How to Find the Superhero Within | Darryl "DMC" McDaniels on Impact Theory

You got to find a thing that makes you feel good and just continually non-stop every day without a paycheck doing it. And that thing will empower everything else that you have to come into. You have a superpower. You're so busy overlooking it. You know what I'm saying? You're so busy looking at what that actor got or what that rapper got instead of looking at what you got. The only thing that I had was a desire to create. That's what made me who I was. Everybody, welcome to Impact Theory. You are here, my friends, because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless, but you know that having potential is not the same as actually doing something with it. So, our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute on your dreams. All right, today's guest is one of the most iconic hip-hop artists of all time. Born in Hollis, Queens, he skyrocketed out of obscurity in the early '80s when he, Rev Run, and Jam Master Jay thrust hip-hop into the mainstream, changing the course of popular music forever. They sold over 30 million albums, set countless records, and blazed a trail that all of hip-hop would soon be marching down. But, no one denies that they did it first. They were the first rap group with a top 10 single, the first to go gold, the first to go platinum, the first to get played on MTV, the first with their own sneaker, and the first to grace the cover of Rolling Stone and Spin magazine. By any measure, today's guest is an icon. In fact, the image of him in a b-boy stance is the archetypal image of '80s hip-hop. And yet, despite all of that, for years he was so lost to depression that he constantly fantasized about committing suicide. And due to a neurological condition called spasmodic dysphonia, he was losing his voice, literally and figuratively. His role as a hip-hop pioneer seemed to be receding into the past, and he had recently found out that he was adopted. His whole world had been violently upended. He no longer knew who he was and he tumbled head over heels in a downward spiral of drinking and isolation. But at his lowest moment he heard a song so beautiful it reminded him that there were amazing things in this world left to experience. And while at first his adoption had only intensified his desire to die ultimately it was his salvation. Wanting to help other orphans who'd been adopted or were still in foster care became his new purpose. He got sober, founded a nonprofit Felix organization and set out to help. And along the way he's launched a comic book company designed to provide some of the empowerment he feels is missing in the world. As he says, "Revolutions begin with art." So please help me in welcoming the man who was born to rock. You can't say he's not. And in case you forgot, he's the king of rock, the legendary Darryl DMC McDaniels. What's up, Darryl? How you doing? Thank you. Thank you, man. Thanks for being here, dude. So crazy, I was at the New York Comic Con. Ironic that comics would bring us together. I'm absolutely obsessed. Cool. I actually didn't tell you this story. So I'm at the kids booth next to yours and I was buying his comics cuz he's all about empowerment, which is my whole thing. And I see on the wall he's got an image of a kid with a DMC shirt Yeah. running away from these aliens. And he was like, "Man, you're buying so much. Like pick one of those for free." Right. like, "Dude, you got to give me the DMC one." And he goes, "Oh, that's funny because he's standing right next to you." I'm like, "What do you mean?" And he was like, "That's Darryl DMC McDaniels." Literally you and I were like 8 in apart. Really? But you had your back to me. Right, right. So I'm like, "That can't be true." He's like, "No, I'm telling you it is." So that's when I tapped you on the shoulder and I said, "We've been trying to get you on the show." Over. And you were super gracious and said yes and here we are. That was the coolest thing that he had the kid in the shirt. Yeah. In that world in that universe that really existed. That that was really um um inspiring and flattering. Like that Seeing that is better than getting a Grammy and something like that because that means you're part of an existence. Yeah, that's true. separate from the people. What do you mean by that? Cuz you've talked about that before. Yeah, like I don't want um praise and awards and salutations for my creations. If you know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying? Like okay, I made a record. You know, who's saying my record was the best record that year? I don't understand that, you know? It's it's like I created it and it's the the purpose of it is to touch and connect with the people that it was that it is supposed to connect with. You know, I never looked at um you know, a music as a thing to be rewarded. I think it's more of a thing that's supposed to be shared and enjoyed. You know, when you look at a band or you hear a song, you see a video, or you go to a live show or something, you're getting entertained. But