had I was like, yeah, yeah, I said, well, remember when I met you and I told you what your music did for me, And she said yeah. I said, well, I just found out that I'm adopted, and I want to make a song that's going to speak to some people who you know, the orphans and the four us two kids and adopted kids like me. And I want to make a song and I want to use Harry Chapin's Cats in the Cradle. Will you do this re record with me? Immediately she goes, sure, yes, I'll do it, because usually it's let me talk to my label, let me talk to my man. And I'm like, oh, I'm like really, really okay, I'll bring you to New York City this when a hit factory was still open. I'll put you in the hit factory just in there. I put you in the Fourth Sea. She says, no, Darryl, you could come to my house and we'll make it there. I have a studio in my house, So now I'm a fan. Set change. We on the plane flying to Vancouver, Canada, and I look over the Eric and I said, Eric, if I died tomorrow, don't say that. D stop saying no, Eric, you know this is funny. Not know, Eric, really if I die, I don't hear you. Eric, No, I say, motherfucker stopped listening to me, motherfucker. If I died tomorrow, and you can if anybody ask me, what do you think thee's greatest time? You tell the motherfucker's that the greatest thing that ever happened. Tode was going to Sea mcclacklerhouse to make a record. Whether you got it, motherfucker, yeah, I got it. Like it was like wow. So we land in Vancouver. It took us two days to make the record. When we finished recording, I was like, Sarah, thank you for this. She goes, Darren, before you go, I gotta tell you something. She says, I was adopted too. And I did not know that. I did not. Everybody with me, Eric and the people from UM it was UM, the publicists with me, and some other people that Arista Records has sent with me, they all lost it. I did not know she was adopted too. How crazy is that? It's amazing, it's amas crazy, it's amazed, it's beautiful. And ever in the music. Yeah, it's in the music. It's and felt it in the music. Yep, and ever ever since that day, um my thing was suicide, anxiety, lone leanness, this and that. Yo, we all, Oh you are not alone. Yes, I was in a place where, you know, even when I found out I was adopted, I didn't feel right around Running, Jay and Eric and them because they didn't understand what was going on to me. And even Run even said because he don't know, Run said to him, and he was right, he said, motherfucker's see how Run is? Motherfuckers sucking a bifon and Banners your mother and father. And I looked at Runner, I said, I know that, But also I have a right to these other emotions because when I found out what I was adopted, immediately I'll started going, I wonder if what my mother was to look like? And this and so all of those wild why why was I giving up this? And that? Boom bag? But I was able to maintain those through the music. Yes, knowing that I'm bifing and Banner is the bomb. Yes, you know what I'm saying. And they were and they were your mom and dad, your whole life and great exactly and great that example, and they chose you. Yeah, that's a whole other level. That's a hope. They chose right. They chose you, so Sarah, and then you know it's deeply in the music too. That's why I identify with her vibe identified. There was nothing on its earth, yes, that made me feel like staying here except of you know what I'm saying. It was public information that she was adopted, but she don't talk about it. I didn't have to die for that. No, it was just amazing. I'm wondering if you know they say as souls, we choose our parents, and I'm and it's interesting that your your parents chose you, and and that on some level you felt that you felt but you felt that disconnect because we're used to picking like right, right, right. I had so much love, like growing up, I had so much love that there was never thought in my mind that I wasn't a McDaniels. Yes. The funny thing Rick, after all of this was happening, after the whole Sarah thing, and all of that confidence had me say, yo, go to therapy, d Yes, deal with your feelings. It's okay to have this feelings even if the world think you and you're not a knuckle and you're not weird, you're not crazy. You need to go talk to somebody yes, So I went to therapy. And matter of fact, I went to therapy. I've discovered therapy because that helped me stop drinking. Because member, I used to drink a lot of forties. Yes, I used to drink a lot of drinker. I was drinking a case of forties a day. Wow. But I stopped. This is funny, Oh, I forgot to tell you that before Down with the King came out. In nineteen ninety one, I was diagnosed with a cute pancreatitis. So I was in the hospital for a month and a half. I couldn't take anything orally. I had to take all my nurse man intravenously because I was like, yo, your liver and your pear cris is going bananas. So now I'm scared. But here's a miraculous thing. All my tests came back clean. And I was drinking that Not only that, I was drinking brass Monkey with the dcs, Bacardi and coke in that era. And then