Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Darryl "DMC" McDaniels: The King of Rock
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: Pushkin. When Run DMC Sucker MC started spinning on small
- 0:15Speaker 1: radio stations around New York City in nineteen eighty three.
- 0:18Speaker 1: Believe it or not, this was new school, the cutting edge.
- 0:23Speaker 1: Sucker MC's was the B side to Run DMC's first single,
- 0:26Speaker 1: It's like that. These songs completely changed the sound of
- 0:30Speaker 1: hip hop in the early eighties. They're sparse, bass, heavy beats,
- 0:33Speaker 1: and aggressive rhymes. Represented the real hip hop her live
- 0:36Speaker 1: at block parties and clubs and the Bronx and queens.
- 0:39Speaker 1: It was a huge leap forward from the first ever
- 0:42Speaker 1: hip hop releases from groups like The Sugar Hill Gang
- 0:44Speaker 1: and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who are putting
- 0:47Speaker 1: out polished R and B influenced records. Joseph run Simmons,
- 0:51Speaker 1: Jason jam Maaster, j Mizelle and our guests today Darryl
- 0:54Speaker 1: dmc McDaniels came together in nineteen eighty three, not long
- 0:58Speaker 1: before the release of those first two songs. As Run DMC.
- 1:02Speaker 1: They helped define the look and sound of hip hop
- 1:04Speaker 1: in the eighties worldwide. Their true pioneers, who have had
- 1:08Speaker 1: no shortage of first in their career, including the first
- 1:11Speaker 1: ever hip hop group to go gold, then platinum, then
- 1:14Speaker 1: multi platinum. There were also the first rappers on MTV
- 1:17Speaker 1: and on the cover of Rolling Stone. Rick Reubin and
- 1:20Speaker 1: DMC have been friends since the early days of Run DMC,
- 1:23Speaker 1: when Rick founded Deaf Jam Records with runs older brother
- 1:26Speaker 1: and produced two of the group's classic albums, and of
- 1:29Speaker 1: course their collaboration with Aerosmith Walked This Way and this
- 1:33Speaker 1: candid conversation between old friends. You'll hear how DMC and
- 1:36Speaker 1: Run formed the group and also how despite a career
- 1:39Speaker 1: full of accolades, DMC struggled for years with suicidal thoughts.
- 1:43Speaker 1: The only thing that kept him alive during its darkest
- 1:45Speaker 1: days was a song he heard on light FM. Brace
- 1:48Speaker 1: Yourself for a wild story about Sarah McLaughlin's song Angel.
- 1:52Speaker 1: You'll never hear the song the same again. This is
- 1:57Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the digital a I'm justin
- 2:01Speaker 1: ma Here's Rick Rubin and Darryl dmc McDaniels. Thank you
- 2:06Speaker 1: so much for doing this. First of all, thank you
- 2:07Speaker 1: for having met. The last time we talked, you told
- 2:11Speaker 1: me an incredible story that blew my mind. And it's
- 2:19Speaker 1: been long enough now where I don't remember all of
- 2:21Speaker 1: the details, but I remember I left feeling different than
- 2:26Speaker 1: I felt, Like what you said changed me just hearing
- 2:30Speaker 1: the story. Really Yeah, so maybe you couldn't tell me
- 2:34Speaker 1: the story again? Um, well is it? Is it the
- 2:38Speaker 1: Sarah McLachlan story. Yeah, about how her records saved my life? Yes,
- 2:44Speaker 1: but tell me from the beginning, like, oh, in the beginning, Um,
- 2:50Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, Yeah, Down went to King, Yes, which
- 2:55Speaker 1: was produced by Pete Rock, one of the greatest produces. Yes.
- 3:00Speaker 1: Ever that record Pete hates when I say this, Dan
- 3:06Speaker 1: went the King did for Rundy m c what walked
- 3:09Speaker 1: this way? People say he did for Arrowsmith. It put
- 3:13Speaker 1: us back. Prior to that, we were respected, yes, praised, pioneers, legends,
- 3:21Speaker 1: but hip hop had changed. Yes, nobody cared. We're not
- 3:25Speaker 1: on the radio, We're not on him TV no more.
- 3:27Speaker 1: We had love, but we wasn't participating anymore. So Pete
- 3:33Speaker 1: Rock produces the title track on the Down with the
- 3:35Speaker 1: King album, and that record just put us back on
- 3:43Speaker 1: the road, put us back on a chart, put us
- 3:46Speaker 1: back on tour. Now we're in the midst of what
- 3:50Speaker 1: was going on in the nineties, and you would think
- 3:55Speaker 1: that that would make me happy. And the eighties was again,
- 3:59Speaker 1: eighties money on the nineties were getting the nineties money
- 4:02Speaker 1: when everybody was getting there. As soon as that record
- 4:04Speaker 1: drop Rick, something in me said, I don't want to
- 4:07Speaker 1: live no more. Was it instantaneous? Did it happen in
- 4:13Speaker 1: a moment or did it build over time? It wasn't
- 4:16Speaker 1: a moment. It happened. I woke up one day when
- 4:20Speaker 1: everybody was like, Yo, the videos are smash and the records,
- 4:25Speaker 1: you're back on a chart and you're going on the road.
- 4:27Speaker 1: You're gonna open for Naughty by Nature. When we got
- 4:29Speaker 1: on the road, when we started tune, we started making
- 4:32Speaker 1: that money again, something in me just said, I don't
- 4:35Speaker 1: want to live. And it was like disvoiding me and
- 4:40Speaker 1: I was leaving. I was coming off a stage. Everything.
- 4:43Speaker 1: It was a new feeling. You never had an experience
- 4:45Speaker 1: that I never had experience. Out of the blue, Yes,
- 4:49Speaker 1: out of the blue. And interesting too that it was
- 4:51Speaker 1: triggered by things going good, not by things going bad. Right,
- 4:54Speaker 1: It's interesting, right, exactly, very interesting. Yeah. I tell people that, Yo,
- 4:59Speaker 1: every thing was good in this seven it's interesting. So
- 5:03Speaker 1: I would go back to my hotel room and I
- 5:05Speaker 1: would just lay there and it was just the dread
- 5:07Speaker 1: of the world that was on me, and that happened
- 5:10Speaker 1: probably for like, I don't know, I was going through that.
- 5:14Speaker 1: I was going through that for six and seven. It
- 5:17Speaker 1: was saying six or seven months. And then in six
- 5:19Speaker 1: and seven do you remember how old you were at
- 5:20Speaker 1: that time? I was thirty five, okay, thirty third, thirty four,
- 5:25Speaker 1: thirty five, you know, um And the six or seventh
- 5:31Speaker 1: month for that, I just laid in my band. I said, okay,
- 5:34Speaker 1: what's going on with me? And I went through my
- 5:37Speaker 1: life and who I was. Okay, I'm Daryl McDaniels from
- 5:40Speaker 1: Hollis Queens, New York, bif and and ban is my mother,
- 5:43Speaker 1: Alfred's my brother, remember, son of Bifford, brother of al
- 5:47Speaker 1: bann As my mother, and runs my paler. It's McDaniels,
- 5:50Speaker 1: not McDonald's. These rhymes are Daryl's. Those Burghers are Roynalds.
- 5:54Speaker 1: I ran down my family tree, my mother, my father,
- 5:57Speaker 1: my brother and me. Okay run my friend, Jay's my
- 6:01Speaker 1: friend just think called hip hop comes over the bridge
- 6:03Speaker 1: from the Bronx. We made one record that was a hit.
- 6:06Speaker 1: We made another record who was a hit. We made
- 6:08Speaker 1: an album Boom Boom. Idida's everything. Now I'm back on
- 6:11Speaker 1: the road. Were down with King lefeisos a good? Why
- 6:13Speaker 1: do I feel like this? Had no idea what it was.
- 6:17Speaker 1: So I'm going through that routine every day, every day,
- 6:22Speaker 1: every day, and that void in me and that feeling
- 6:26Speaker 1: got so uncomfortable that now I'm thinking I don't want
- 6:30Speaker 1: to learn them more. Now you would think I would
- 6:32Speaker 1: have everything ale I'm DMC. I had a wife and
- 6:36Speaker 1: a kid at that time. Down with the King is killing, yes,
- 6:39Speaker 1: But this feeling on me made me say that I
- 6:42Speaker 1: can't live like this. This is very uncomfortable, which is
- 6:46Speaker 1: the worst feeling of it. So now I find myself
- 6:49Speaker 1: trying to think a way to kill myself. We go
- 6:52Speaker 1: over to Europe. I remember we go over to Europe
- 6:55Speaker 1: one time and we was like in Um. We was
- 6:58Speaker 1: in Um Austria somewhere, and we was we wasn't in
- 7:02Speaker 1: the big city, was in those little towns outside of Austria.
- 7:06Speaker 1: And we had did an interview and when we was
- 7:09Speaker 1: up on the roof of the building, I noticed they
- 7:11Speaker 1: didn't have no guardrails like most hotels after guardrails or whatnot.
- 7:15Speaker 1: So after we did the interview, we went back downstairs
- 7:18Speaker 1: and I remember Eric going being a lobby sixth story
- 7:21Speaker 1: for sale, checking order us the routine, and I remember
- 7:24Speaker 1: I went in my room and I waited, okay, run
- 7:26Speaker 1: Jay and Eric should be in the room stud I
- 7:28Speaker 1: go to my door and I look, nobody's in the hallway.