I don't think I don't even think the artists realizes what this was created for. You know what I'm saying? I never got to experience the feeling of when people came up to me for 30 years, "Yo, Sucka MC changed my life. Yo, Raising Hell got me through the hardest times in my you know, in my life. Man, I was in a dark place, but when I heard this and that That didn't happen to me until I heard Sarah McLachlan's record, if you know what I'm saying." And when I met Sarah McLachlan, she said, "Thank you for telling me that, Darryl, cuz that's what music is supposed to do." That story has become pretty iconic in your retelling of the depression and all of that. It was pretty fascinating. Walk us through that moment when your manager drags you to a party you didn't want to go to. You're in the depth like literal I'm standing on a rooftop I'm thinking about jumping kind of depths of despair. It was crazy. Um what had happened was we came up from Europe and I live in Jersey now. So they had to book me into JFK. So I'm already a alcoholic suicidal metaphysical spiritual wreck that's about to jump and kill herself. That was the last straw. I'm pissed now cuz I'm coming into JFK and it just made it worse. That just And as little as funny that is it really made me upset. And I'm not really an upset guy. Like I don't get mad over stuff like that. But it it was just that breaking point for me. So I get in the car and the driver is he's driving out of JFK and it's like three lights before you get to the Belt Parkway. So at the first light, you know, we stop at the light and you know, I look up at him in the rearview mirror and he turns his head. So we're driving again and you know, I'm I'm going to kill myself. You know, I'm I'm going through all these emotions and stuff and I look up and he does it again. So finally at the third light when I look up he doesn't turn. He looks me and I guess he got discouraged. He turns around. DMC I'm not supposed to do this but your music saved my life. It got me through some of the hardest times. You know, when I was growing up and this and that. Please don't tell my boys. Can I just get an autograph? And I'm like, "Yo, cool. Whatever. As a matter of fact, I'll take a picture with you." He's like, "You really?" So now he's open. So now he's driving and he said, you know, cuz I'm a rapper now. He turns to Silk the Shocker turn the radio on. So he turns it to Hot 97 in New York City. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. My voice was leaving. I couldn't rap. You know, and prior to that was crazy. I was turning on the TV and I was seeing rappers saying, "You know, when I get 40 years old I might not even be rapping no more. I have a company and this and that this and that." So in my mind I'm thinking is that what's happening with me? Like I didn't know what was going on. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to be 40 soon. So to a long story short, when they when I heard hip hop in 97 Yo, turn it to any station except that one. And he turned it to Lite FM. And I heard Sarah McLachlan's song Angel. This was I think it was like 96 and 90 96. I think I believe it was 96 or 97. And when I heard those pianos and that voice something in me said, "Yo, D it may be effed up for you right now. You may be feeling down and out like you want to kill yourself, but if something this beautiful exists, this is what a good reason to stay alive." And for one whole year, all I did was listen to Sarah McLachlan records. That went on for a whole year. And then my manager Eric and my publicist Tracy Miller, they was like, "Yo, keep him busy. Keep Daryl busy so he don't really kill himself, you know what I'm saying?" And he's drinking. It was It was getting out of hand. So, he comes to me one day and he says, "Yo, we're going to LA. I got two tickets for Clive Davis Grammy party. Now, you know Clive Davis Grammy party, everybody looks forward to that, you know what I'm saying? Like people will sell their souls to the devil to go. So, he looks at me and he says, "Yo, I got these two tickets to go, man. We're going to the Grammy party." I said, "Nope, I ain't going. Staying right here and listening to my Sarah McLachlan." Just like that. That's all I look You got to understand, it's all I looked forward to. It was the only thing in the world that made me feel good. And he looked at me and he said, "Yo, I worked real hard to get these tickets." The way he looked, I know he went through a lot to get those two tickets. I said, "Okay, I'll go with you." So, we get in the party and Eric, he's trying to be managed, but yo, go do the red carpet. I said, "No, [ __ ] I only came here just for your ass. I'm sitting here 1 hour and I'm going back to my room listening to my Sarah McLachlan." So, he's like, "Come on, D." And he's trying to "Yo, people love you. People want to hear from you, this and that, you You what I'm saying? You you this and that, you know, you're supposed to be doing this. I took a chair and I put it by the door. 59, 58, 57, 56. The countdown has now begun. So, he walks away