in ninety one I stopped. My doctor looked at me and said, you have two choices, son, you could um drink and die or not drink and live. So I was I wasn't drinking during down with the king Um in two thousand. Though in two thousand I started drinking again. Me and Sarah did the record this and that. But this is funny. I wasn't dealing with the feelings. You know what I'm saying A resolve in my head. I'm okay, I said to myself, okay. But I really wasn't okay because I didn't sit there and you know, let's let's talk about how do you feel about being adopted? How do you feel about your mother and father not telling you this and that. I just looked at I'm good, I love being and there. But I kind of had these emotions. And when the emotions started rising up, I started drinking again. When I stopped drinking in ninety one, it was Bacardi and coke and rum and coke and screwdrivers and all English. Now starting to drink again. Now I got this new thing called Hennessey and Jim Bean Jack Daniel. So I was drinking that and my wife looked at me. This is what made me go to rehab to stop drinking. My wife looked at me. In UM two thousand and four, I said, I'm drinking to celebrate my victory and my new found missing identity. My wife said, motherfucker, you're drinking because you can't handle the fact that your parents just told you you were adopted. And that made me go, wow, stop living a life, dy stop living a lie. D Yeah, of course you're happy. It's Sarah record this and that and not going to kill yourself no more. But now I subconsciously found a way to kill myself and not have to deal with them, because that's that's well, I'm already thinking of killing myself. Now my parents revealing me you're adopted, you're gonna feel some way about it. Did where that the initial I'll call it depression, the first round of when I first hit you, I didn't know it was that. Yeah, but we'll call it that. So now we're on the same we're using the same terms. When the depression hit. Had you already stopped drinking that first time? Yeah, because I'm stop drinking, that's when the depression came. That's what I was just gonna say, is that maybe, but you must be a therapist because you're leading this right into what happened. It makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense that you stopped drinking and then you started feeling your feelings. Yes, Greg, my wife says that to me. I city, I can't deny She's right. Eric, Kathy yes from the office Kathy and Eric goes to Leo and says, Leo, we gotta fucking put d in rehab. So I'm not kidding you. I'm not. I was a functional drug, yes, you know. I wasn't like you, d Man, you're fucking killing yourself. Yes. I found a way not to use the gun, not to jump, and not to drink toison do the thing that my wife said. Mother, she said, Darrel, it's not like you. You should doctor already told doctor already told you that it's going to kill you, and you're doing it like it's Yeah, I go into rehab to stop drinking. When I went in to rehab to stop drinking as well, I could discover therapy. Rick is so crazy. You know what. I was diagnosed with suppressed emotions. My therapist said, you was drinking so you didn't have to deal with your feeling, he said, all through the time. The first question he asked me was this when I went into therapy, he said, Daryl, during your career with run DMC, did run JA or anybody ever do anything to make you mad, and I said no. I sat there and I said no. Rick, my therapist m he was. I was thirty five when I went into therapy. My therapist was he had to be. I think it was like forty six or forty seven. He knew how I was and stuff like that. He came in with the white doctor cloak on and the notepad and everything. Daryl, during your career with running him see that anybody ever do anything to make you mad? You know I'm sitting there thinking I gotta go. No. He put his head, true servant, he put his bad down, he stood up, he took off his doctor cloak. He wanted to get real with me. And he looked me in my eyes and he said, you a goddamn motherfucking liar. And when he said that to me, yeah, man, in eighty five, when they like, he said what I would do, and he said my problem was this, and he said it had a lot to do with um post traumatic thing from being adopted. Yes, I didn't want to be given away again. I want to be the guy. Don't don't think that I didn't know. Subconsciously, I knew my first mother gave me away, So I want to be. I don't want to be a troublemaker. I don't want to call me running Jay. Never I shout it though, Yeah me running Jay. I watched Running Jay. You see the motherfuck? They would argue and this is it. I would sit there, What you would you like me to do? I don't want to be a troublemaker. I was diagnosed with suppressed emotions. Makes sense because I was using the old English, yes to suppressed. That's why I mean every ray drunk Old English. He just didn't drink a case. Smith drunk three. I drunk twelve. Yes, as soon as the how I was going on to me, I don't want to I want to feel. I was diagnosed with suppressed emotions, so I went in to stop drinking. When