- 7:31Speaker 1: So I said, let me run upstairs before the hotel
- 7:34Speaker 1: security gout comes and locks the door again. So I
- 7:37Speaker 1: remember running upstairs and this true story. Run upstairs and
- 7:40Speaker 1: I get up on a ledge and I keep her
- 7:43Speaker 1: aware with y'all I'm standing there, and then something in
- 7:46Speaker 1: me says, y'all if I jump and down to day,
- 7:50Speaker 1: people know the DMC story, run DMC story. They know
- 7:55Speaker 1: just what behind the music, two books, movies, the Wikipedia, Google,
- 8:00Speaker 1: you could find out what I did with me running Jay,
- 8:03Speaker 1: but nobody knows about the little boy Daryl. So I
- 8:06Speaker 1: jumped back down. Can I say, before I kill myself,
- 8:10Speaker 1: I want to write this book. So I didn't want
- 8:13Speaker 1: to kill myself right there, because I wanted to write
- 8:14Speaker 1: a book and say, what's up world, I'm DMC from
- 8:17Speaker 1: the groundbreaking rapt run DMC, First to Go, Go, First
- 8:20Speaker 1: to Go, planting the first On the cover of Rolling Stone,
- 8:22Speaker 1: Blassie blades and blue back. So that was one of
- 8:26Speaker 1: my plans. So we go to Europe, then we go
- 8:30Speaker 1: to Japan. I go to Japan. I'm thinking of going
- 8:33Speaker 1: to the heart one storing, buying, poisoning, and killing myself.
- 8:36Speaker 1: And tell me, I'm just it's bad. I come home.
- 8:38Speaker 1: I'm thinking of shooting myself. Did you tell anyone at
- 8:41Speaker 1: this time? No, no, nobody, nobody were living with all
- 8:45Speaker 1: this pain by myself, suffering with it yourself, right, nobody knows.
- 8:49Speaker 1: Nobody knows. So fast forward. We come home from Europe
- 8:53Speaker 1: one trip, and I'm living in Jersey at this time.
- 8:56Speaker 1: So this was the this, this was the last straw.
- 8:59Speaker 1: The travel Asian couldn't fly me in the North, so
- 9:02Speaker 1: she flies me in the JFK and I live in Jersey.
- 9:06Speaker 1: So I remember coming home that day and I said
- 9:08Speaker 1: to myself, that's it. Life is so fucking fucked up.
- 9:12Speaker 1: I'm kid, I'm fucking coming home from JFK and I'm
- 9:15Speaker 1: really thinking that like these little things is adding to
- 9:18Speaker 1: this feeling, and so somebody, I'm gonna do it. Nothing fun,
- 9:21Speaker 1: it's over now. This is proof the universe is showing
- 9:25Speaker 1: me I gotta kill myself. So I come out and
- 9:28Speaker 1: I get in the car. I getting a guy. The
- 9:31Speaker 1: guy's talk town card is picking me up, and you
- 9:34Speaker 1: know he's being He turns around, you doing mister McDaniels, Rain,
- 9:37Speaker 1: New Jersey, and I'm like, yes, cool. So we're driving.
- 9:41Speaker 1: As we leave in JFK, we stop at the first
- 9:45Speaker 1: light because it's like two or three lights coming out
- 9:47Speaker 1: of JFK, and I could I saw the guy looking
- 9:50Speaker 1: at me. I felt the guy looking at me in
- 9:52Speaker 1: the reverview mirror. So every time I would turn to
- 9:54Speaker 1: look at him in the mirror, he would turn his head.
- 9:57Speaker 1: So we got to the second light and I felt
- 9:59Speaker 1: him looking again. I look up, you turn this at
- 10:01Speaker 1: So it got to the third light, I caught him
- 10:05Speaker 1: and when he caught my eyes, he just turned around
- 10:07Speaker 1: and said, mister dmc man, please don't tell my boss man.
- 10:10Speaker 1: I might get fired for this. Man. But when I
- 10:12Speaker 1: was younger, your music got me through the hardest times
- 10:15Speaker 1: in my life. This in that sucking seas I used
- 10:17Speaker 1: to go in my room and your room, your music
- 10:20Speaker 1: got me through the hardest time in your life. And
- 10:22Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm going I'm like, oh cool, cool, So
- 10:24Speaker 1: he said, please don't tell my boys. Man, can I
- 10:26Speaker 1: get a picture with you? And I'm like, yo, that's yeah,
- 10:29Speaker 1: I don't need a pitch. I'll give you an autograph.
- 10:31Speaker 1: What really? So now he's open. So we drive and
- 10:35Speaker 1: he says, you do your mind if I turn the
- 10:37Speaker 1: radio on, and I'm like yeah. So he turns the
- 10:40Speaker 1: radio to Hot ninety seven. That was the last thing
- 10:44Speaker 1: I wanted to hear. And I'm like, yo, man, turn
- 10:47Speaker 1: it to any of the station and except that, and
- 10:49Speaker 1: he's like okay. So he turns the station, turns it
- 10:53Speaker 1: to light FM. I hear these pianos boom, boom, and
- 10:58Speaker 1: then I hit his voice, It's been all your time
- 11:01Speaker 1: waiting for that second chance. I hear Sarah maclachlin's Arms
- 11:07Speaker 1: of the Angel and something said, yo, d life may
- 11:11Speaker 1: be messed up, but if something this beautiful exists, it's
- 11:15Speaker 1: good to be alive every day. So for one whole year,
- 11:19Speaker 1: all I did every day I walk up was listening
- 11:22Speaker 1: to the song. When I went to the gym. I'm
- 11:25Speaker 1: back in the gym. People looking at me. They're probably
- 11:28Speaker 1: thinking I'm listening to the LEDs Zethelin or some techno
- 11:32Speaker 1: or something. I had that on every day for a
- 11:35Speaker 1: whole year. At the end of that year, Eric, who
- 11:39Speaker 1: was still with me now him and Tracy Miller, our publicist,
- 11:43Speaker 1: was like, keep Darryl busy. We know he's going to something,
- 11:46Speaker 1: so he was just trying to keep me busy. So
- 11:48Speaker 1: Eric gets tickets to come out here to LA to
- 11:51Speaker 1: Clive davis Grammy party. He comes to me and said,
- 11:54Speaker 1: jo d Man, We're going to LA. I got two
- 11:57Speaker 1: tickets to grow fuck Clive Davis LA. For all I
- 12:01Speaker 1: need to do is stay here and listen to the
- 12:03Speaker 1: Sarah mclochny story. He's like, Yo, come on here. I said, no,
- 12:07Speaker 1: I don't need to do nothing, and he just looks
- 12:09Speaker 1: at me and this only this is funny, this only bething.
- 12:11Speaker 1: He looks at me and said, yo, d I worked
- 12:13Speaker 1: real hard to get these tickets because it's I said,
- 12:16Speaker 1: this fool probably gonna sold his soul to the devil
- 12:18Speaker 1: to go to Clive david stupid party. And I say, okay, Ja, Eric,
- 12:21Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with you. So Eric is like, Yo,
- 12:23Speaker 1: he's doing a manager, Yo, go do the red carpet.
- 12:26Speaker 1: You know, he's thinking business, this networking stuff like that.
- 12:29Speaker 1: I said, motherfucker, I only came here because of your
- 12:31Speaker 1: ass wanted to come to the stupid party. I'm staying
- 12:34Speaker 1: one album. I'm pulling up a chair right head by
- 12:36Speaker 1: this door, and the one album going back to my
- 12:39Speaker 1: room to listen to Sarah Mclocklin because it was just
- 12:42Speaker 1: something in that record, the vibal of it made me
- 12:47Speaker 1: feel not alone no more. Do you think it's the
- 12:50Speaker 1: words or the music or the combination. I think it
- 12:54Speaker 1: was a combination of it, especially in this dark, cold
- 12:59Speaker 1: hotel room. She knows because that's what I was doing,
- 13:02Speaker 1: I see. And she felt like she was singing to you. Yep,
- 13:06Speaker 1: like she made that, like that record was made for me. Yes,
- 13:10Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So I go to the
- 13:13Speaker 1: I'm Clive Davis party and Eric it's like yo, come on,
- 13:16Speaker 1: and I'm like countdown now, but again it's fifty ninety seven.
- 13:20Speaker 1: So he walks away frustrated. So I'm sitting there, hey,
- 13:25Speaker 1: um by the front door. Stevie Wonder comes in. His
- 13:29Speaker 1: boy seen me, and his boy turns Steven to be like, yo, Stevie,
- 13:32Speaker 1: come over him. N DMC wanted me too, So Stevie
- 13:35Speaker 1: comes over to me and I'm in my head, I'm
- 13:37Speaker 1: that just true story work. I'm like this, I'm talking
- 13:40Speaker 1: to myself, Stevie, fucking wonder the motherfucker fallen busses. Yeah,
- 13:45Speaker 1: really like the fun don't yeah, don't come on the
- 13:50Speaker 1: fuck Steve before like I was, I said that, Wow,
- 13:53Speaker 1: so his boy come. I'm smiling, Hey, Stevie, listening it.
- 13:56Speaker 1: You guys are great. Whatever. He walks away and it
- 13:58Speaker 1: had nothing to do with him. It just like all
- 14:02Speaker 1: of this is bullshit, all the fucking see. Yeah, he
- 14:06Speaker 1: walks away. Next person cause Alicia Keys comes in. She
- 14:11Speaker 1: sees me, oh dmc oh, I know Ryn, I know,
- 14:14Speaker 1: Russellulan Camre. I never see you. How you doing? Fucking
- 14:18Speaker 1: Alicia killed the fucking piano falls and breaks your finger.
- 14:21Speaker 1: Like I'm just thinking, and I'm laughing now because I
- 14:24Speaker 1: can't believe it was thinking like that, get away from me,
- 14:27Speaker 1: like fucking come over here, like and she walks away.
- 14:30Speaker 1: I look up, who's coming in? A lady that made
- 14:34Speaker 1: that record? Oh my god, Sarah, and you and you
- 14:39Speaker 1: recognize that, yes, oh my god, that's that lady who
- 14:42Speaker 1: made that record. Like I knew of northing, but I
- 14:45Speaker 1: didn't even know. Oh shoot, so some let me see
- 14:48Speaker 1: r D get up and go over there and tell
- 14:50Speaker 1: her about what her music did. So I'm walking over
- 14:52Speaker 1: to Sarah and she sees me run DMC. It's tricky
- 14:56Speaker 1: to rocker Ryn, rocker Ryn, it's right on time. My
- 14:59Speaker 1: didas she does the being boys stands like, yo, you
- 15:02Speaker 1: guys are great whatever whatever. So in my head I go, yo,
- 15:05Speaker 1: See Daryl, that's the reason to stay alive. Even Sarah
- 15:07Speaker 1: McLaughlin like your music, so I just go, Miss McLaughlin,
- 15:11Speaker 1: I just want to tell you the name of the
- 15:13Speaker 1: record is an Angel. You sound like an angel. People
- 15:15Speaker 1: say you're an angel, but you're not an angel to me.