frustrated. And I'm sitting there like I said, Stevie Wonder comes in. And the the joke is Stevie didn't see me. Stevie's boy seen me. So, Stevie's guide that has Stevie, they're walking in and I'm sitting by the door. So, Stevie's boy seen me. It's real funny. His guide turns It was the coolest thing. Turns Stevie towards me and I'm sitting there. I'm hating. I'm like, Stevie effing Wonder. Hope he bumps into the wall and breaks his knee. I mean, I was That's how far I was going cuz I didn't want Don't come mess with me. I'm only here an hour. I want to get back to my room and listen to Sarah McLachlan. So, Stevie comes over. Hey, how you doing DMC? You guys are great. He walks away. Alicia Keys walks in. She sees me. DMC, I always see you running Russell and this and that. I never get to see you. It's an honor to meet you. This and that. I'm like, Alicia Keys. I literally said I hope that This is bad. I said I hope the piano falls and smashes her fingers. That's evil. That's just evil. But that's where I was at. You know what I'm saying? Cuz that whole thing this is BS to me. This is [ __ ] to me being here this and that. So, she leaves and then Busta Rhymes comes in. He's the last person that I needed to see. CUZ NOW, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PAY ATTENTION. THESE GUYS DIDN'T JUST CHANGE HIP HOP. THEY CHANGED EVERYTHING. THEY changed fashion. And Busta's making the biggest scene ever. And I'm like, this is the last [ __ ] that I wanted to see. So, he he literally gets the whole lobby to turn and acknowledge me. Woah. It's crazy. And he walks away. So, I'm sitting there. Guess who walks in? Sarah McLachlan. So, it was That That's that lady who made the song that damn near saved my life and this and that. Okay, D, get it together. Just get get and walk over to her and tell her what her song did. So, I'm walking over towards her, and she sees me coming. She's like, "DMC, it's tricky to rock a rhyme, rock a rhyme, this Run-DMC is tricky. My Adidas, huh." So, I'm talking to myself. I'm going, "CD, that's another reason not to kill yourself. Even Sarah McLachlan likes your song." So, I just go up to her, and say, "Yo, Ms. McLachlan, the name of your record is Angel. You sound like an angel. People say you're an angel, but you're not an angel to me, you're God. I listen to your record 24/7 days a week. When I go to the gym, listen to it. Crazy, like I'm every day, I don't leave home without it, this and that." So, she's looking at me with the kind of like, "Okay, I just wanted to say hi to your ass. I didn't want all this." But, when I finished that, she looked at me, and she shook my hand. She said, "Thank you for telling me that, Darryl." And she said these words, "That was That's what music is supposed to do." She shakes my hand, she walks away. The song just had a vibe, an energy. And that energy, that thing that that song was, was the only thing that made me feel good. And our lives is about feeling good. Not about just who we are, about just feeling good about everything is supposed to feel right. And I do a lot of talking on mental health and stuff like that. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally, all that. If you're not feeling good about every part of your existence, none of your relationships will work out. That record was the only thing that made me feel complete. When I found out that I was adopted, what was happening was I started drinking again. And in my mind, I tried to rationalize and say, "I'm drinking again because I have celebrating the new found part of my identity." Uh-huh. Which was, you know, I'm trying to come up with some excuse to drink again. And that was going on for probably like my wife know I was drinking, Eric know I was drinking, everybody around me know I was drinking, but it wasn't till about I would say 8 months when it started drinking started getting out of hand. And you know, my wife finally she finally confronted me. I love women cuz they're so perceptive. She looked at me and she said this to me. She said, "Motherfucker, you [ __ ] drinking cuz you can't handle the [ __ ] fact that you just found out that you was adopted." Wow. And I tried to deny that. But she was 100% right. The rehab thing allowed me to see what I was doing. And then it allowed me to see why I was doing it. And then it made me discover, "Wow, I'm obsessive-compulsive disorders and this and that and anxiety." And it made me realize that when I first started drinking it's because I thought it I needed help to be who I was trying to be with Run-DMC. And the reason why I say that is because when I went through rehab, now that I'm sober, the things that made me feel good I was able to see and feel again. Like people think they need stuff. I realized all you need to do is feel good about who you are, but I'm talking about really just feeling good. When you feel good, everything comes to you. What had happened to me was this. I was this little kid named Darryl McDaniels from Hollis, Queens, New York born in 1964. And um I got attracted to comic books. I went to Catholic school