I went in the rehab as where I discovered therapy, which was the best thing for me, because then now I'm dealing with my truth. How do you feel? Yes, I gotta saying, now you might not have even known how you felt before because you're so suppressed. Yes, exactly, he said, Yo, d your truth is how you really feel. And he said it's okay to feel the way that you feel, and he looked at me. He said, Yo, if you don't admit how you feel, whether good or bad, you never heal. Wow. And that journey all led up from hearing that Sarah McLaughlin record in the car. Amazing, crazy, amazing story. We'll be right back with dmcter the break. We're back with more from DMC. Let's talk about your first memories of hip hop as a kid. What was the what's the first first experience of anything having to do with rapper hip hop? Um, we've never talked about this. Seventh grade Saint Pascal Baylon Elementary School. Billy Morris was in the eighth grade. He was he was older than us, me, David Sinclair, and I forgot who else was in the schoolyard playing basketball on the one room that's the Catholic school and in the schoolyard, and Billy goes, Yo, come in. We said, Yo, why Billy want us? Let's tell YO. He probably want us to smoke some reefer or something like. This is before I even took a pull on the joint and whatever. So Billy does what the bullies usually do. Yo, I said, come here. I ain't gonna say it again, so me I'll go Yo. It's three of us in one of him. If he tried anything, we ain't know what was gonna happen. It's three of us want to try anything. You gotta jump him. So we're scared. We come over Billy scared because we think we gotta fight now smoke refer He says, Yo, check this out. He pulls out a flat tape recorder. This is before the boom box even existed. They was in schools and you push the jacket pops up like that. You thought he had one of those. He said, check this out. He hit play and something said, dad, tact dad, And then a voice said, when you messed around in New Yorktown, you go down with the disco Cheeba clown. You go down, go down, go down. You just keep the pep in your step. You don't stop till you get on the mountain top and when you reach the top, you reach your peak. That's when you hear Eddie Cheeba's speak. And it stopped a minute and thirty said, yo, do that again. He did it again. We stood in the school yard for three hours listening to it. I didn't know what I didn't know what whatever that was it was the I felt it it was the coolest thing ever. We start different. I was just listening to that over and it was just a little one minute one little kid had static and everything. So I had to the recording from alive. It was from a pirate radio um WFUV Eddie Chiba had a Wednesday night. He had a station. Only some people in Queen's could get it if you, depending where you was your house was situated. So I hit Billy with the question, your billy, man, can I hold your tape? Hell no, Daryl mcdann, you just can't hold my mother fucking tape this and that. You know, Billy, I'll give you my allowance. I'll run home and give you. I'll steal my father's car keys and give you. He's like, yeah, y'all come home and no. So he saw he just saw that I really wanted. It was a Friday afternoon. He said, Daryl, you're a good kid. You can hold up. Bring my fucking tape back Monday morning. Yes, So the whole weekend, Friday night, all the way till Saturday Sunday, I hated. I dreaded to give it back back. The whole weekend. I just sat there listening to that over and over and over. Monday, I gave it back to Billy and that was it, Rickett, that was it. I went back to my comic book Skateboard Bike Riding Self, Summer Comes School, let's out, Summer Comes Now. Because of the tape, it was always here, but I I it wasn't my world yet. Now I'm noticing, Oh, that's what they do in the park when the van comes and they put the records out, and then they played the speakers on and they started talking over the music. It was still pretty new, right, it's so new. Oh no, if it hadn't really had it was very new and soaked in. Like I heard it and didn't know about it. I heard it and then went away. Yes, so that's when I started, No, oh, that's it was just this, rick I'm round my bike to the part. So at that time they were probably no, there wasn't even um nobody knew what was going on in the Bronx. It was just happening live at parties, every block part right, So that summer even for the sugar Hill gag, right, we had way before the sugar Hill gag. This this probably was what the seventy this seventy but I remember the bi centennial came when the by centennial quarters came out the seven seventy eight, it was seventy eight because I graduated. I graduated eighth grade in seventy nine. This was seventy eight. So my brother comes to me, so, Jo, Daryl, we gotta get some turntables in the mix. And I'm like, yeah, okay, okay, you know I'm the little brother whatever whatever. So we had a problem. Rick. We didn't sell weed. The guysa so we have money. They was getting the good stuff. All we had was my mother and father's receiver with their their bullshit