- 15:17Speaker 1: Your God. Every day of my living there for the
- 15:19Speaker 1: last year, all I do is listen to your record.
- 15:21Speaker 1: It's the crutch that I stand on. It's the thing
- 15:23Speaker 1: that gets me to my day. I just rant and
- 15:25Speaker 1: raved us. So I finished. I'm standing in the sweating
- 15:27Speaker 1: So she's looking at me like this, So Shana what
- 15:30Speaker 1: to say? She was like, damn, I just wanted to
- 15:32Speaker 1: say how it is ass, But she looks at me
- 15:33Speaker 1: and says, thank you for telling me that, Daryl, that's
- 15:36Speaker 1: what music is supposed to do, shakes my hand and
- 15:39Speaker 1: walks away. So you know me the fay. I'm never
- 15:42Speaker 1: watching this hand again. I'm just feeling good, like that
- 15:45Speaker 1: was the best thing ever and stuff like that. Eric
- 15:47Speaker 1: comes over. I'm shining like the sun. Now what happened
- 15:51Speaker 1: to yo? I'm just met Sara mcluklin and this and
- 15:53Speaker 1: it so that made me today. So I go home
- 15:57Speaker 1: and I go, um, y'all finally, you know, I want
- 15:59Speaker 1: to write this book. I'm gonna write this book. So
- 16:00Speaker 1: I said in a book I want to do that.
- 16:02Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, yo, what's up world. I'm Daryl McDaniels
- 16:04Speaker 1: from Holles Queens, New York, from the groundbreaking rap group
- 16:07Speaker 1: run DMC, first to Go Go First, to go Platinum,
- 16:09Speaker 1: first on the cover Rolling Stone, for all of that stuff.
- 16:12Speaker 1: But I'm really just Darrel Matthews McDaniels from hollesce Queen's,
- 16:15Speaker 1: New York. Was born May thirty first, nineteen sixty four.
- 16:18Speaker 1: And when I got to that part of my identity,
- 16:20Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I know my birthday, but I
- 16:22Speaker 1: don't know no details about the dad was born. So
- 16:25Speaker 1: I called my mother and I go, hey, Mom, I'm
- 16:28Speaker 1: writing this book. I didn't say I'm writing this book
- 16:30Speaker 1: just in case I die and kill myself because she
- 16:32Speaker 1: would have lost it. I just want to know a
- 16:34Speaker 1: couple of more details about the dad was born, how
- 16:37Speaker 1: much did I weigh? What time I always born in
- 16:39Speaker 1: my hospital? So she tells me, thank you, Mama, I
- 16:41Speaker 1: love you. Hang up the phone. An hour goes by,
- 16:44Speaker 1: the phone rings. It's my mother and my father. Hey son,
- 16:48Speaker 1: Hey dad, what's going on? We have something else to
- 16:51Speaker 1: tell you. So I'm a metaphysical suicidal religious emotional records
- 16:58Speaker 1: about to commit suicide. The only thing keeping me from
- 17:01Speaker 1: jumping is this Sarah mclock corectly. My mother father hit
- 17:04Speaker 1: me with this. Um, we have something else to tell you, Okay,
- 17:07Speaker 1: what is it? You was a month old when we
- 17:09Speaker 1: brought you home, and you're adopted, but we love you
- 17:11Speaker 1: by click wow wing stop ricking wow my god. Now
- 17:19Speaker 1: you know when I heard that, I wasn't with you me.
- 17:23Speaker 1: I'm not Byford and Paris and you're my whole fan.
- 17:25Speaker 1: I rhymed about you Christmas time and I was queen.
- 17:28Speaker 1: But what the hell is going on? Universe? That's unbelievable.
- 17:34Speaker 1: And it was really a short conversation that that quick.
- 17:37Speaker 1: We have someone else to tell you, Okay, what is it?
- 17:39Speaker 1: You was a month old when we brought you home
- 17:41Speaker 1: and we love you by click because it was when
- 17:44Speaker 1: I think because they were just they didn't know how
- 17:47Speaker 1: to handle. They said, we have to tell him. My
- 17:49Speaker 1: mother hung up the phone and said, Byford, he's writing
- 17:51Speaker 1: a book and he's about there. My father was like,
- 17:53Speaker 1: we gotta call him back and let him know. It
- 17:56Speaker 1: was a secret. They hit from me, my whole life. Yes,
- 17:58Speaker 1: even though it's as trum manica, is that retive revelation
- 18:02Speaker 1: was Yes, all of that trauma, in the shock, the
- 18:08Speaker 1: destroying capacity of that revelation. Yes, something happened where a
- 18:14Speaker 1: calm just came over me, Something made me realize devoid
- 18:18Speaker 1: in me that started making me what the hell is
- 18:21Speaker 1: going on? Down with the king? Is it? There was
- 18:23Speaker 1: a missing piece to my identity. Wow. I'm John McDaniels, Hollies, Queens,
- 18:27Speaker 1: New York, son of Bye friend Man Diet has walked
- 18:29Speaker 1: this way. But I'm adopting just a quick break and
- 18:32Speaker 1: we'll get right back into DMC's story. We're back with DMC,
- 18:40Speaker 1: who's telling a powerful story about his depression. After years
- 18:44Speaker 1: of fighting suicidal thoughts, he received a phone call from
- 18:46Speaker 1: his parents informing him that he was adopted. There was
- 18:49Speaker 1: a missing piece to my identity. I'm John McDaniels, Hollies, Queens,
- 18:53Speaker 1: New York, son of Bye friend man Diet has walked
- 18:55Speaker 1: this way, but I'm adopting. Wow. So I came to
- 18:59Speaker 1: the revelation. I didn't fight that, yes, well this and that.
- 19:03Speaker 1: I said, Okay, I know what that means because I'm
- 19:04Speaker 1: a good student. That means I have another mother and
- 19:07Speaker 1: the father, and there's this whole other part of me.
- 19:10Speaker 1: But now that I'm adopted, that's just part of who
- 19:13Speaker 1: I am. And then the next thing was, oh, maybe
- 19:16Speaker 1: I can help somebody, beautiful, Maybe I can help somebody. Now,
- 19:21Speaker 1: I gotta don't kill yourself, D, because you can rhyme
- 19:23Speaker 1: and you make records for a reason. So I was like, oh,
- 19:26Speaker 1: I'm gonna get that lady who made a record that
- 19:29Speaker 1: helped me. I'm gonna make I'm gonna make it with her.
- 19:33Speaker 1: So I'm like, Eric, get Sarah on the phone. D.
- 19:36Speaker 1: What's the hell? You don't know what the hell is
- 19:38Speaker 1: going on? You know what I'm saying. I'm say, just
- 19:41Speaker 1: getting on the phone. Kill Okay. Um. It took like
- 19:44Speaker 1: probably it was a day later, Eric calls me, yo,
- 19:47Speaker 1: d pick up your phone. In five minute, Sarah's gonna
- 19:51Speaker 1: call you phone ring, Hi, Daryl, It's Sarah. So now Rick,
- 19:56Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, oh man, I'm sweating. Now I'm like,
- 19:58Speaker 1: oh man. And she thought it was crazy, you know.
- 20:01Speaker 1: And this was a period of three years after I
- 20:03Speaker 1: met her. I forgot to tell you that. This was
- 20:05Speaker 1: three years later when all this happened, and you've had
- 20:08Speaker 1: no contacts and no contact with her. At the party, yeah,
- 20:13Speaker 1: you talked to her for two minutes yep. And then
- 20:17Speaker 1: oh yeah, but I'm listening to the right you know.
- 20:19Speaker 1: On top of that, here's the funny part about there.
- 20:21Speaker 1: On top of that, it all started with the Angel record.
- 20:24Speaker 1: But after that, my wife goes out and Boss building
- 20:28Speaker 1: a mystery and all the previous albums, So now I
- 20:30Speaker 1: know all those others songs. So Sarah's on the phone
- 20:34Speaker 1: and I go, hey, miss mclaucher, how are you doing.
- 20:36Speaker 1: She says, how are you doing? And I was like,
- 20:38Speaker 1: she's funny, I said, remember when I met you three
- 20:40Speaker 1: years ago. She says, how could I forget you? You
- 20:42Speaker 1: call me god? So she was like she had I
- 20:46Speaker 1: was like, yeah, yeah, I said, well, remember when I
- 20:48Speaker 1: met you and I told you what your music did
- 20:50Speaker 1: for me, And she said yeah. I said, well, I
- 20:52Speaker 1: just found out that I'm adopted, and I want to
- 20:55Speaker 1: make a song that's going to speak to some people
- 20:57Speaker 1: who you know, the orphans and the four us two
- 21:00Speaker 1: kids and adopted kids like me. And I want to
- 21:02Speaker 1: make a song and I want to use Harry Chapin's
- 21:06Speaker 1: Cats in the Cradle. Will you do this re record
- 21:09Speaker 1: with me? Immediately she goes, sure, yes, I'll do it,
- 21:13Speaker 1: because usually it's let me talk to my label, let
- 21:15Speaker 1: me talk to my man. And I'm like, oh, I'm
- 21:17Speaker 1: like really, really okay, I'll bring you to New York
- 21:19Speaker 1: City this when a hit factory was still open. I'll
- 21:22Speaker 1: put you in the hit factory just in there. I
- 21:23Speaker 1: put you in the Fourth Sea. She says, no, Darryl,
- 21:26Speaker 1: you could come to my house and we'll make it there.