my whole life cuz there's always a source to go back and find out where this comes from. I went to Catholic school my whole life in the middle of Hollis, Queens, New York. There was St. Pascal Baylon Elementary School. I wore a uniform. I carried a big book bag that said St. Paschal Baylon Elementary School. I wore glasses. Before this is before I rhymed to let them know my glasses is cool now, you know what I'm saying? But I got teased, bullied, and picked on cuz I went to Catholic school. I was a little nerdy kid, straight A student by the way. Always on the honor roll, five and six stars on the forehead, that. But that in Hollis wasn't cool. The public school kids are funny. They like, "You got a uniform on? You go to Catholic school?" They literally thought, "Yo, your family's rich. They pay for you to go to school. Run it." So, I got my lunch money taken, all of that. Me and my wearing my glasses back then, it wasn't cool the way I made it cool now. It was, "Hey, four eyes. Hey, binoculars. Hey, spectacles. Come here, huh? Did you see that?" Like life was miserable. But I loved school. I was one of those kids that couldn't understand why the hell do we got to be out of school from June, July, August, September? Why? I couldn't Because of that I was considered weird. I didn't understand why we got to have a break in school. But for me, and I'll tell you what, there was just something about the new textbook and new pens, and this is new pencil sharpener, the newness of that, and then new white pages waiting to be written on. I used to smell the books. There was just something about reading and writing getting the knowledge and then releasing it. Now I'm putting the connection together. So, I'm this little kid. I used to have to walk 10 minutes from my house to get to St. Paschal Baylon. It was the worst 10 minutes of my life. But I made it to school. But when I was in school, loved it, straight A student. When that bell rang at the end of the year, scariest thing for me cuz now I got to make it back home. So, I got to make it back home, get home, and take off my uniform, and then put on my play clothes so I could fit in. So, that was my life. But, when I was home my perfect world was this world of comic books. These superheroes, DC, and especially Marvel. DC was cool, but Gotham and Metropolis was fictional. But, I love Flash. He was favorite to read and draw. Superman, Justice League, all of that. But, Marvel on the other hand was brilliant cuz Stan Lee put the superheroes in New York. So, when I opened up a Marvel comic book it wasn't my fantasy. It was real to me. Why do you think I run about Queens all these times? I live in Queens. Spider-Man lives in Queens. Peter Parker lives I could relate to that. And he's smart. So, comic books was my perfect world. I was I was I was powerful. I was I wasn't ashamed of being who I am. I fit right in with Tony Starks, Peter Parker, and David Banner. So, I'm doing all these comic books. But, it did something else. Now, I went through all of this and then when I got sober it awakened me to something. It It made me realize, man, comic books set me up for something that I didn't even know was about to happen to me. And what I mean by that was comic books did two things for me. It made me a great student cuz I was all It's all I did was read comic books. If I wasn't reading my comic books, I was doing some type of homework. But, the comic books the educators overlooked something. It was a generation where take the comic books from the kids. The kids shouldn't read the comic books. But, they overlooked the fact that by me reading these comic books made me an excellent student. For instance, I learned about World War II in history. But, I'll go home your imagination in your mind is real. Cuz Captain America takes me there. I'm there. When you're reading something the emotions is like you're there. I learned about the sun, the moons, and stars, and all of that. Silver Surfer takes me to teach. I was flying around Mars last night. So, it was just something very powerful about that. So, I am a lethal weapon when it comes to reading and writing and all that because I'm I'm learning words and this and that. This is what comic books did for me. Every comic book in Marvel gave the character a title. And Marvel taught me to find yourself with an adjective and then tell the world who you are. Such as if I say amazing, you'll say Spider-Man. If I say incredible, you'll say Hulk. That's being instilled in me. And this That was my whole life as a kid. All of a sudden, 1978, it was there already, but I'm still a kid and that's when I noticed. This thing called hip-hop comes over the bridge. The DJs and the MCs and It wasn't rappers. It was MCs and DJs. The rap was a thing the MCs did. So, I'm noticing all the block parties and all the house parties and street parties and stuff like that. But, I'm still not even paying attention to it cuz I'm into my comic books and stuff like that. And all the older kids, my brother, Boobie, and Anthony. I remember Anthony was the first in our neighborhood