turntable and two bullshit win speakers. My brother Alpha, we had a whole bit big comic book collection. He said, Yo, we're gonna do a comic book sales, so we could get enough money to get one Gemini'm Up and Down mix up and one more BSR Wood turntable. So we did that. So the next thing that happened, this is when it began for me. A friend of mine had a box up the cassette thing with this guy named Grandmaster Flash and Grandmass. The Flash was doing the Real Good Times, which rappers the like sample. But he made it do this. It came on, um, you know, good bees are the good time and the guy was on the mike, Ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen, the Grand brand Master Master flat, and I was those vocals were more dynamic than hip hop. Down was what the fuck with the cho What the hell is this, Ladies and gentlemen, The Grand Master flash that she said, ding ling ling ling ling, good times, boom boom, boom, bump bump, bump bump, good times, boom boom. By the fuck he's a doing no bump, bump, bump, bump, good tip. Then it's a good time, good Denn, it's a good good, good good. I'm gonna cut the funk out of there because you've got magic rigors, no video. I'm listening. What the fire did he make good times? Do that shit? So now I go down in the basement and I'm taking my brothers records and Anthony's things, and I'm trying to do the thing I heard on the tape. Took me a while to get it, but then I was able to do the quick mix of good Times great. I was my own DJ, my DJ name. In my basement, I was pretending I was Grandmaster Get High because you don't need all English a weed because my music will intoxic ate you. So it was Grandmaster Get High and MC eazy D. I was both of them and were fifteen fifteen years old, and it was all make belief, pretending, and it was just for yourself. It was I didn't want to make records and stuff like that. It's just for me, beautiful. It was yet the same way girls played with Barbie and dudes play with g I Joe. I was pretending to be whatever that thing that these guys do that not me. Yes, it was pretend, but it was the best feeling ever. That's amazing. After that, what happened was remembered. I went to Saint Pascal Bayline Elementary School. So now my routine was to come home, you know, do my homework first whatever, watch Adam's family offense stones or whatever, and then um, after I took my shower, whatever, mom, I'm going out in the basement. That was my whole routine run. Joseph Simmons was always in the other class, and we would get out of school two ten, so we'd be at my house plus two twenty and my parents would get home at four PM. He sees me and my brother's turn tables and he looks and he goes, Joe, do you do that? And I go, no, it's it's myself. I go, nah, that's my brother's turntable. So then Joe goes, Yo, my brother's Russell Russ. You ever see those flyers that's up on the telephone poles. I'm like yeah, So now I'm playing like I don't care. I got an entrance bold your brother does this rap day? He says, yeah, my brother's Russell Russe. He chose parties and um he promotes Curtis Blow and like he starts dropping names and stuff like that. I know Bam Bota and um um DJ Hollywood. So I'm, you know, acting like I don't care and stuff like that. So I go I dabbled a little bit, and Joe goes, yeah, let me see what you could do. So I'll go over to turn tables. I'm showing off now Lean Lan lan Lee, good times, bon Bone, good time. Oh. Joe's like, oh shit, Well Joe knew how to DJ, but he ain't know how the batsman. So I said, he said, Yo, you gotta teach me how to do that. Man, so when I do when I go out with Curtis Blow, when my brother brings about to Curtis Blow, I'm gonna do that shit for Curtis Blow. So the routine was, now we're gonna come to my house from two twenty to like, uh, from two twenty to three o'clock, we're gonna play basketball. But from three o'clock to three thirty five, we're gonna go in the basement. We're gonna DJ and stuff like that. So we started doing that. When we started doing that, that's when Joe's now he's coming over. He's bringing cassette tapes. Yo, this is me with Curtis Blow up Barn Martin and you hear Kurt my disco son DJ Run and then you're a joke. I'm on bust his little rhyme and stuff like that. So now I'm intrigued. But the whole time Rick he does that, Joe, Wow, you really do it like it's far from my mind. So the next time we're in the basement, were in a basement, I'll never forget. Joe was on the turn No, I was on the turntables, and I would always make peanut butter and jelly and potato chips for whoever was visiting my house. So Joe was sitting there and he picks up my black and white notebooks and he goes, Joe, Daryl, you rots. And I was like, yeah, this, you know, it's just a hobby. He's like, yoh, this is really good. And he looks at me, reckon, I'll never forget the day he goes, and it seemed like the whole world sloop slows down. When my brother Russell lets me make my record, I'm putting you in my group. So I look at him, like this record one day you're out the other What the fuck did you like? Foreign language? What the hell