Daryl "DMC" McDaniels, a pioneer of hip-hop, shares his personal journey with mental health struggles, including depression, alcoholism, and the discovery of adoption, emphasizing the transformative power of therapy and self-acceptance, especially for young people.
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i'm jacob from rouse high school leander
texas and today i'm here at south by
southwest edu with daryl mcdaniels
founding member run dmc and pioneer of
hip-hop culture thank you for being with
us thank you for having me so tell us
about your journey with therapy and
dealing with mental health and why do
you think it's important for teens to
know the benefits of therapy my journey
with mental health was kind of under unexpected
unexpected
because um [Music]
[Music]
i was
probably in my 30s
it probably was like 1993.
we tour and we opening up for naughty
mother nature we opening up for park we
open it up for biggie so right when that
happened you would think
i'd be like yes i'm back life is good
and everything but in 1993
when um
that happened i woke up the next day
wanting to kill myself
and i didn't know what it was it was
just like this feeling in me and i sat there
there and
and
i didn't know what to do
just living with that void in me became
very uncomfortable
um it became very painful i didn't want
to deal with this emotion anymore while
that was going on inside of me people on
the outside was like suck it up shut up
your dmc
how can you be depressed
that's a question people will never
understand it just because i'm dmc i'm
no different from anybody else you know
what i'm saying so i was living like
that for
four months and years and then it just
got to the point where i said
i can't take it no more and i was at
that point
i got to get out of here i'm trying to
figure out do i hang myself do i take
the poison do i shoot myself and i'm
really there and then one thought was oh
if i do die tomorrow if i do leave here
people know the run dmc stuff
but they need to know daryl so that was
the idea for me to write my first book i
said okay just in case if i do kill
myself tomorrow i gotta write this book
so i could be like yo what's up world my
name is daryl mcdaniels you know me
one-third from the groundbreaking rap
group run dmc i was born may 31st 1964 and
and
and then i was like oh i know my
birthday but i don't know no details
about it so just to make it more
interesting for the reader i'll call my
moms out she calls back with my father
hey son hey
we have something else to tell you and
i'm like okay what is it well you was a
month old when we brought you home and
you're adopted but we love you bye
so i was um
35 years old when i found out that i was
adopted now you gotta understand i'm
dealing with all of this stuff not
knowing what to do not knowing i could
go get help not knowing it was okay to
get help not knowing that it's cool for hip-hop
hip-hop
gangsta thugged out people to go get
help you know because you're worried
about what people are going to think of
you the thing that happened was um the
quick story was while i was going
through all of that i met um another
adopted person this lady named sheila
jaffe she's a casting
i met with her and we just sat there and
we talked
and i didn't know how powerful talking
is because my whole thing was
i'm not even dealing with the depression
now i'm like oh wow another life adopted
person like me so i didn't feel alone no
more so we just basically talked and
talked and talked that was a catalyst to
make me say okay
let me go if i'mma go down this route
let me go get clean and sober so i could
have a sound body in mind so i went to rehab
rehab
to stop drinking
and it was in rehab i discovered the
most powerful thing
anybody in the face on the face of this
earth or in the whole universe could do
for themselves
i discovered this thing called therapy
and it was in therapy when i was able to
just sit there
and do more of what i first did with
sheila i was diagnosed with suppressed
emotions yes i'm an alcoholic and stuff
like that but i was able to speak about
how i felt
without being ashamed of feeling guilty
or whatever people was going to think
about me so you talked about that stigma
behind mental health so what can teens
do to kind of get over that statement
get over that fear
of going to therapy the first thing they
need to understand is
talking about it to somebody
is the first
catalyst to empowerment maybe it's the
man in the grocery store
block that you've known since she was
two years old and when you used to come
in with your mother here she used to
give you a lollipop maybe it's that you
go up to mr leo
i've never told anybody you gotta tell
someone that's the first step cause look
i was 35 years old in that same position
grown man thinking i'm the only person
in the world i opened up to the world
and found out that everybody's going to something
something
you recently wrote a children's book
called daryl's dream it's about like
believing in yourself and being yourself
how can teens like
focus on not really fitting in and
self-identity and stuff like that when i
was young and little um i got teased
bullied and picked on i was a geeky
nerdy kid that wore glasses and went to
catholic school i took the microphone
and said d is for doing it all of the
time m's for the rhymes that are all mine
mine
c is for cool cool ass can beat and one
would ask me why you wear those glasses
and i told the world so i can see
i didn't wear glasses to be cool
if i didn't have them
um i couldn't see without them so my
weakness became a power so powerful that
people that didn't even need glasses
want to wear glasses now so have
confidence in
what people think isn't cool about you
because it's the coolest thing about you
in the first place
the run dmc thing was just to set up for
what i was put here to do what i was put
here to do is sit here at dmc in my
adidas telling the world to walk this
way i'm living breathing proof that you
could beat and defeat whatever it is
you're struggling against i had
alcoholism i had suicide um i got ocd um
anxiety all of that but what i represent is
is
you can do it that's my main existence
on this earth right now in addition to
still making some of the funnest music
ever everybody's story
can help a person or save a life that's
why we do this sir
well thank you for being here today i
appreciate the opportunity to interview
you thank you keep up the great work
[Music] you
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