to get turntables in his house, like the park DJs. Then Boobie got a set of turntables like the park DJs. So, my brother Alfred, who's rolling with them, of course he got to get some. But, me and my brother Alfred, we got a problem. We don't sell weed. So, we don't got no money. But, we got a huge comic book collection. So, my brother comes and I When he walked in the room, I knew he was going to He said, "Yo, Daryl, I got this idea how we going to get some turntables. We're going to No." I was like, "No, don't say it. We're going to do a comic book sale." So, big brother is a funny because we did a comic book sale and check it out. When we was doing a comic book sale, true story, we put up little papers, handwritten signs, I spread the word. So, So me and my brother, we get enough money. We get the turntables and my brother goes, "Yo, when I ain't home don't touch my turntables." That's some brother oh shoot so it is but he would leave and I would go in the basement. So I learned to do the good times thing. So that's what I was doing. I wanted to be a DJ. I created this guy called Grandmaster Get High. Because you don't need weed or old English cuz my my beats and music will intoxicate you. Yeah. So that's me. That was the beginning of me manifesting things. I was in the basement pretending not that I ain't have no aspirations to be flat flash does that. This is me pretending to be with that guy did on a cassette tape the same way I used to put my favorite blanket on my neck and run through the house I'm Batman and I'm Superman. It was all make-believe. So that's that's what was going on. My brother comes home with Rapper's Delight. This now I'm like oh that rap thing goes with that so I learned Rapper's Delight cuz like I said I didn't want to be the only kid in there. But then about 2 weeks later this was the life-changing moment. He comes home with a red label record that said enjoy in big black letters. And he puts the needle on a record. Now Rapper's Delight was three guys rapping. One guy go, second guy go, third guy go. Longest record was over. He puts the needle on this record and this thing said, "It was a party night everybody was breaking and the house was screaming and the bass was shaking and it won't be long till everybody knowing that flash." Now I heard this thing the DJ did did the good flash is on the P box going and did It wasn't no hip hop the hip the hip and shala na and then Italian Caucasian Japanese Spanish Indian Negro Vietnamese MC disc jockey show fly kids for the young ladies and this happened. Introducing the crew you got to see to believe. Five different voices. Well, one, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE MCS. One dude said, "I'm Melle Mel and I rock it so well." And the next dude said, "And I'm Mr. Ness because I rock the best." And the third dude said, "Rahiem and all the ladies dream." And the seventh dude said, "Cowboy and I'll make you jump for joy." And then the fifth guy said, "Creole." And the OTHER FOUR SAID, "SO LET GO. KID CREOLE playing a role. Dig this with a Furious Five plus Grandmaster Flash giving you a blast of show enough class. So to prove to you all that we're second and up, we're going to make five MCs sound like one. What the [ __ ] I'm sweating now." I was like, "What the [ __ ] This is crazy." I sat there. Yeah, right. I sat there over and over and over and over listening to that record over and over and over and over. And I said, "I got to write. I got to write this this that thing the rappers delight thing that these guys just did go with the DJ Flash thing." So simultaneously I became Grandmaster Get High and I was Easy MC Easy-E. And I was in my basement just pretending. My whole career, all I was doing everything I was getting from comic books. Define yourself with an adjective and then you tell the world who you are, which is what these guys were doing on here. But mine's was going to go a little further because I had something I was drawing for. Hearing them rapping, the graffiti that was on the wall, the breakdancers, that era that area early of hip hop was like the damn comic book that had jumped off the pages and got on the wall. Those break The colors, the Adidas suits and stuff like that. The personalities, it was like super her- That's why I related to it so much. But the whole thing of make-believe, make-believe, make-believe. Nowadays I tell kids if anybody looks at you and says you're into corny make-believe pretend [ __ ] you might get in trouble, stand up on your desk in the middle of class and beat your chest like King Kong and say, "You're goddamn right." Here I am pretending to be a DJ like Flash and a MC like Melle Mel. In my own world, I said, "I'm going to become Now, you got to understand. I was sitting in my basement going, "I'm going to become the most powerful entity in this hip-hop universes." Mild-mannered Catholic school kid Darryl McDaniels, when he steps to that microphone, the initials of my name is DMC, but he's no longer Darryl McDaniels. He transforms into the devastating mic-controlling DMC. Then I