News

Turning Life’s Drama Into a Worthy Cause
By Ann Brown
New BWM Staff Writer

When Darryl McDaniels, of Run-DMC fame, discovered as an adult he was adopted, he set out not only to find his roots, but to help other adoptees as well.

Darryl McDaniels' life totally changed five years ago. Formally, half of the legendary rap duo, Run-DMC, McDaniels was writing a book about his experiences when the unimaginable happened. "I wanted to include some stuff about my birth and childhood, so I called my mom up," recalls McDaniels, "the book I was writing was King Of Rock: Respect, Responsibility, and My Life With Run-DMC. My mom gave me the time of my birth and my weight, and that was all and then we hung up.  A few minutes later, she called back and said, “Do you remember the time Father So-and-so came by the house?” I remembered it because when you are young and a teacher comes over to your house it is always a big deal. “Well,” my mother said, “that was the day we finalized your adoption. Adoption! There I was 35 years old finding out for the first time that I was adopted."

Admittedly, McDaniels says he didn't know what to do, or where to turn upon learning of his parentage. "I instantly saw my life flash before my eyes, it changed my whole world. I questioned my existence--why did my birth mother give me up --and all that," says McDaniels, who rose to fame with Run-DMC in the early '80s becoming the first rap group to crossover and achieve international stardom. Even though he was more than curious about his birth parents, he was not ready to even consider trying to find them. "My mother said she'd help me find my birth mother, but I wasn't there yet. I just couldn’t deal with it," recalls the native New Yorker. "I started drinking again. When Run DMC was at its peak, it was drugs, sex and rock and roll until the doctor told me I had pancreatitis and that I could continue to drink and die or stop drinking and live. I stopped drinking. Now after all that time, I was drinking again, 24/7. My wife was very supporting, and kept saying my drinking was because I found out I was adopted.  But I brushed her off; I just didn't want to deal with it."

However, that was not all McDaniels had to deal with. As if all at once, his father died and then Jam Master Jay, the long-time friend and DJ for Run-DMC, was shot to death in his Jamaica, Queens studio. The murder remains unsolved to this day. Those events sent McDaniels reeling. "My whole world was being turned upside down," he says.

Finally, McDaniels found inner peace to reflect upon. "I started thinking about how being adopted was the best thing that ever happened to me," says McDaniels as if a light went off in his head, "if I had not been adopted I would have never moved to Hollis. I would have never met Run or Jay and there never would have been Run DMC." He started taking action. "I joined Adoptees Anonymous and started attending sessions to understand and talk to other people who had been adopted. I also started thinking about what had happened to me 10 years before." His adoption brought up old wounds and actually made DMC fit all the pieces together. "Ten years ago, in 1997, I had started questioning my existence. I don't know why but I did." says McDaniels. "I wanted to go from B boy to a Man but didn't know how to do it. I was wondering why I was where I was. I was thinking, well if I was just put here to do Run DMC, then so be it. It was over for me. I was tired of rapping about what type of sneakers I wore; I had done that. I was tired of rapping about being the king of rock; everyone knew it. I was tired of taking about all the stuff I had." At that moment, McDaniels looked at his life and decided he did not want to live anymore. "I figured, if this was it, and this was all there was for me, then it was time to check out. I started having suicidal thoughts," he admits freely. "I was ready to move on to my next life. I was ready to check out even though I had a wife and child. I just did not want to be around anymore, I remembered when Run, Jay (this was before he was murdered), and I were on the road in London. We were making $75,000 a gig because they really still loved us in Europe.  All the while, I was contemplating how I was going to kill myself when I got home. I was telling people
I was going to do it. I thought about ways to kill myself.  I knew I wasn't going to jump, so I considered poison, and I even contemplated shooting myself." However, fate intervened.

"Do you know what stopped me? Sarah McLachlan saved my life," says an excited McDaniels. "Her song Angel came on the radio and I just listened to the words. It kept me alive. I listened to nothing but Sarah McLachlan for a whole year. Later, I met her at a party, which I did not feel like going to but my manager dragged me into going.  I told her how her song had saved my life. She had just finished telling me how she loved Run DMC and there I was telling her all this morbid stuff. She looked at me as if I was crazy, and then said; well that's what music is supposed to
do and she walked away."

Once again DMC, had an ah-ha moment. "I realized she was right.  Music was and does change people's lives," he explains. "John Lennon's Imagine had changed my life when I was younger. So I reconciled, why couldn’t I use my music to change lives? I had always been into classic rock and I wanted to do something different from what I had done with Run DMC.  I wanted to use my music to help people." Suddenly, McDaniels says his life was starting to make sense. "When I found out I was adopted it all started to fall into place for me. Maybe there was a reason I felt so alone and out of place 10 years earlier. Maybe it was because I still needed to find out who I was. Maybe I heard the song Angel and met Sarah McLachlan, because I was supposed to figure out a way to use my music, to give it purpose. It was all falling into place."

McDaniels set out to find out who he was. “I was ready to find my birth mother. My mother said all she knew was that my birth mother was 16 when she had me; she told me what she thought her name was, and that she was Dominican. Dominican! I started to find out as much as I could about the Dominican Republic. I bought books. I learned Spanish. You could have told me my mother was Jamaica, or
Chinese and I would have done the same thing. I later learned that my actions were normal, people who are adopted usually start to latch on to any bit of information they can find," he says. "I yearned to find out more information about my heritage. I started out in the Genealogy department in the library. I learned that when a birth certificate is issued, it is assigned a number and even if everything else changes, the number remains the same. So I looked up my number in the records and found out where I was born. I went to Harlem Hospital to find out more information. They weren't supposed to help me, but they assisted me as much as they could. I found out my birth name was Darryl, so it was cool to know my mother had at least named me."

But McDaniels didn't go on his search alone. He invited a VH-1 camera crew to follow him for a documentary, which aired earlier this year.  According to McDaniels, who has a new CD out (his first solo effort), it wasn't for publicity, but for a purpose. "In certain states the birth records are sealed if you are adopted. This was one of the reasons I decided to have a film crew follow me, while I was searching," he explains. "I was hoping to help get the birth records unsealed for adopted kids in case they want to find their families. There are many reasons why you need your birth history information; the biggest one is medical. You need to know your birth parent’s medical history; but the biggest reason for me searching out my information was the fact that without the information, you just don't know who you are. You can't start a book on chapter 2."

DMC also hired outside help." I hired a private investigator to help me. She was adopted as well, and since she was a private investigator to help other adoptees find their birth families," he explains, "she was able to obtain information quicker than I could on my own. She found out where my birth mother lived and I called her, but it turned out that she wasn't Dominican as I had been informed. I was one of the lucky ones, however, because she was receptive to a reunion and the initial meeting went well, that’s not always the case. You know, it's not just about you finding out who you are, but this whole process changes everything for everyone one involved.

Your adopted parents start to wonder why you want to find them.  They begin to question if your adopted family was good enough.  They wonder if they treated you well. Also, the adopted person brings new issues to the lives of their birth family; issues they might not want to deal with. It is just a lot of stuff--I went into therapy and took the cameras into my therapy sessions with me. My therapist thinks I am crazy, but I recommend therapy to anyone who has been adopted. You need help absorbing it all."

DMC went though with the reunion with his birth mother, and it went well. "I met my birth mother and found out I had two brothers and a sister. One of my brothers wears glasses, and had always been told he looked like DMC from Run DMC," he says almost in awe. "It was great seeing people who looked like me. It's been great getting to know them."

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