DMC On New Rock Single/Video Collaborations, Rock Hall Of Fame, Adoption and Much More

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Darryl Mc Daniels (a.k.a DMC of Run-DMC) continues to keep one Addidas shoe in molten hard rock and one in the hip-hop street.  Decades after breaking down the rap/rock barrier with songs like “King Of Rock” and the Aerosmith collaboration “Walk This Way”,  DMC’s new collaboration with longtime Static X frontman Wayne Static has just been released on iTunes (video below) and there’s more to come.  I had the pleasure of talking with DMC about his past, his new collaborations and a whole lot more; read on…..

Legendary Rock Interviews:  Thanks for talking with me Darryl.  I am a longtime fan of your music dating back to first discovering Run-DMC as a whitebread 80s kid and I am excited to hear about your new rock collaborations and the new single with Static X frontman Wayne Static but I wanted to start by asking you about your book.  I picked up your first autobio “King of Rock” years ago and was blown away but I hear you are thinking of releasing another book, is that true?

Darryl McDaniels:  I am, mostly because there are so many people who heard about my adoption story and that whole chapter of my life.  There’s that whole part of my life that wasn’t included in the book because I found out about it all after I wrote the book.  I thought my life began in Hollis, Queens but obviously it didn’t.  Then there’s all sorts of other questions people have like “Yo, how come we don’t see you on Run’s House” Run’s TV show and are all like, “Where you at, where you be at?” and they haven’t seen me and have all these questions about me and the group, especially after Jay (Jammaster Jay) passed away.  There’s just so much that wasn’t in the first book and so much that has happened since.  I even had a girl who came up to me crying and I asked her, “Why are you crying?” and she said “I knew Jay passed away but I thought you were dead too!” (laughs).  I was like “Oh my god, I need to just put out a new book” between just my being away for a while and all of the questions people people have about me finding out after all this time that I was adopted.

LRI:  A lot of people don’t deal with finding out about being adopted that well after living a whole life assuming your story is your story.  Were there times that it really messed with you?

DMC:  Well, I went through the whole alcohol/suicide thing (laughs).  It definitely can wreck you emotionally, spiritually and physically for a while but then , for me at least, everything started to make sense.  Put it to you like this, there was a different reason for me to become the “King Of Rock” than just to become the “King Of Rock”.  At the point that I found out I was adopted, after the dust settled, everything started to make sense.  I look at it like this, as opposed to just being DMC of Run-DMC and all the stuff that we did, as opposed to that story, if my mother wouldn’t have unfortunately did what she did and given me up for adoption, I would have never gotten out of Harlem, I would have never have came to Hollis, I would have never met Run and Jay, hip-hop still would have happened but it was destined for this little foster kid who was adopted to be that third dude  in that particular group for that part of music history.  So, I look at hip-hop as this thing where, I’m not political, I’m not of the Democratic party or the Republican party but I’m of the hip-hop party.  I was adopted by the hip-hop party and just to represent that as my foundation and my presentation meant that I represent all of those youth in the street.  When Afrika Bimbaataa coined the word hip-hop and Melle Mel wrote “The Message” and the breakdancers was breakin’ and the graffiti writers were writing and the MC’s were emceeing and the Deejay’s was DJ’ing and our fashion state was stating this was a CULTURE and a consciousness that was destined to change the world and there was a purpose and destiny for that little foster care boy in that culture just like finding out at 35 that I was adopted meant that there was another purpose and culture that I represented for all of those other foster and adopted boys and girls, regardless of their age or race or what their situation is, adopted, fostered, homeless, you only live with your mother, your father’s in jail or your only being raised by your father and you don’t know your mother or you have no parents and you were raised by your Aunt or you came from an orphanage, the fact that you’re HERE, the fact that you’re on the face of the earth PROVES that you were put here to do something that you may not be able to even comprehend.  When I realized that was when it all made sense, even though personally you’re still like “Why was I given up” and “Why didn’t she want me?” and all that, even though its irrelevant, it’s my right to wanna know or NOT to wanna know my story.  Like a lot of my adopted friends are like “I don’t WANNA know” but I look at as another chapter, regardless of what happened later down the line, my story began with my birth mother.

LRI:  From there, life just happens.

DMC:  Exactly.  Life happens but without my birth mother and my birth father there would be no Darryl and there would be no DMC without Darryl.  Whether what happened next was fortunate or unfortunate, regardless of what it was, it happened.  I was lucky enough to be given up for adoption but even if she had left me in the back of a cab I would have still went to look for her when I found out because I had to look and see where the Darryl story began, you know what I mean?  To make a long story short, it really did start making sense to me to the point where even my therapist noticed, she said to me, “Don’t you see that in 1986 when you said that little freestyle on “Raising Hell” you weren’t braggin about your gold chains and your cadillacs and bein number 1 and havin the hottest album you said “Son of Byford, brother of Al, Bannah’s my mamma and Run’s, my pal, It’s McDaniels, not McDonald’s, These rhymes are Darryl’s, those burgers are RONALD’S, I ran down, my family tree, My mother, my father, my brother and D”.  She said “that was you, as the king, proclaiming your legacy and your heritage” and I did that rhyme not even knowing I was adopted or a foster kid so I had to go through all of this Run-DMC stuff to find out after I was “kinged” the King Of Rock that I was adopted  and all of this so I could go back and do all this work that I was supposed to be doing in the first place.