do then think? No? Now what the fun? No like? And I was like, I don't do this. That's cram flash y'all like do this. I graduate um um um. June of eighty two and August of eighty two. You know, me and Joe was hanging out. I've seeing him hang with button stuff. August eighty two. I'll never forget the phone rings. It's Joe and he goes, Yo, d Remember when I said, when I make a record, when my brother lets me make a record, I'm putting you into my group. And I'm like, yeah, grab your rom books, we're gonna make studio. We're gonna make a record. I'm gonna do this record called It's like that. I just want you to write a bunch of rhunds about how the world is it's like home. I'm still not say Okay, that's easy, so I write it that next the next week, it was Sunday, two pm. Joe and Larry Smith falls up to my house and takes me to Green Street Recording Studios. How many years after the first conversation years, four years later, four years later, unbelievable, four years later, And I guess I needed that four years to prep. Yeah, I had no idea this was coming over, just me loving. When Joe finally called, I was remember I heard Eddie Chie but I was writing one way. Then I heard Rappers, the lighting, super rit was writing woman. Then I heard the Chris every at every level up. Change that change that. When I heard the call Chris, this is the one that stucks. That's when the call came. So Joe, when we we had the demo that and now we're going to go to the studio to make it. Joe had to convince Russell to let me rhyme with him. Russell was like goo d smart this and that whatever whatever, but he's not you. Yes, and g Joe had seen me in the basement. Russell never so Joe saw what the world inn't see. Yes. So Joe was like, yo, Joe, you got it. So Russell was like, okay, Daryl can record and slight that with you. So we make it like that, and then Joe goes in and records Suck Him Seas, which was his record. Yes, that's why three times on the record. So we did it like that. Joe Russell was um not impressed, but ino d I like your voice, like you know. He was liked like you. But he wrote some good rounds like you know. But he still wasn't so he was like, he was, so okay, I'll give it to you. I'll give it. The record was good, this and that. So Joe going and drop Suck Him Sees. Joe comes out the booth. Now I was supposed to be it'slight that Suck Him Seas was all here, Joe goes, Joe d going in and put a verse on it. No, no, you ain't gonna get Russell mad at me. Hell, the motherfucker don't even want me here. You think I'm ruining. I ain't. I'm not trying to fuck up. And already it's two in the morning. I didn't even tell my parents I'm doing this. I'm thinking I'm going into the basement. I just leave the house at two pm and it's two in the morning. So in my whole mind, I know I'm getting in trouble and my parents gonna be waiting that the motherfucker will was you at So Joe said, Yo, I want Russell to see that you do this shit. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know nothing about street kids. I'm fucking Catholic, Like you know, I didn't know nothing about that ship that he was right. He just said, going in, say your newest rhyme. So it's summer eighty two. I was a class of eighty two when I got the letter from Saint John's University and I got accepted. Before I even told my mother, I just went down in the basement. I wrote this little rhyme, I'm DMC and the place to be going to Saint John's Universe. I had that rhyme. I didn't write it for the record, I just so just just going and say your new rhyme. So going, Okay, I'm saying this new rhyme at a row. So he said, I'm gonna set it up for a DMC n if you're ready the people rocket steady, I'm driving me cars. Get your gays from getting I'm DMC and the place to be. I'll go to Saint John's University. And since Kennedy Garden out quiet, I said. The whole little rhyme and stuff like that came out to both Larry. Andy was like, Yo, Like, I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Yo? Ruck, Russell comes to Yo, Russell, you gotta heard this. Russell stands there yod that for the rest of the session. That's manager shit now for the rest of the session in Green Street. At first, Russell was avoiding me for the rest of the session. I'm just sitting there say, um, Larry, what ud You're not gonna make it home till five in the morning. Damn, I'm fucking in trouble now. But for the rest of the session. You know, we're in Green Street, New York at this time, people coming in through all times of night. Yes, everybody who came to the door Russell say, d stay the round. I can't even care about Joe. He'sa staying a round. You listen to this. He's talking about Saint John's University and that how it all came together. Amazing. When did when did Jay become part of the group? Jay became part of the group after Russell got a sign to profile. Yes. Um, Russell goes, Yo, you're gonna need a DJ if your dude shows and Joe goes, oh shit, we didn't think about that part. This is great history. Joe picks Smith first because Smith Jay was down with two fifth down, but Jay picked I mean Joe