- 21:28Speaker 1: I have a studio in my house, So now I'm
- 21:31Speaker 1: a fan. Set change. We on the plane flying to Vancouver, Canada,
- 21:36Speaker 1: and I look over the Eric and I said, Eric,
- 21:38Speaker 1: if I died tomorrow, don't say that. D stop saying no, Eric,
- 21:42Speaker 1: you know this is funny. Not know, Eric, really if
- 21:45Speaker 1: I die, I don't hear you. Eric, No, I say,
- 21:49Speaker 1: motherfucker stopped listening to me, motherfucker. If I died tomorrow,
- 21:52Speaker 1: and you can if anybody ask me, what do you
- 21:53Speaker 1: think thee's greatest time? You tell the motherfucker's that the
- 21:55Speaker 1: greatest thing that ever happened. Tode was going to Sea
- 21:58Speaker 1: mcclacklerhouse to make a record. Whether you got it, motherfucker, yeah,
- 22:01Speaker 1: I got it. Like it was like wow. So we
- 22:04Speaker 1: land in Vancouver. It took us two days to make
- 22:07Speaker 1: the record. When we finished recording, I was like, Sarah,
- 22:10Speaker 1: thank you for this. She goes, Darren, before you go,
- 22:13Speaker 1: I gotta tell you something. She says, I was adopted too.
- 22:16Speaker 1: And I did not know that. I did not. Everybody
- 22:22Speaker 1: with me, Eric and the people from UM it was UM,
- 22:26Speaker 1: the publicists with me, and some other people that Arista
- 22:29Speaker 1: Records has sent with me, they all lost it. I
- 22:33Speaker 1: did not know she was adopted too. How crazy is that?
- 22:38Speaker 1: It's amazing, it's amas crazy, it's amazed, it's beautiful. And
- 22:43Speaker 1: ever in the music. Yeah, it's in the music. It's
- 22:48Speaker 1: and felt it in the music. Yep, and ever ever
- 22:50Speaker 1: since that day, um my thing was suicide, anxiety, lone leanness,
- 23:00Speaker 1: this and that. Yo, we all, Oh you are not alone. Yes,
- 23:04Speaker 1: I was in a place where, you know, even when
- 23:06Speaker 1: I found out I was adopted, I didn't feel right
- 23:09Speaker 1: around Running, Jay and Eric and them because they didn't
- 23:12Speaker 1: understand what was going on to me. And even Run
- 23:14Speaker 1: even said because he don't know, Run said to him,
- 23:17Speaker 1: and he was right, he said, motherfucker's see how Run is?
- 23:19Speaker 1: Motherfuckers sucking a bifon and Banners your mother and father.
- 23:23Speaker 1: And I looked at Runner, I said, I know that,
- 23:25Speaker 1: But also I have a right to these other emotions
- 23:28Speaker 1: because when I found out what I was adopted, immediately
- 23:31Speaker 1: I'll started going, I wonder if what my mother was
- 23:34Speaker 1: to look like? And this and so all of those
- 23:35Speaker 1: wild why why was I giving up this? And that?
- 23:37Speaker 1: Boom bag? But I was able to maintain those through
- 23:41Speaker 1: the music. Yes, knowing that I'm bifing and Banner is
- 23:44Speaker 1: the bomb. Yes, you know what I'm saying. And they
- 23:46Speaker 1: were and they were your mom and dad, your whole
- 23:48Speaker 1: life and great exactly and great that example, and they
- 23:52Speaker 1: chose you. Yeah, that's a whole other level. That's a hope.
- 23:58Speaker 1: They chose right. They chose you, so Sarah, and then
- 24:04Speaker 1: you know it's deeply in the music too. That's why
- 24:08Speaker 1: I identify with her vibe identified. There was nothing on
- 24:11Speaker 1: its earth, yes, that made me feel like staying here
- 24:15Speaker 1: except of you know what I'm saying. It was public
- 24:19Speaker 1: information that she was adopted, but she don't talk about it.
- 24:22Speaker 1: I didn't have to die for that. No, it was
- 24:25Speaker 1: just amazing. I'm wondering if you know they say as souls,
- 24:34Speaker 1: we choose our parents, and I'm and it's interesting that
- 24:41Speaker 1: your your parents chose you, and and that on some
- 24:47Speaker 1: level you felt that you felt but you felt that
- 24:50Speaker 1: disconnect because we're used to picking like right, right, right.
- 24:55Speaker 1: I had so much love, like growing up, I had
- 24:58Speaker 1: so much love that there was never thought in my
- 25:00Speaker 1: mind that I wasn't a McDaniels. Yes. The funny thing Rick,
- 25:03Speaker 1: after all of this was happening, after the whole Sarah thing,
- 25:06Speaker 1: and all of that confidence had me say, yo, go
- 25:11Speaker 1: to therapy, d Yes, deal with your feelings. It's okay
- 25:16Speaker 1: to have this feelings even if the world think you
- 25:18Speaker 1: and you're not a knuckle and you're not weird, you're
- 25:20Speaker 1: not crazy. You need to go talk to somebody yes,
- 25:23Speaker 1: So I went to therapy. And matter of fact, I
- 25:25Speaker 1: went to therapy. I've discovered therapy because that helped me
- 25:29Speaker 1: stop drinking. Because member, I used to drink a lot
- 25:31Speaker 1: of forties. Yes, I used to drink a lot of drinker.
- 25:34Speaker 1: I was drinking a case of forties a day. Wow.
- 25:37Speaker 1: But I stopped. This is funny, Oh, I forgot to
- 25:39Speaker 1: tell you that before Down with the King came out.
- 25:42Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety one, I was diagnosed with a cute pancreatitis.
- 25:46Speaker 1: So I was in the hospital for a month and
- 25:49Speaker 1: a half. I couldn't take anything orally. I had to
- 25:52Speaker 1: take all my nurse man intravenously because I was like, yo,
- 25:56Speaker 1: your liver and your pear cris is going bananas. So
- 25:59Speaker 1: now I'm scared. But here's a miraculous thing. All my
- 26:02Speaker 1: tests came back clean. And I was drinking that Not
- 26:05Speaker 1: only that, I was drinking brass Monkey with the dcs,
- 26:08Speaker 1: Bacardi and coke in that era. And then in ninety
- 26:13Speaker 1: one I stopped. My doctor looked at me and said,
- 26:15Speaker 1: you have two choices, son, you could um drink and
- 26:18Speaker 1: die or not drink and live. So I was I
- 26:22Speaker 1: wasn't drinking during down with the king Um in two thousand.
- 26:27Speaker 1: Though in two thousand I started drinking again. Me and
- 26:32Speaker 1: Sarah did the record this and that. But this is funny.
- 26:37Speaker 1: I wasn't dealing with the feelings. You know what I'm
- 26:40Speaker 1: saying A resolve in my head. I'm okay, I said
- 26:42Speaker 1: to myself, okay. But I really wasn't okay because I
- 26:45Speaker 1: didn't sit there and you know, let's let's talk about
- 26:47Speaker 1: how do you feel about being adopted? How do you
- 26:49Speaker 1: feel about your mother and father not telling you this
- 26:51Speaker 1: and that. I just looked at I'm good, I love
- 26:54Speaker 1: being and there. But I kind of had these emotions.
- 26:57Speaker 1: And when the emotions started rising up, I started drinking again.
- 27:00Speaker 1: When I stopped drinking in ninety one, it was Bacardi
- 27:03Speaker 1: and coke and rum and coke and screwdrivers and all English.
- 27:06Speaker 1: Now starting to drink again. Now I got this new
- 27:08Speaker 1: thing called Hennessey and Jim Bean Jack Daniel. So I
- 27:12Speaker 1: was drinking that and my wife looked at me. This
- 27:15Speaker 1: is what made me go to rehab to stop drinking.
- 27:17Speaker 1: My wife looked at me. In UM two thousand and four,
- 27:22Speaker 1: I said, I'm drinking to celebrate my victory and my
- 27:26Speaker 1: new found missing identity. My wife said, motherfucker, you're drinking
- 27:31Speaker 1: because you can't handle the fact that your parents just
- 27:33Speaker 1: told you you were adopted. And that made me go, wow,
- 27:38Speaker 1: stop living a life, dy stop living a lie. D Yeah,
- 27:41Speaker 1: of course you're happy. It's Sarah record this and that
- 27:44Speaker 1: and not going to kill yourself no more. But now
- 27:46Speaker 1: I subconsciously found a way to kill myself and not
- 27:49Speaker 1: have to deal with them, because that's that's well, I'm
- 27:53Speaker 1: already thinking of killing myself. Now my parents revealing me
- 27:55Speaker 1: you're adopted, you're gonna feel some way about it. Did
- 27:59Speaker 1: where that the initial I'll call it depression, the first
- 28:04Speaker 1: round of when I first hit you, I didn't know
- 28:06Speaker 1: it was that. Yeah, but we'll call it that. So
- 28:09Speaker 1: now we're on the same we're using the same terms.
- 28:12Speaker 1: When the depression hit. Had you already stopped drinking that
- 28:16Speaker 1: first time? Yeah, because I'm stop drinking, that's when the
- 28:20Speaker 1: depression came. That's what I was just gonna say, is
- 28:23Speaker 1: that maybe, but you must be a therapist because you're
- 28:25Speaker 1: leading this right into what happened. It makes perfect sense.
- 28:29Speaker 1: It makes perfect sense that you stopped drinking and then
- 28:33Speaker 1: you started feeling your feelings. Yes, Greg, my wife says
- 28:37Speaker 1: that to me. I city, I can't deny She's right. Eric,
- 28:41Speaker 1: Kathy yes from the office Kathy and Eric goes to
- 28:44Speaker 1: Leo and says, Leo, we gotta fucking put d in rehab.
- 28:48Speaker 1: So I'm not kidding you. I'm not. I was a
- 28:50Speaker 1: functional drug, yes, you know. I wasn't like you, d Man,
- 28:54Speaker 1: you're fucking killing yourself. Yes. I found a way not
- 28:57Speaker 1: to use the gun, not to jump, and not to
- 28:59Speaker 1: drink toison do the thing that my wife said. Mother,
- 29:03Speaker 1: she said, Darrel, it's not like you. You should doctor
- 29:05Speaker 1: already told doctor already told you that it's going to
- 29:08Speaker 1: kill you, and you're doing it like it's Yeah, I
- 29:12Speaker 1: go into rehab to stop drinking. When I went in
- 29:15Speaker 1: to rehab to stop drinking as well, I could discover therapy.
