This interview includes a frank and graphic conversation about suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Rap legend Darryl “DMC” McDaniels of Run-DMC just released a new children’s book, darryl’s dream, which tells the story of a bullied boy who finally comes to terms with his true quirky self, taps into his inner superpowers, and wins a school talent show with his freestyle rhyming skills. While there are certain elements of the story that are pure fiction (such as when the titular Darryl goes to outer space), the real-life Darryl tells Yahoo Entertainment, “The whole bullying and teasing thing it’s one hundred percent [true].”
McDaniels, who grew up in Hollis, Queens, remembers being teased for wearing glasses; a school bully even once grabbed his glasses and stepped on them. “But when I got into hip-hop and rock ‘n’ roll, it gave me a superpower. I was able to let them know that these glasses are a part of me and that I am no longer ashamed of them,” he says. “The purpose of the book is this: you kids are perfect just the way you are: your freckles, your red hair, your height, all the things kids think are wrong with you, because that’s what you are. They are perfect. And DMC was just like you, and you could be whatever you wanted to be. …The book is really nothing new. It’s just a different way. In fact, it’s what I’ve been doing for the last 40 years with my music: inspire, motivate, educate.”
darryl’s dream is McDaniels’ first children’s book, but he has already written two memoirs, King of Rock: respect, responsibility and my life with Run-DMC Y Ten ways not to commit suicide, in which he was very open about his life struggles, at a time when showing vulnerability and talking about mental health was still largely taboo in the world of hip-hop. The 57-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer recalls having suicidal thoughts at the time of writing the first book, when he felt external pressure to repeat or exceed the initial success of Run-DMC and “began to think that I’m not good enough, so I turned to Jack Daniels and Jim Beam to give me the confidence to achieve what I’ve already achieved…I didn’t need alcohol to do anything I did, but I thought I did.” It was then that he called his mother to get some facts about his childhood for his first autobiography, and discovered something that blew up his life.
“I woke up one day and wanted to kill myself. I just had these suicidal thoughts. I just felt that something was wrong. Things weren’t right,” McDaniels begins. “So what happened was I said, ‘I want to drop off a book.’ … I knew my birthday was May 31, 1964, but I didn’t know any details. I called my moms and I had three questions: ‘Hey mom, I’m writing this book. How much did it weigh? What high school? In which hospital was I born, at what time? … She calls back with my father. I’m 35. I am a suicidal alcoholic, a metaphysical wreck about to jump off a building. And they tell me: ‘We have something else to tell you’. You were a month old when we brought you home and you’re adopted. But we love you. Bye!’ Click.”
As McDaniels later explained in the appropriately titled book Ten ways not to commit suicide, this revelation plunged him further into despair. Shortly after the murder of his bandmate Jam Master Jay in 2002 and while in his self-described “crazy zone,” he even considered jumping off a hotel roof after a photo shoot in Yugoslavia. “I got back on the roof and was getting ready to jump off,” he says. “I looked down and said, ‘Do I really want to jump?’ And I said to myself, ‘Man, what if I jump and don’t To die? It’s going to hurt!’” McDaniels fought his suicidal urges that day, but later, while on tour in Japan, tried to buy rat poison with the intention of drinking it. He also considered committing suicide (“but my manager wouldn’t give me my gun”) and “jumping over the third rail and electrocuting myself.” … I thought of all the ways to try to kill myself.”
Thankfully, McDaniels says he’s “no longer at all” in that dark place, crediting the also-adopted Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel,” which was written about the overdose death of Smashing Pumpkins keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin by help save his life. (“I listened to the record for a whole year,” he gushes). McDaniels and McLachlan later met and recorded a new duet version of Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle,” an experience that was a key part of their healing process. Another important part of that process was co-founding the nonprofit Felix, which has served more than 10,000 children in foster care, with fellow adoptee and Emmy Award-winning casting director Sheila Jaffe. She also attended group sessions with other adoptees, during which she was encouraged to search for her birth parents and attend rehab.
“You never start a book from chapter two. I was living my life from chapter two,” she says, explaining that she felt like she had skipped the first chapter of her life by not knowing about her adoption sooner. “Everything the world knew about me, what I knew about me up to that date, what I heard, that was all of chapter two. The emptiness in me that I started to feel, that started all the suicidal thoughts, the emptiness in me was that I didn’t know what chapter one was. … So, I said, ‘If I’m going to go down that path, I have to have a healthy body and mind.’ So, I’m going to rehab. People were trying to make me go to rehab for five years! … So, I went to rehab, and it was in rehab that I discovered therapy.”
McDaniels has been sober since 2004 and has reconnected with his birth mother, even spending Thanksgiving with her alongside his adoptive family; made the documentary my adoption journey about that experience. As for whether he was ever upset with the parents who raised him for withholding information about his adoption until age 35, he admits he was “very” angry at first, but now realizes “the anger wasn’t particularly at they. Now I have a saying about anything for anyone who is going through something mental, all these mental health issues, as I am the best rapper that ever lived, believe it or not. The saying is: ‘If you remove the guilt and shame, you remove the pain.’ So my anger was mad at [myself] for being embarrassed.”
McDaniels’ new partnership with Nickelodeon includes a publishing deal with Random House Children’s Books, as well as a collaboration with Noggin, Nickelodeon’s interactive learning service for preschoolers, for the animated music series. Which is the word?. After experiencing the lowest lows and highest highs in the last four decades, he has the most positive mindset of his life and continues to find new ways to inspire, motivate and educate.
“Everything I did as a DMC was just to prepare myself for what they put me in here,” says McDaniels. “That’s why the gods had to reveal [my adoption] to me: ‘He has to find his purpose.’ And in that, I found my purpose and destiny, which led me back to what I was already doing.”
Watch DMC’s full and extended Yahoo Entertainment interview below, in which he discusses darryl’s dream, Which is the word?, the Felix Organization, mental health advocacy, her link to Sarah McLachlan, and her thoughts on hip-hop today:
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