picks Smith first. Smith. Joe said, yo, man did me and Daryl McDaniels got this record? You want to be our DJ? So Smith says, yeah, I'll do that. When it was time for us to really start, Yo, we got a show coming up, Smith said, nah, man, I can't be your d's true story. Rickie goes, nah man, I can't be your DJ. Man I got a job at the post office. Yeah, so now we ain't got no DJ. So he picked j In and Javid came out DJ because we was doing a show, and um we was Our first show was in um in North Carolina at a high school. So Smith quit because he didn't see, Yeah, it wasn't real I not got a job, man, of course, got a job at the post office, of course. So Jo d didn't want to make records because he worked in a record store. He was like, I have a job. I can't do that. What do you mean? Yeah, but people don't understand how small of a world hip hop was at that time, and it wouldn't be realistic if you did have a job. You're not stopping it, stopping it to do this because nobody's going anywhere and doing that at all. No, you did it because you loved it. Yeah, yeah, I mean the whole thing was. Look, we were just happy to get out. I mean, Joe had a little bit more vision because he was it was in his living room six or he knew there was money, Like Joe knew, man, I could get some new Adidas and and and British Walkers and Puma's offerers. For me, my thing was, Wow, if I get played on Magic, I made it. It's incredible. Yeah, Like if Magic played my yeah, I made it, and that was it. We didn't know you know that it was gonna go that fun. I just bring up Smith because Smith was like nah man and I spent Mister Magic was a DJ who had a show on w HBI. First. It was one hour a week, one hour, and that was the only place you could hear any hip hop music at all at all. That was if you got your record on there, you arrived. That was it. And we would record that every week and listen to it all week, pause and records as soon as it came on. Yeah, and that's all it was. But in the early shows we played a lot in our neighborhood. He played all the roller skating ranks. Um, you already dressed as run DMC. How how are you? What was the original presentation? Oh my god, man, I looked like a um. I looked like a kid, and I looked like a freshman in college was taking um um biology. I had on a gray silk shirts, some gabardine gray pants. Pumas, had on blue and white pumas, and Joe always thought it was cool. I had this long um um um um London fog blue trench coat. Yes, so that was the coolest thing in my wardrobe. Joe had the leather, the burgundy leather blazers, which was popular back then. Um, he had on his leash and he had on on white on white Adidas. But your man Jay, your man Jay had the fucking godfather had on. He had the fucking shams, the bearing, he had the fucking it will go Jane, you had the fucking leaves on. He at the Dida's on, He at the quarter field, he at the goose bubble, at their name played, He at the gazelles, at the due Rag hanging off. He was the coolest, always the coolest. He was always favor I miss him. I miss him all the time, think about him all the time. You have to, yeah, you have to. Most beautiful smile, Yes, most beautiful smile. Just good person, good beautiful outside of being Jay, of course, beautiful being. He brought life, flavor and everything to us. Absolutely so. Me and Run was uncoordinated as hell. Mean, I was wearing pumas. And then we started playing New York Um. We started playing um um um Um. Dancer Terrier was the hangout spot the world, and then we started moving into the rocks and stuff like that. But I first show at the Fever, Jay missed it. So DJ Star Child from the Fever DJ for us. Our second started to Jay wasn't gonna miss it. So when we pulled up on two thirds to get Jay, Jay comes checked this out right. Jake comes on the steps for that show I had on pumas Um. It's that famous picture with me and Joe got to check a jacket on. Yeah after fever, Yes, Joe Ja Ja missed that show. Yes, the second show, we got that same shit on and we pull up to Jay House and two thirds Jake comes out on a stoop. He got the big fourth speak of box, he got the Godfather had on, he got the black Adida jacket with the white stripes coming down, he got the black leaves on, and he got on brand new black and white shell to Adidas with the tongue sticking up like tombstones, and he got the laces around his neck. As soon as he stepped on the steps, before it even could come out of Larry's mouth, that mem say, Yo, that's how outfit how Jay dressed in real life. No. In ninth Brad tim that Jay was going to school like that. That's our outfit. So that the second shows the fevers the day that Rundy m C look came together as a jam Master Jay. Wow, incredible, it's crazy beautiful. So Jay dressed us, Jay dressed us and Jay Um Jay was the Jay was the vibe flavor, Yes, of every definite that we had, the fashion sense always. Oh, he was always the coolest guy that record. Also, jam Master J is one of my favorite of the Earth records. I love that rac kick off Shoes, Jump on the Job jams as they started because it's hip hop. Yeah, it's