- 29:17Speaker 1: Rick is so crazy. You know what. I was diagnosed
- 29:20Speaker 1: with suppressed emotions. My therapist said, you was drinking so
- 29:26Speaker 1: you didn't have to deal with your feeling, he said,
- 29:28Speaker 1: all through the time. The first question he asked me
- 29:31Speaker 1: was this when I went into therapy, he said, Daryl,
- 29:35Speaker 1: during your career with run DMC, did run JA or
- 29:39Speaker 1: anybody ever do anything to make you mad, and I
- 29:42Speaker 1: said no. I sat there and I said no. Rick,
- 29:46Speaker 1: my therapist m he was. I was thirty five when
- 29:49Speaker 1: I went into therapy. My therapist was he had to be.
- 29:52Speaker 1: I think it was like forty six or forty seven.
- 29:54Speaker 1: He knew how I was and stuff like that. He
- 29:57Speaker 1: came in with the white doctor cloak on and the
- 29:59Speaker 1: notepad and everything. Daryl, during your career with running him
- 30:03Speaker 1: see that anybody ever do anything to make you mad?
- 30:06Speaker 1: You know I'm sitting there thinking I gotta go. No.
- 30:09Speaker 1: He put his head, true servant, he put his bad down,
- 30:13Speaker 1: he stood up, he took off his doctor cloak. He
- 30:15Speaker 1: wanted to get real with me. And he looked me
- 30:17Speaker 1: in my eyes and he said, you a goddamn motherfucking liar.
- 30:22Speaker 1: And when he said that to me, yeah, man, in
- 30:25Speaker 1: eighty five, when they like, he said what I would do,
- 30:28Speaker 1: and he said my problem was this, and he said
- 30:31Speaker 1: it had a lot to do with um post traumatic
- 30:35Speaker 1: thing from being adopted. Yes, I didn't want to be
- 30:38Speaker 1: given away again. I want to be the guy. Don't
- 30:41Speaker 1: don't think that I didn't know. Subconsciously, I knew my
- 30:44Speaker 1: first mother gave me away, So I want to be.
- 30:47Speaker 1: I don't want to be a troublemaker. I don't want
- 30:48Speaker 1: to call me running Jay. Never I shout it though,
- 30:51Speaker 1: Yeah me running Jay. I watched Running Jay. You see
- 30:54Speaker 1: the motherfuck? They would argue and this is it. I
- 30:56Speaker 1: would sit there, What you would you like me to do?
- 30:58Speaker 1: I don't want to be a troublemaker. I was diagnosed
- 31:00Speaker 1: with suppressed emotions. Makes sense because I was using the
- 31:03Speaker 1: old English, yes to suppressed. That's why I mean every
- 31:07Speaker 1: ray drunk Old English. He just didn't drink a case.
- 31:10Speaker 1: Smith drunk three. I drunk twelve. Yes, as soon as
- 31:14Speaker 1: the how I was going on to me, I don't
- 31:15Speaker 1: want to I want to feel. I was diagnosed with
- 31:19Speaker 1: suppressed emotions, so I went in to stop drinking. When
- 31:23Speaker 1: I went in the rehab as where I discovered therapy,
- 31:25Speaker 1: which was the best thing for me, because then now
- 31:27Speaker 1: I'm dealing with my truth. How do you feel? Yes,
- 31:30Speaker 1: I gotta saying, now you might not have even known
- 31:32Speaker 1: how you felt before because you're so suppressed. Yes, exactly,
- 31:37Speaker 1: he said, Yo, d your truth is how you really feel.
- 31:40Speaker 1: And he said it's okay to feel the way that
- 31:42Speaker 1: you feel, and he looked at me. He said, Yo,
- 31:43Speaker 1: if you don't admit how you feel, whether good or bad,
- 31:47Speaker 1: you never heal. Wow. And that journey all led up
- 31:52Speaker 1: from hearing that Sarah McLaughlin record in the car. Amazing, crazy,
- 31:56Speaker 1: amazing story. We'll be right back with dmcter the break.
- 32:05Speaker 1: We're back with more from DMC. Let's talk about your
- 32:08Speaker 1: first memories of hip hop as a kid. What was
- 32:10Speaker 1: the what's the first first experience of anything having to
- 32:15Speaker 1: do with rapper hip hop? Um, we've never talked about this.
- 32:19Speaker 1: Seventh grade Saint Pascal Baylon Elementary School. Billy Morris was
- 32:24Speaker 1: in the eighth grade. He was he was older than us, me,
- 32:28Speaker 1: David Sinclair, and I forgot who else was in the
- 32:30Speaker 1: schoolyard playing basketball on the one room that's the Catholic
- 32:34Speaker 1: school and in the schoolyard, and Billy goes, Yo, come in.
- 32:38Speaker 1: We said, Yo, why Billy want us? Let's tell YO.
- 32:42Speaker 1: He probably want us to smoke some reefer or something like.
- 32:44Speaker 1: This is before I even took a pull on the
- 32:46Speaker 1: joint and whatever. So Billy does what the bullies usually do. Yo,
- 32:49Speaker 1: I said, come here. I ain't gonna say it again,
- 32:52Speaker 1: so me I'll go Yo. It's three of us in
- 32:55Speaker 1: one of him. If he tried anything, we ain't know
- 32:57Speaker 1: what was gonna happen. It's three of us want to
- 32:59Speaker 1: try anything. You gotta jump him. So we're scared. We
- 33:01Speaker 1: come over Billy scared because we think we gotta fight
- 33:04Speaker 1: now smoke refer He says, Yo, check this out. He
- 33:07Speaker 1: pulls out a flat tape recorder. This is before the
- 33:10Speaker 1: boom box even existed. They was in schools and you
- 33:15Speaker 1: push the jacket pops up like that. You thought he
- 33:18Speaker 1: had one of those. He said, check this out. He
- 33:19Speaker 1: hit play and something said, dad, tact dad, And then
- 33:27Speaker 1: a voice said, when you messed around in New Yorktown,
- 33:30Speaker 1: you go down with the disco Cheeba clown. You go down,
- 33:33Speaker 1: go down, go down. You just keep the pep in
- 33:37Speaker 1: your step. You don't stop till you get on the
- 33:39Speaker 1: mountain top and when you reach the top, you reach
- 33:42Speaker 1: your peak. That's when you hear Eddie Cheeba's speak. And
- 33:45Speaker 1: it stopped a minute and thirty said, yo, do that again.
- 33:49Speaker 1: He did it again. We stood in the school yard
- 33:51Speaker 1: for three hours listening to it. I didn't know what
- 33:54Speaker 1: I didn't know what whatever that was it was the
- 33:56Speaker 1: I felt it it was the coolest thing ever. We
- 33:59Speaker 1: start different. I was just listening to that over and
- 34:02Speaker 1: it was just a little one minute one little kid
- 34:04Speaker 1: had static and everything. So I had to the recording
- 34:08Speaker 1: from alive. It was from a pirate radio um WFUV
- 34:14Speaker 1: Eddie Chiba had a Wednesday night. He had a station.
- 34:17Speaker 1: Only some people in Queen's could get it if you,
- 34:20Speaker 1: depending where you was your house was situated. So I
- 34:23Speaker 1: hit Billy with the question, your billy, man, can I
- 34:26Speaker 1: hold your tape? Hell no, Daryl mcdann, you just can't
- 34:29Speaker 1: hold my mother fucking tape this and that. You know, Billy,
- 34:32Speaker 1: I'll give you my allowance. I'll run home and give you.
- 34:34Speaker 1: I'll steal my father's car keys and give you. He's like, yeah,
- 34:37Speaker 1: y'all come home and no. So he saw he just
- 34:39Speaker 1: saw that I really wanted. It was a Friday afternoon.
- 34:42Speaker 1: He said, Daryl, you're a good kid. You can hold up.
- 34:44Speaker 1: Bring my fucking tape back Monday morning. Yes, So the
- 34:47Speaker 1: whole weekend, Friday night, all the way till Saturday Sunday,
- 34:51Speaker 1: I hated. I dreaded to give it back back. The
- 34:53Speaker 1: whole weekend. I just sat there listening to that over
- 34:56Speaker 1: and over and over. Monday, I gave it back to
- 34:59Speaker 1: Billy and that was it, Rickett, that was it. I
- 35:02Speaker 1: went back to my comic book Skateboard Bike Riding Self,
- 35:06Speaker 1: Summer Comes School, let's out, Summer Comes Now. Because of
- 35:10Speaker 1: the tape, it was always here, but I I it
- 35:13Speaker 1: wasn't my world yet. Now I'm noticing, Oh, that's what
- 35:16Speaker 1: they do in the park when the van comes and
- 35:18Speaker 1: they put the records out, and then they played the
- 35:20Speaker 1: speakers on and they started talking over the music. It
- 35:23Speaker 1: was still pretty new, right, it's so new. Oh no,
- 35:27Speaker 1: if it hadn't really had it was very new and
- 35:30Speaker 1: soaked in. Like I heard it and didn't know about it.
- 35:33Speaker 1: I heard it and then went away. Yes, so that's
- 35:36Speaker 1: when I started, No, oh, that's it was just this,
- 35:38Speaker 1: rick I'm round my bike to the part. So at
- 35:40Speaker 1: that time they were probably no, there wasn't even um
- 35:45Speaker 1: nobody knew what was going on in the Bronx. It
- 35:48Speaker 1: was just happening live at parties, every block part right,
- 35:52Speaker 1: So that summer even for the sugar Hill gag, right,
- 35:55Speaker 1: we had way before the sugar Hill gag. This this
- 35:58Speaker 1: probably was what the seventy this seventy but I remember
- 36:02Speaker 1: the bi centennial came when the by centennial quarters came
- 36:05Speaker 1: out the seven seventy eight, it was seventy eight because
- 36:08Speaker 1: I graduated. I graduated eighth grade in seventy nine. This
- 36:11Speaker 1: was seventy eight. So my brother comes to me, so, Jo, Daryl,
- 36:16Speaker 1: we gotta get some turntables in the mix. And I'm like, yeah, okay, okay,
- 36:19Speaker 1: you know I'm the little brother whatever whatever. So we
- 36:21Speaker 1: had a problem. Rick. We didn't sell weed. The guysa
- 36:25Speaker 1: so we have money. They was getting the good stuff.