was sitting there one day and I was sitting there and I was going, "Okay, Thor is the son of Odin from Asgard. He's got a brother named Loki and he's got a hammer. I'm Darryl Mc- For the For the mic thing, I'm Darryl I'm I'm saying I'm going to take that and put it with this mic thing. I'm Darryl McDaniels from Hollis, Queens. I got a father named Byford and a brother named Alfred and I got a mic. So, I'mma become son of Byford, brother of Al. Penn is my mother and Run's my pal. It's McDaniels, not McDonald's. These rhymes are Daryl's, those burgers are Ronald's. I ran down my family tree, my mother, my father, my brother and me. Hip-hop excited me cuz I was like, "You could tell stories about who you are over music?" So, my stories were going to be written like superheroes. Make a long story short, 12th grade comes. We get guidance counselor gives us the sheet saying, "You're about to graduate. You got to think about what you're going to be in life and you time to grow up and this and that." So, they put this sheet in front of me and I'm like, "I don't know what the hell I want to be. I'm a kid. I want to go home and read my comic books and write rhymes and pretend to be Flash. What the hell?" I'm a shy little kid, Catholic school kid. Hip-hop was the thing that gave me power to express who I was, this and that, in a powerful way. To so powerful that before that Before I say specta- spec- spectacles, oh, I got y'all now, [ __ ] This mic thing is taking it to another level. D is for doing it all of the time. M's for the rhymes that are mine. C's for cool cool as can be. And Roman said, "Why you wear those glasses?" So I can see. Shut everybody now. So now people don't even wear want to wear glasses is wearing glasses now. You know what I'm saying? So that's all that I was doing. What do you teach kids now about that moment, about finding their real voice, about not getting lost either in the need to succeed or money or whatever? I tell kids this a kid yesterday asked me at Brooklyn Music School and he he looked really serious. "Do you What do you do with rejection?" I looked at him and said, "There's no such thing as rejection. There's only projection. If they didn't like what you did, go home make another one and throw both of those down and three. Do not be ashamed of yourself. Do not be ashamed of yourself. Now that's hard. Why? Because the way the world is. Um, you know, um um social media. Forget Before social media, you just had the people in the neighborhood, the bullies and the the jealous people and all of that. You got to find a thing that makes you feel good and just continually non-stop every day without a paycheck doing it. And that thing will empower everything else that you have to come into. How do you cultivate that confidence? Like you've said there's two things that seem to give you confidence in your life. Old English and then comic books. Well, Old English was a false sense of power. See, what's happening now in America Trump's not the problem. The problem has been for the last 15 years here in America using disrespect, ignorance, illiteracy, and violence, and negativity. That's a false sense of power. Who you are is the thing that's going to break down every wall. For instance, when I got into hip hop, the early things of hip hop and I'm able to talk about this because I didn't say I'm going to do this. I had to discover this. In hip-hop, early hip-hop was so-called black ghetto music. It was everything was a message song cuz of the message. Broken glass, aerosol, message one, message two, life in the ghetto. We even made it's like that in our times. Everything was that. But I was sitting there like, even in the dirt poor ghetto, there's some good nice fun stuff. So, when I got over my house, I'm like, I didn't say I had guns. I didn't run sell drug dealers. I talked about why I said DMC's the only MC that could talk about chicken and collard greens, St. John's University, and Christmas and make it gangster. I talked about my glasses. I didn't say, you know what I'm saying? I didn't talk about cars. Run over there, I got a big long caddy. Just some running, just you know, fly, you know what I'm saying? You got to take your girl and say, I didn't None of my rhymes say I'm going to take your girl. Matter of fact, I'm scared of your girl. You know what I'm saying? I see some lipstick and stuff, I'm [ __ ] sweating. I'm out of there. I'm out of there. My therapist told me the power thing. To give you all an example, he said, "Fit I'm 35 years ago, you had the power not to go down this big catechism of depression." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "When you would have said, 'I'm not doing that record.' You would have said, 'I'm not working with that person cuz I don't like the way they operate.' Or no, no, I don't want to do a show for this guy and this and that. He He He He He's against for what I stand for. The first reaction of the world is, 'Oh, you're going to walk away from all this money?' And D, you just say, 'The hell yeah, I'm going home to read my comic books.' It sounds cliche, everybody you have a superpower. You're so busy overlooking it. You know what I'm saying? You're so busy looking at what that actor got or what that rapper got, instead of looking at what you got. The only thing that I had was a desire to create. That's what made me who I was. I don't need to write this record to be on the radio. I don't need to write the record to be on TV. I I need to write the record to get a check. I'm going to write the record and I'm going to feel good about it. That's so important. What do you hope people get out of the comic? Like you could do anything at this point. You have so much fame, so much attention aimed at you. And obviously, I know why you're doing it because you love it. You've made that really, really clear in this entire interview. But what do you hope people get out of this? Riggs Morales, who is my editor-in-chief, and Riggs Morales is a guy that um convinced me to do the comic book. I went for a meeting at Atlantic Records. And it was a music meeting. Cuz Eric's brother had an artist and he wanted to shop. So, I go into meeting with Riggs Morales. And um Riggs, for people that want to know who Riggs is, he was Eminem's right-hand man over at Shady Records, A&R in the rise of that great empire. Riggs, cool guy, this and that, legendary guy. So, I go into music meeting. I sit down and Riggs goes, "Yo, I'm usually very professional. I never fan out." And he used these words. "But DMC, man, you was like my superhero, man. The way you looked and the way you sound." And I'm like, "Whoa." And And my joke was, "Oh my god, I've been discovered." Cuz this hip-hop thing has always been a cover for me being a superhero. And he just asked me, "Yo, what was it like when you was a kid?" And I was like, "Oh, well, I went to Catholic school my whole life and all I did was read and draw comics." He said, "Comics?" And I was like, "Yeah, read and draw comics." He said, "Comics?" I said, "Yeah, comics." We sat there for 3 hours and we talked about comics. Marvel, DC, everything that just told you, he told me what he was going through, the whole thing, all of that. This and that. And he was like just He was like, "Wow." So, he said, "D, you should do a comic book." I said, "Nah, I don't want to do a comic book." And he said, "Why not?" I said, "Cuz I don't want to be a rapper that just because I had a hit record thinking I could do everything." And he rolled. He said, "Yo, that's crazy. Like, wow." He said, "Yo, that's very" But he said, "Yo, D, with your comic book" This is going answer question. "With your comic book, you can do everything you've always done with your music and more in this form. And I said, "What do you mean?" Educate, inspire, motivate, and entertain. And when he said that to me, all right, I'm in. So, he said, "Yo, here's what I'm going to do." Comic Con was coming 3 years ago. I'm going to take you to New York City Comic Con. So, he takes me to New York New York City Comic Con. Now, remember, I'm sober and I'm went through everything that I'm went through. This and I'm feeling good about my life. There was one missing ingredient to to to complete the transformation. I'm walking in New York City Comic Con. And I see all the comic books I had that my brother made me sell. I see Lost in Space. I see The Addams Family and The Munsters and The Flintstones. I see Bruce Lee in a kung fu movie. Everything Everybody artistically is made up of everything that was visually and conceptually presented to them through pop culture. Who I am really sitting here in you, I'm The Addams Family. I'm The Jetsons. I'm the I'm The Brady Bunch after school. I'm The Munsters. I'm all those comic Marvel comic books and those DC comic books. I'm Bruce Lee. I'm all of that. So, I walked in there and it just hit me. And we walked around Comic Con and Rick turns to me and he goes, and it's crazy. He's I'm I'm I'm happy and done. I'm in heaven right now. He's still thinking about what he said in the office. So, he turns to me and he said, "D, um when we create this comic book, what would you call your company?" And I'm like, "What? No, we're going to create it and take it to Marvel and DC." He says, "No. Shh. You go shh." He says, "No, D, you're hip hop. We're going to be what Marvel and DC has already been." I'm like, "Wow." Like he's Now, it's just I'm nervous, but he says, "Yo, you can't use Marvel. You can't use DC. Can't use Image. Can't use Valiant. This and that. What would you call your company? And the reason why I'm saying it's like this is like like I said, everybody's so busy trying to let me get this and this and I got to be like you know, I got to be like Bill Gates and I got to be like this and that. Everything that you need necessary to totally be successful with the drop it out. Back to the DMC thing. It just came to me. Devastating mic controller. D was doing it all of the time instead of Darryl McDaniels. No. I'm just calling my comic book company Darryl Makes Comics cuz that's what I'm going to be doing. So Rick is like, "Yeah, I love that He was like, "I love it." And so