real, and it's one of the it's one of the first real ones. It's like that and Sucker mcs are probably the first real hip hop Yeah, yeah, because Larry was trying to do Charon's Rocket in the pocket. If we would have did it over that, it would have been it would have been really hip hop. If we would have did it live the way we did Here we Go. We use actual big beat, yes, And that's why we did here We're Here we Go because people started saying, oh, Rundy m C selling out the commercial because they making records. People don't understand that there's, uh, there's this group of records that's the music that all of hip hop is based on, most of which are not R and B records. They could be rock records, they could be world music records, but those original those those breakbeat records, a lot of rock records of James Brown Brown ac DC. Yeah, the sound of it wasn't about so. It wasn't about the style. It was just about the groove. So it transcended any genre for sure, because in that genre of hip hop, you know we we were doing, you know we're doing it was like radio. Hip hop was different. It was different, It was different, it was very different. So that was what the whole idea of my I don't know that I knew it at the time, but my concept for deaf Jam was we gotta make music. That's like what it really what if you went to the club and you experienced him. Yeah, nobody was doing the records. Didn't sound like yes, I tell everybody we did that. We did what it was done in the parks. It was more like documentary. What we were doing, what both of us were doing, was like it was like documenting this already. We didn't invent it. No, he was there, it was just nobody was actually making it, attempting to want to do it, to desire to do it. So when when when people started saying that with me, I had to go back. That was my basis of doing the one two three and the place to be as it is playing what you said, so as it is playing to see he is d J jam massive roof yes and sought the place for fall the bac leads a fire and we all I got to tell him the crutch s groove in the record and it goes a little something like this, we don't drop no funk. It goes to one two three roa task their funk. Nobody was doing it over and now you can't put it past flash in them even for the beauty. The beauty about that is flashing them the way they dressed, they understand. I don't think the reason why they did it because they had no rappers to look up to, because they were the first My first favorite rap group was a Treacherous three based on based on those Enjoy records, which I loved, and then they signed to sugar Hill and then they made their first album and it wasn't hip hop, and I was heartbroken. And then I that was my first trying to get involved because again I know anything, I didn't know anybody. I didn't know how the record business worked, but I wanted to do that. I wanted to fix a problem as a fan. It's like, wait a minute, my favorite group just went well what did they do? It's like, and I know they know it because they made the good that ever heard them make. They had to know it. I always said that every time I see Mode, they got this ri this routine over big beat Wall, it goes boof bam boom booth bat and MODI goes, can you finding MC better than me? Mo? D? Can you finding MC better than me? No? Can you finding him? See who can say he's better than special K? No? Can you finding m C? Who can rhyme up against Elason Sean? No, you can't. You can't. Anthesia saw it. You got to come with the best. And I was like, no, why didn't y'all never do that on records? So that's that's the reason. So I reached out to him and I said, let's make records together because and again I didn't know anything about the business part of it, or what a producer does or anything. I just knew it was wrong. I knew it was wrong, and I was a fan and I loved him, and I said, let's make records that sound like what you really signd like it. Well, because they said, well, we're signing a sugar Hill. I can't do that. I didn't know anything about this, right, but that's the way it did change was he said, but Special kid as a brother to Lara, He's like, you can make a record with him, and and that's how it happened. And then I met Special commentating, Yeah, but that would have been a treacherous three record. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that was the original thought. You know. It was just like because it was the real hip hop what they was doing in when you walk in the club, you want to hit it. It was an experience, was so exciting, great for real. Yeah, cool man. Thank you so much for Thank you for Thanks again to Darryl dmc McDaniels for sharing his remarkable story with this Since the release of his autobiography in two thousand and one, DMC received the Congressional Angels and Adoption Award for his work helping foster children. Here's song with Sarah McLaughlin and more from Run DMC visit Broken Record podcast dot com. Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrell, Mia Lobell and Leah Rose for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.