- 36:27Speaker 1: All we had was my mother and father's receiver with
- 36:30Speaker 1: their their bullshit turntable and two bullshit win speakers. My
- 36:35Speaker 1: brother Alpha, we had a whole bit big comic book collection.
- 36:38Speaker 1: He said, Yo, we're gonna do a comic book sales,
- 36:40Speaker 1: so we could get enough money to get one Gemini'm
- 36:42Speaker 1: Up and Down mix up and one more BSR Wood turntable.
- 36:47Speaker 1: So we did that. So the next thing that happened,
- 36:49Speaker 1: this is when it began for me. A friend of
- 36:52Speaker 1: mine had a box up the cassette thing with this
- 36:56Speaker 1: guy named Grandmaster Flash and Grandmass. The Flash was doing
- 37:01Speaker 1: the Real Good Times, which rappers the like sample. But
- 37:04Speaker 1: he made it do this. It came on, um, you know,
- 37:07Speaker 1: good bees are the good time and the guy was
- 37:10Speaker 1: on the mike, Ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen, the Grand brand
- 37:13Speaker 1: Master Master flat, and I was those vocals were more
- 37:17Speaker 1: dynamic than hip hop. Down was what the fuck with
- 37:19Speaker 1: the cho What the hell is this, Ladies and gentlemen,
- 37:22Speaker 1: The Grand Master flash that she said, ding ling ling
- 37:24Speaker 1: ling ling, good times, boom boom, boom, bump bump, bump bump,
- 37:29Speaker 1: good times, boom boom. By the fuck he's a doing
- 37:32Speaker 1: no bump, bump, bump, bump, good tip. Then it's a
- 37:35Speaker 1: good time, good Denn, it's a good good, good good.
- 37:38Speaker 1: I'm gonna cut the funk out of there because you've
- 37:40Speaker 1: got magic rigors, no video. I'm listening. What the fire
- 37:42Speaker 1: did he make good times? Do that shit? So now
- 37:45Speaker 1: I go down in the basement and I'm taking my
- 37:49Speaker 1: brothers records and Anthony's things, and I'm trying to do
- 37:52Speaker 1: the thing I heard on the tape. Took me a
- 37:54Speaker 1: while to get it, but then I was able to
- 37:55Speaker 1: do the quick mix of good Times great. I was
- 37:58Speaker 1: my own DJ, my DJ name. In my basement, I
- 38:01Speaker 1: was pretending I was Grandmaster Get High because you don't
- 38:05Speaker 1: need all English a weed because my music will intoxic
- 38:07Speaker 1: ate you. So it was Grandmaster Get High and MC
- 38:10Speaker 1: eazy D. I was both of them and were fifteen
- 38:13Speaker 1: fifteen years old, and it was all make belief, pretending,
- 38:15Speaker 1: and it was just for yourself. It was I didn't
- 38:18Speaker 1: want to make records and stuff like that. It's just
- 38:21Speaker 1: for me, beautiful. It was yet the same way girls
- 38:24Speaker 1: played with Barbie and dudes play with g I Joe.
- 38:27Speaker 1: I was pretending to be whatever that thing that these
- 38:31Speaker 1: guys do that not me. Yes, it was pretend, but
- 38:34Speaker 1: it was the best feeling ever. That's amazing. After that,
- 38:38Speaker 1: what happened was remembered. I went to Saint Pascal Bayline
- 38:41Speaker 1: Elementary School. So now my routine was to come home,
- 38:45Speaker 1: you know, do my homework first whatever, watch Adam's family
- 38:49Speaker 1: offense stones or whatever, and then um, after I took
- 38:53Speaker 1: my shower, whatever, mom, I'm going out in the basement.
- 38:55Speaker 1: That was my whole routine run. Joseph Simmons was always
- 38:58Speaker 1: in the other class, and we would get out of
- 39:00Speaker 1: school two ten, so we'd be at my house plus
- 39:03Speaker 1: two twenty and my parents would get home at four PM.
- 39:07Speaker 1: He sees me and my brother's turn tables and he
- 39:10Speaker 1: looks and he goes, Joe, do you do that? And
- 39:12Speaker 1: I go, no, it's it's myself. I go, nah, that's
- 39:14Speaker 1: my brother's turntable. So then Joe goes, Yo, my brother's
- 39:18Speaker 1: Russell Russ. You ever see those flyers that's up on
- 39:21Speaker 1: the telephone poles. I'm like yeah, So now I'm playing
- 39:24Speaker 1: like I don't care. I got an entrance bold your
- 39:26Speaker 1: brother does this rap day? He says, yeah, my brother's
- 39:29Speaker 1: Russell Russe. He chose parties and um he promotes Curtis
- 39:32Speaker 1: Blow and like he starts dropping names and stuff like that.
- 39:35Speaker 1: I know Bam Bota and um um DJ Hollywood. So I'm,
- 39:38Speaker 1: you know, acting like I don't care and stuff like that.
- 39:40Speaker 1: So I go I dabbled a little bit, and Joe goes, yeah,
- 39:44Speaker 1: let me see what you could do. So I'll go
- 39:46Speaker 1: over to turn tables. I'm showing off now Lean Lan
- 39:49Speaker 1: lan Lee, good times, bon Bone, good time. Oh. Joe's like,
- 39:54Speaker 1: oh shit, Well Joe knew how to DJ, but he
- 39:56Speaker 1: ain't know how the batsman. So I said, he said, Yo,
- 39:58Speaker 1: you gotta teach me how to do that. Man, so
- 40:00Speaker 1: when I do when I go out with Curtis Blow,
- 40:02Speaker 1: when my brother brings about to Curtis Blow, I'm gonna
- 40:04Speaker 1: do that shit for Curtis Blow. So the routine was,
- 40:07Speaker 1: now we're gonna come to my house from two twenty
- 40:10Speaker 1: to like, uh, from two twenty to three o'clock, we're
- 40:13Speaker 1: gonna play basketball. But from three o'clock to three thirty five,
- 40:16Speaker 1: we're gonna go in the basement. We're gonna DJ and
- 40:18Speaker 1: stuff like that. So we started doing that. When we
- 40:20Speaker 1: started doing that, that's when Joe's now he's coming over.
- 40:22Speaker 1: He's bringing cassette tapes. Yo, this is me with Curtis
- 40:25Speaker 1: Blow up Barn Martin and you hear Kurt my disco
- 40:28Speaker 1: son DJ Run and then you're a joke. I'm on
- 40:30Speaker 1: bust his little rhyme and stuff like that. So now
- 40:32Speaker 1: I'm intrigued. But the whole time Rick he does that, Joe, Wow,
- 40:37Speaker 1: you really do it like it's far from my mind.
- 40:41Speaker 1: So the next time we're in the basement, were in
- 40:44Speaker 1: a basement, I'll never forget. Joe was on the turn No,
- 40:46Speaker 1: I was on the turntables, and I would always make
- 40:48Speaker 1: peanut butter and jelly and potato chips for whoever was
- 40:51Speaker 1: visiting my house. So Joe was sitting there and he
- 40:53Speaker 1: picks up my black and white notebooks and he goes, Joe, Daryl,
- 40:58Speaker 1: you rots. And I was like, yeah, this, you know,
- 41:02Speaker 1: it's just a hobby. He's like, yoh, this is really good.
- 41:04Speaker 1: And he looks at me, reckon, I'll never forget the
- 41:06Speaker 1: day he goes, and it seemed like the whole world
- 41:09Speaker 1: sloop slows down. When my brother Russell lets me make
- 41:15Speaker 1: my record, I'm putting you in my group. So I
- 41:20Speaker 1: look at him, like this record one day you're out
- 41:22Speaker 1: the other What the fuck did you like? Foreign language?
- 41:25Speaker 1: What the hell do then think? No? Now what the fun?
- 41:28Speaker 1: No like? And I was like, I don't do this.
- 41:30Speaker 1: That's cram flash y'all like do this. I graduate um
- 41:35Speaker 1: um um. June of eighty two and August of eighty two.
- 41:38Speaker 1: You know, me and Joe was hanging out. I've seeing
- 41:40Speaker 1: him hang with button stuff. August eighty two. I'll never
- 41:43Speaker 1: forget the phone rings. It's Joe and he goes, Yo,
- 41:46Speaker 1: d Remember when I said, when I make a record,
- 41:51Speaker 1: when my brother lets me make a record, I'm putting
- 41:53Speaker 1: you into my group. And I'm like, yeah, grab your
- 41:56Speaker 1: rom books, we're gonna make studio. We're gonna make a record.
- 41:59Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this record called It's like that. I
- 42:01Speaker 1: just want you to write a bunch of rhunds about
- 42:03Speaker 1: how the world is it's like home. I'm still not
- 42:06Speaker 1: say Okay, that's easy, so I write it that next
- 42:09Speaker 1: the next week, it was Sunday, two pm. Joe and
- 42:13Speaker 1: Larry Smith falls up to my house and takes me
- 42:16Speaker 1: to Green Street Recording Studios. How many years after the
- 42:19Speaker 1: first conversation years, four years later, four years later, unbelievable,
- 42:23Speaker 1: four years later, And I guess I needed that four
- 42:28Speaker 1: years to prep. Yeah, I had no idea this was
- 42:31Speaker 1: coming over, just me loving. When Joe finally called, I
- 42:34Speaker 1: was remember I heard Eddie Chie but I was writing
- 42:38Speaker 1: one way. Then I heard Rappers, the lighting, super rit
- 42:40Speaker 1: was writing woman. Then I heard the Chris every at
- 42:43Speaker 1: every level up. Change that change that. When I heard
- 42:45Speaker 1: the call Chris, this is the one that stucks. That's
- 42:47Speaker 1: when the call came. So Joe, when we we had
- 42:51Speaker 1: the demo that and now we're going to go to
- 42:53Speaker 1: the studio to make it. Joe had to convince Russell
- 42:55Speaker 1: to let me rhyme with him. Russell was like goo
- 42:58Speaker 1: d smart this and that whatever whatever, but he's not you. Yes,
- 43:03Speaker 1: and g Joe had seen me in the basement. Russell
- 43:06Speaker 1: never so Joe saw what the world inn't see. Yes.