a year later we had our first issue out. That's awesome. So um the effort that we put into stuff, the effort that we put into stuff could be empowered to make it effortlessly if we never forget who we are. And another perfect example of that is this. I went to every top throat doctor in New York City. I went to Lenny Kravitz's doctor. I went to Mariah Carey's doctor. Now you know if they can't fix your voice, something's wrong. I go to all of them. They do their tests, this and that. They take the microscope x-ray and they look me in my eyes and says, "Son, there's nothing physically wrong with your throat." But my voice was leaving. I'm talking about one time my voice was like The last good thing that I got out and I said if I do die cuz I'm still drinking at the time, was the Sarah McLachlan record. And the vocal performance on that is not good at all. It's just overshadowed by what the record means. And that's a powerful thing, too. Your voice your voice is not how you sound or speak. Your voice your vibration is who you are in this and I got away from that and I went to all of these doctors. I mean, it was crazy. And my voice didn't come back until I got sober and it didn't come back strongly till I started doing the till I started getting in the room with Riggs and I got all my god, Eric, okay, it's going to be the DMC universe and it's going to be in the '80s like you and this and it's fun. It's going to sound like the '80s. It's going to feel like the '80s, but the question to the reader is it the '80s, it could be the future. So, we going to sit there. DMC is going to be the first superhero from this DMC um universe. And he's not going to be the only one, but he's going to be the first one. And in this universe is already going to be superheroes there. But DMC is not only going to fight the villains, he's going to fight the And that's all I did. And then we do it and we finish it and people love it. So, shoot, we got to do another one. Then we go into another one and that's what happened. What happened to me was I stopped being Daryl. So, Daryl stopped. And then this brought you back. And this this brought me just waking up and creating again. And then it inspired me to do music again. That's awesome, man. Totally get what you're saying about staying true to who you are and that ties into my final question, which is what is the impact that you want to have on the world? I want people not to be afraid to be themselves, no matter what circumstances they in. Your situation doesn't define who you are. You define who you are. That's awesome, man. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It was amazing. Guys, not only is he one of the most iconic entertainers of all time, as you just saw, he's one of the most incredible storytellers ever. One, you're going to want to dive into the comic, what he's trying to bring to the world, that through narrative, through everything that we talked about today about the the danger, legitimate danger of losing your sense of self, that the way to get back out of that is to refine that center, to find a purpose, to have something that you believe in, and that that is going to be the path towards building that compelling future, that thing that's going to get you out of that. And he said that he learned a lot in therapy, and one of the most important things he learned is you've got to speak up for yourself. And one of the most important things to me, the thing that I find ironically so exciting about superheroes is the underlying theme that nobody's coming to save you. That's what the superhero understands, and it's the superhero who realizes there is no one else. And what I think is so fascinating about DMC is he's been that guy for an entire generation of people who realize by hearing a voice unlike anything else they'd ever heard rapping about not being good at scratching, but being good at drawing, which is one of his actual lyrics. And he says the Easter eggs are hidden all throughout his music and you can go back and listen to them. The way that he's describing superhero culture, the things that superheroes does, and I hope you guys heard and understood what he was saying about that was his world of make-believe. But in making other people believe it, he believed it himself, and he actually went on to do it. So, the guy who becomes one of the most iconic and successful entertainers of all time, it starts from creating something he wanted to believe about in himself. So, man, I hope you take that away from the episode, and I hope that you dive into this guy's world, the music and everything that he's done outside of that. It's absolutely incredible. Definitely pick up the comic book. It's amazing. You guys are going to love it. All right, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. My man, thank you so much for coming on here. Hey everybody, thank you so much for watching and being a part of this community. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. You're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit, and unlocking your full potential.