- 43:08Speaker 1: So Joe was like, yo, Joe, you got it. So
- 43:11Speaker 1: Russell was like, okay, Daryl can record and slight that
- 43:13Speaker 1: with you. So we make it like that, and then
- 43:16Speaker 1: Joe goes in and records Suck Him Seas, which was
- 43:18Speaker 1: his record. Yes, that's why three times on the record.
- 43:21Speaker 1: So we did it like that. Joe Russell was um
- 43:27Speaker 1: not impressed, but ino d I like your voice, like
- 43:30Speaker 1: you know. He was liked like you. But he wrote
- 43:32Speaker 1: some good rounds like you know. But he still wasn't
- 43:34Speaker 1: so he was like, he was, so okay, I'll give
- 43:36Speaker 1: it to you. I'll give it. The record was good,
- 43:38Speaker 1: this and that. So Joe going and drop Suck Him Sees.
- 43:42Speaker 1: Joe comes out the booth. Now I was supposed to
- 43:44Speaker 1: be it'slight that Suck Him Seas was all here, Joe goes,
- 43:46Speaker 1: Joe d going in and put a verse on it. No, no,
- 43:49Speaker 1: you ain't gonna get Russell mad at me. Hell, the
- 43:52Speaker 1: motherfucker don't even want me here. You think I'm ruining.
- 43:54Speaker 1: I ain't. I'm not trying to fuck up. And already
- 43:56Speaker 1: it's two in the morning. I didn't even tell my
- 43:58Speaker 1: parents I'm doing this. I'm thinking I'm going into the basement.
- 44:01Speaker 1: I just leave the house at two pm and it's
- 44:03Speaker 1: two in the morning. So in my whole mind, I
- 44:05Speaker 1: know I'm getting in trouble and my parents gonna be
- 44:07Speaker 1: waiting that the motherfucker will was you at So Joe said, Yo,
- 44:10Speaker 1: I want Russell to see that you do this shit.
- 44:12Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know nothing
- 44:14Speaker 1: about street kids. I'm fucking Catholic, Like you know, I
- 44:17Speaker 1: didn't know nothing about that ship that he was right.
- 44:19Speaker 1: He just said, going in, say your newest rhyme. So
- 44:22Speaker 1: it's summer eighty two. I was a class of eighty
- 44:24Speaker 1: two when I got the letter from Saint John's University
- 44:27Speaker 1: and I got accepted. Before I even told my mother,
- 44:30Speaker 1: I just went down in the basement. I wrote this
- 44:32Speaker 1: little rhyme, I'm DMC and the place to be going
- 44:35Speaker 1: to Saint John's Universe. I had that rhyme. I didn't
- 44:38Speaker 1: write it for the record, I just so just just
- 44:40Speaker 1: going and say your new rhyme. So going, Okay, I'm
- 44:42Speaker 1: saying this new rhyme at a row. So he said,
- 44:44Speaker 1: I'm gonna set it up for a DMC n if
- 44:46Speaker 1: you're ready the people rocket steady, I'm driving me cars.
- 44:48Speaker 1: Get your gays from getting I'm DMC and the place
- 44:51Speaker 1: to be. I'll go to Saint John's University. And since
- 44:54Speaker 1: Kennedy Garden out quiet, I said. The whole little rhyme
- 44:57Speaker 1: and stuff like that came out to both Larry. Andy
- 45:00Speaker 1: was like, Yo, Like, I'm like, what the fuck is
- 45:02Speaker 1: going on? Yo? Ruck, Russell comes to Yo, Russell, you
- 45:04Speaker 1: gotta heard this. Russell stands there yod that for the
- 45:08Speaker 1: rest of the session. That's manager shit now for the
- 45:11Speaker 1: rest of the session in Green Street. At first, Russell
- 45:14Speaker 1: was avoiding me for the rest of the session. I'm
- 45:16Speaker 1: just sitting there say, um, Larry, what ud You're not
- 45:19Speaker 1: gonna make it home till five in the morning. Damn,
- 45:21Speaker 1: I'm fucking in trouble now. But for the rest of
- 45:23Speaker 1: the session. You know, we're in Green Street, New York
- 45:25Speaker 1: at this time, people coming in through all times of night. Yes,
- 45:28Speaker 1: everybody who came to the door Russell say, d stay
- 45:31Speaker 1: the round. I can't even care about Joe. He'sa staying
- 45:33Speaker 1: a round. You listen to this. He's talking about Saint
- 45:35Speaker 1: John's University and that how it all came together. Amazing.
- 45:38Speaker 1: When did when did Jay become part of the group?
- 45:41Speaker 1: Jay became part of the group after Russell got a
- 45:44Speaker 1: sign to profile. Yes. Um, Russell goes, Yo, you're gonna
- 45:48Speaker 1: need a DJ if your dude shows and Joe goes,
- 45:50Speaker 1: oh shit, we didn't think about that part. This is
- 45:52Speaker 1: great history. Joe picks Smith first because Smith Jay was
- 45:56Speaker 1: down with two fifth down, but Jay picked I mean
- 45:59Speaker 1: Joe picks Smith first. Smith. Joe said, yo, man did
- 46:02Speaker 1: me and Daryl McDaniels got this record? You want to
- 46:04Speaker 1: be our DJ? So Smith says, yeah, I'll do that.
- 46:07Speaker 1: When it was time for us to really start, Yo,
- 46:09Speaker 1: we got a show coming up, Smith said, nah, man,
- 46:12Speaker 1: I can't be your d's true story. Rickie goes, nah man,
- 46:14Speaker 1: I can't be your DJ. Man I got a job
- 46:16Speaker 1: at the post office. Yeah, so now we ain't got
- 46:19Speaker 1: no DJ. So he picked j In and Javid came
- 46:22Speaker 1: out DJ because we was doing a show, and um
- 46:25Speaker 1: we was Our first show was in um in North
- 46:28Speaker 1: Carolina at a high school. So Smith quit because he
- 46:34Speaker 1: didn't see, Yeah, it wasn't real I not got a job, man,
- 46:40Speaker 1: of course, got a job at the post office, of course.
- 46:43Speaker 1: So Jo d didn't want to make records because he
- 46:45Speaker 1: worked in a record store. He was like, I have
- 46:46Speaker 1: a job. I can't do that. What do you mean? Yeah,
- 46:49Speaker 1: but people don't understand how small of a world hip
- 46:54Speaker 1: hop was at that time, and it wouldn't be realistic
- 46:58Speaker 1: if you did have a job. You're not stopping it,
- 47:00Speaker 1: stopping it to do this because nobody's going anywhere and
- 47:04Speaker 1: doing that at all. No, you did it because you
- 47:07Speaker 1: loved it. Yeah, yeah, I mean the whole thing was. Look,
- 47:10Speaker 1: we were just happy to get out. I mean, Joe
- 47:12Speaker 1: had a little bit more vision because he was it
- 47:14Speaker 1: was in his living room six or he knew there
- 47:16Speaker 1: was money, Like Joe knew, man, I could get some
- 47:19Speaker 1: new Adidas and and and British Walkers and Puma's offerers.
- 47:22Speaker 1: For me, my thing was, Wow, if I get played
- 47:25Speaker 1: on Magic, I made it. It's incredible. Yeah, Like if
- 47:28Speaker 1: Magic played my yeah, I made it, and that was it.
- 47:33Speaker 1: We didn't know you know that it was gonna go
- 47:35Speaker 1: that fun. I just bring up Smith because Smith was
- 47:37Speaker 1: like nah man and I spent Mister Magic was a
- 47:40Speaker 1: DJ who had a show on w HBI. First. It
- 47:44Speaker 1: was one hour a week, one hour, and that was
- 47:46Speaker 1: the only place you could hear any hip hop music
- 47:49Speaker 1: at all at all. That was if you got your
- 47:51Speaker 1: record on there, you arrived. That was it. And we
- 47:54Speaker 1: would record that every week and listen to it all week,
- 47:56Speaker 1: pause and records as soon as it came on. Yeah,
- 48:00Speaker 1: and that's all it was. But in the early shows
- 48:02Speaker 1: we played a lot in our neighborhood. He played all
- 48:04Speaker 1: the roller skating ranks. Um, you already dressed as run DMC.
- 48:08Speaker 1: How how are you? What was the original presentation? Oh
- 48:11Speaker 1: my god, man, I looked like a um. I looked
- 48:15Speaker 1: like a kid, and I looked like a freshman in
- 48:18Speaker 1: college was taking um um biology. I had on a
- 48:24Speaker 1: gray silk shirts, some gabardine gray pants. Pumas, had on
- 48:29Speaker 1: blue and white pumas, and Joe always thought it was cool.
- 48:33Speaker 1: I had this long um um um um London fog
- 48:37Speaker 1: blue trench coat. Yes, so that was the coolest thing
- 48:40Speaker 1: in my wardrobe. Joe had the leather, the burgundy leather blazers,
- 48:43Speaker 1: which was popular back then. Um, he had on his
- 48:47Speaker 1: leash and he had on on white on white Adidas.
- 48:51Speaker 1: But your man Jay, your man Jay had the fucking
- 48:55Speaker 1: godfather had on. He had the fucking shams, the bearing,
- 48:59Speaker 1: he had the fucking it will go Jane, you had
- 49:01Speaker 1: the fucking leaves on. He at the Dida's on, He
- 49:04Speaker 1: at the quarter field, he at the goose bubble, at
- 49:06Speaker 1: their name played, He at the gazelles, at the due
- 49:09Speaker 1: Rag hanging off. He was the coolest, always the coolest.
- 49:13Speaker 1: He was always favor I miss him. I miss him
- 49:16Speaker 1: all the time, think about him all the time. You
- 49:19Speaker 1: have to, yeah, you have to. Most beautiful smile, Yes,
- 49:22Speaker 1: most beautiful smile. Just good person, good beautiful outside of
- 49:27Speaker 1: being Jay, of course, beautiful being. He brought life, flavor
- 49:33Speaker 1: and everything to us. Absolutely so. Me and Run was
- 49:36Speaker 1: uncoordinated as hell. Mean, I was wearing pumas. And then
- 49:40Speaker 1: we started playing New York Um. We started playing um
- 49:43Speaker 1: um um Um. Dancer Terrier was the hangout spot the world,
- 49:48Speaker 1: and then we started moving into the rocks and stuff
- 49:51Speaker 1: like that. But I first show at the Fever, Jay
- 49:53Speaker 1: missed it. So DJ Star Child from the Fever DJ
- 49:57Speaker 1: for us. Our second started to Jay wasn't gonna miss it.
- 50:02Speaker 1: So when we pulled up on two thirds to get Jay,
- 50:05Speaker 1: Jay comes checked this out right. Jake comes on the
- 50:08Speaker 1: steps for that show I had on pumas Um. It's
- 50:12Speaker 1: that famous picture with me and Joe got to check
- 50:14Speaker 1: a jacket on. Yeah after fever, Yes, Joe Ja Ja
- 50:18Speaker 1: missed that show. Yes, the second show, we got that
- 50:20Speaker 1: same shit on and we pull up to Jay House
- 50:23Speaker 1: and two thirds Jake comes out on a stoop. He
- 50:26Speaker 1: got the big fourth speak of box, he got the
- 50:29Speaker 1: Godfather had on, he got the black Adida jacket with
- 50:32Speaker 1: the white stripes coming down, he got the black leaves on,
- 50:35Speaker 1: and he got on brand new black and white shell
- 50:38Speaker 1: to Adidas with the tongue sticking up like tombstones, and
- 50:42Speaker 1: he got the laces around his neck. As soon as
- 50:44Speaker 1: he stepped on the steps, before it even could come
- 50:46Speaker 1: out of Larry's mouth, that mem say, Yo, that's how
- 50:50Speaker 1: outfit how Jay dressed in real life. No. In ninth
- 50:56Speaker 1: Brad tim that Jay was going to school like that.
- 50:59Speaker 1: That's our outfit. So that the second shows the fevers
- 51:02Speaker 1: the day that Rundy m C look came together as
- 51:05Speaker 1: a jam Master Jay. Wow, incredible, it's crazy beautiful. So
- 51:09Speaker 1: Jay dressed us, Jay dressed us and Jay Um Jay
- 51:12Speaker 1: was the Jay was the vibe flavor, Yes, of every
- 51:17Speaker 1: definite that we had, the fashion sense always. Oh, he
- 51:20Speaker 1: was always the coolest guy that record. Also, jam Master
- 51:23Speaker 1: J is one of my favorite of the Earth records.
- 51:26Speaker 1: I love that rac kick off Shoes, Jump on the
- 51:28Speaker 1: Job jams as they started because it's hip hop. Yeah,
- 51:33Speaker 1: it's real, and it's one of the it's one of
- 51:35Speaker 1: the first real ones. It's like that and Sucker mcs
- 51:38Speaker 1: are probably the first real hip hop Yeah, yeah, because
- 51:43Speaker 1: Larry was trying to do Charon's Rocket in the pocket.
- 51:47Speaker 1: If we would have did it over that, it would
- 51:48Speaker 1: have been it would have been really hip hop. If
- 51:50Speaker 1: we would have did it live the way we did
- 51:51Speaker 1: Here we Go. We use actual big beat, yes, And
- 51:55Speaker 1: that's why we did here We're Here we Go because
- 51:56Speaker 1: people started saying, oh, Rundy m C selling out the
- 51:59Speaker 1: commercial because they making records. People don't understand that there's, uh,
- 52:04Speaker 1: there's this group of records that's the music that all
- 52:12Speaker 1: of hip hop is based on, most of which are
- 52:14Speaker 1: not R and B records. They could be rock records,
- 52:18Speaker 1: they could be world music records, but those original those
- 52:22Speaker 1: those breakbeat records, a lot of rock records of James
- 52:27Speaker 1: Brown Brown ac DC. Yeah, the sound of it wasn't
- 52:35Speaker 1: about so. It wasn't about the style. It was just
- 52:38Speaker 1: about the groove. So it transcended any genre for sure,
- 52:45Speaker 1: because in that genre of hip hop, you know we
- 52:47Speaker 1: we were doing, you know we're doing it was like radio.
- 52:52Speaker 1: Hip hop was different. It was different, It was different,
- 52:55Speaker 1: it was very different. So that was what the whole
- 52:57Speaker 1: idea of my I don't know that I knew it
- 53:01Speaker 1: at the time, but my concept for deaf Jam was
- 53:05Speaker 1: we gotta make music. That's like what it really what
- 53:08Speaker 1: if you went to the club and you experienced him. Yeah,
- 53:10Speaker 1: nobody was doing the records. Didn't sound like yes, I
- 53:15Speaker 1: tell everybody we did that. We did what it was
- 53:18Speaker 1: done in the parks. It was more like documentary. What
- 53:21Speaker 1: we were doing, what both of us were doing, was
- 53:22Speaker 1: like it was like documenting this already. We didn't invent it. No,
- 53:27Speaker 1: he was there, it was just nobody was actually making it,
- 53:31Speaker 1: attempting to want to do it, to desire to do it.
- 53:35Speaker 1: So when when when people started saying that with me,
- 53:38Speaker 1: I had to go back. That was my basis of
- 53:40Speaker 1: doing the one two three and the place to be
- 53:44Speaker 1: as it is playing what you said, so as it
- 53:46Speaker 1: is playing to see he is d J jam massive
- 53:49Speaker 1: roof yes and sought the place for fall the bac
- 53:55Speaker 1: leads a fire and we all I got to tell
- 53:56Speaker 1: him the crutch s groove in the record and it
- 53:59Speaker 1: goes a little something like this, we don't drop no funk.
- 54:01Speaker 1: It goes to one two three roa task their funk.
- 54:07Speaker 1: Nobody was doing it over and now you can't put
- 54:10Speaker 1: it past flash in them even for the beauty. The
- 54:14Speaker 1: beauty about that is flashing them the way they dressed,
- 54:18Speaker 1: they understand. I don't think the reason why they did
- 54:21Speaker 1: it because they had no rappers to look up to,
- 54:23Speaker 1: because they were the first My first favorite rap group
- 54:28Speaker 1: was a Treacherous three based on based on those Enjoy records,
- 54:32Speaker 1: which I loved, and then they signed to sugar Hill
- 54:35Speaker 1: and then they made their first album and it wasn't
- 54:38Speaker 1: hip hop, and I was heartbroken. And then I that
- 54:42Speaker 1: was my first trying to get involved because again I
- 54:46Speaker 1: know anything, I didn't know anybody. I didn't know how
- 54:48Speaker 1: the record business worked, but I wanted to do that.
- 54:51Speaker 1: I wanted to fix a problem as a fan. It's like,
- 54:56Speaker 1: wait a minute, my favorite group just went well what
- 55:00Speaker 1: did they do? It's like, and I know they know
- 55:03Speaker 1: it because they made the good that ever heard them make.
- 55:06Speaker 1: They had to know it. I always said that every
- 55:09Speaker 1: time I see Mode, they got this ri this routine
- 55:12Speaker 1: over big beat Wall, it goes boof bam boom booth
- 55:15Speaker 1: bat and MODI goes, can you finding MC better than me? Mo? D?
- 55:19Speaker 1: Can you finding MC better than me? No? Can you
- 55:22Speaker 1: finding him? See who can say he's better than special K? No?
- 55:26Speaker 1: Can you finding m C? Who can rhyme up against
- 55:29Speaker 1: Elason Sean? No, you can't. You can't. Anthesia saw it.
- 55:33Speaker 1: You got to come with the best. And I was like, no,
- 55:35Speaker 1: why didn't y'all never do that on records? So that's
- 55:39Speaker 1: that's the reason. So I reached out to him and
- 55:41Speaker 1: I said, let's make records together because and again I
- 55:44Speaker 1: didn't know anything about the business part of it, or
- 55:46Speaker 1: what a producer does or anything. I just knew it
- 55:49Speaker 1: was wrong. I knew it was wrong, and I was
- 55:51Speaker 1: a fan and I loved him, and I said, let's
- 55:53Speaker 1: make records that sound like what you really signd like it. Well,
- 55:57Speaker 1: because they said, well, we're signing a sugar Hill. I
- 55:59Speaker 1: can't do that. I didn't know anything about this, right,
- 56:03Speaker 1: but that's the way it did change was he said,
- 56:06Speaker 1: but Special kid as a brother to Lara, He's like,
- 56:10Speaker 1: you can make a record with him, and and that's
- 56:13Speaker 1: how it happened. And then I met Special commentating, Yeah,
- 56:21Speaker 1: but that would have been a treacherous three record. Oh
- 56:23Speaker 1: my goodness. Yeah, that was the original thought. You know.
- 56:27Speaker 1: It was just like because it was the real hip
- 56:30Speaker 1: hop what they was doing in when you walk in
- 56:32Speaker 1: the club, you want to hit it. It was an experience,
- 56:35Speaker 1: was so exciting, great for real. Yeah, cool man. Thank
- 56:40Speaker 1: you so much for Thank you for Thanks again to
- 56:47Speaker 1: Darryl dmc McDaniels for sharing his remarkable story with this
- 56:51Speaker 1: Since the release of his autobiography in two thousand and one,
- 56:54Speaker 1: DMC received the Congressional Angels and Adoption Award for his
- 56:57Speaker 1: work helping foster children. Here's song with Sarah McLaughlin and
- 57:01Speaker 1: more from Run DMC visit Broken Record podcast dot com.
- 57:05Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrell, Mia
- 57:08Speaker 1: Lobell and Leah Rose for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music
- 57:11Speaker 1: is by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.