LRI:  There’s also the little matter of Run-DMC being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame which would be another chapter in the book.  I know from having had the privilege of seeing you guys while Jammaster Jay was alive, just how musical Jay was.  He played the drums and all kinds of musical instruments and I have to imagine the Rock Hall of Fame would have been a GREAT honor to Jay…is that fair to say?

DMC:  Oh yeah.  That’s definitely the truth, Jay was all about the music to the day he died.

LRI:  Is the senselessness of Jay’s death still something you have to face on a regular basis?  Jay was not a violent guy and Run-DMC was not a violent group….

DMC:  People always ask me about it.  Especially when I go to jails or schools or group homes, they’ll say “Run-DMC never glorified violence but Jason got shot, what do you have to say about that Mr. DMC?” and I say that the very thing that Jason made it AWAY from and came back to his own neighborhood to deliver other people from is the very thing that killed him.  I’m not really mad at the dude that pulled the trigger, I’m mad at the consciousness that would make that dude pull that trigger.  Jason could have had a studio in L.A. down the block from Dr. Dre’s studio.  Jay could have had his studio there and not in Hollis, five minutes from where he grew up.  He could have had his studio in Manhattan two or three blocks from Diddy’s studio but Jay was like “Here’s where I’m at, here’s where I came from, ya’ll can do it too” and Jay’s whole thing was also “You don’t have to be the rapper!  You don’t have to be the DJ because I need managers, I need engineers, I need accountants, I need laywers”.   Jason saw the BIGGER picture.  When I go to visit kids from kindergarten to college, I tell them ALL that hip-hop didn’t just create rappers, it created doctors, lawyers, journalists such as yourself, designers, CEOs, etcetera, etcetera.  Jay understood that and that was his whole thing.  I remember when Jason said this, he said, “Me and Run, we just wanted to be the dopest MC and the dopest DJ so we could be on the level of the Treacherous Three or Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five” but once we started having success Jay always saw the artistic integrity of everything.  They would always ask us if we thought hip-hop was big or saw it getting big and Jay said the simplest, coolest thing ever, he said “Yo, it was so big to me as a young kid growing up in Hollis how could it not be big to anyone else’s ears when they hear it” such as what you were telling me, the same thing that you felt when you heard us or the Beasties or P.E. or L.L. Cool J growing up, all that golden era stuff you heard growing up, imagine how I felt or Jay felt when we first heard Grandmaster Flash or Treacherous Three or when I heard Afrika and Zulu Nation  even BEFORE they made “Planet Rock”, back when they were rockin over cassette tapes on boomboxes over breakbeats.  That feeling of newness and all of that feeling that this was me was the same thing that Jay was determined to not lose in our presentation of hip-hop.  The simple thing that Run-DMC did and I’ve said this before, I said it in “My ADDIDAS”  when I said “we took the beat from the street and put it on TV”.  That’s all we did.  It existed already and I tell people every day if the music business ended tomorrow it would probably be better for rap, it would be better for hip-hop because it was here before we was making records ANYWAY!!

LRI:  Elvis and The Beatles might have made huge impact in rock and roll but they had predecessors and influences…

DMC:  Of course, they all did and we all did too, that’s what MADE us wanna do what we did and if you talk to Clapton or Keith Richards or any of the rock and roll guys they’ll tell you about Chuck Berry and Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters and all of the blues artists that influenced them just like we’ll tell you about Flash and Cold Crush Four and Treacherous Three.  When Run-DMC came along, who did we influence?  Everybody who came after us, Public Enemy, EPMD, L.L. Cool J, they’ll all tell you “Yeah, we saw Run and them” but the thing about it was yeah they saw us but they still saw what they could do and continue pushing it to the forefront, the thing about hip-hop now is it’s better in the underground.

LRI:  When I am forced to hear most of today’s hip-hop I turn into the old guy talking about how much better it was in 1985 (laughs)

DMC:  The thing is, it’s NOT because you’re old because the people who did it at its highest level were young people doing it in a highly evolved state.  Kids will say to me “Mr. DMC, everything that you always say in your interviews is because you’re 48 years old now, you’re experienced and wiser and more intelligent” and I’ll say “That’s true my young brother but everything I’m saying is what I’ve been saying on record since I was 16 years old”.  You see, that’s the difference.  The powers that be weren’t just looking at us and saying “Wow, they’ve got number one records and sold out tours”.  The powers that be were saying “Do you hear and see what these young people are doing, listen to these lyrics, listen to this sound, do you see how they present it and speak it?”  It was clean and respectful, it wasn’t downgraded and below an acceptable level of civilization or unintelligent.  The world was like “Do you hear and see what these young people are onto??”  and it was good; that’s why it was powerful.  The reason why you feel the way you feel about hip hop today is because there are cats who are in the game today who are 21-50 years old sounding, acting and dressing ignorant.  They are presenting themselves as ignorant young fools.  There’s a difference between being an educated young player who is dope with your hip-hop presentation but the good news is that there are kids looking at these 21-50 year old ignorant cats and saying “I don’t have to listen to these fools, these fools SUCK” because they DO.  These ignorant 21-50 year old rappers having success gives our young people an excuse  to be ignorant and lacking in their presentation and their personalities, lacking the way Melle Mel and DMC and KRS-One did it.  If you think hip-hop sucks, that’s WHY!!!

LRI:  I can listen to Nas or Kool Keith but that’s certainly not top 40 hip-hop nowadays, that’s not what kids are gravitating towards….

DMC:  But the reason you can isn’t because you’re old, it’s because you’re still YOUNG don’t get it twisted.  You’re still young and you still understand and you can’t tolerate the ignorant, you don’t have the capacity to deal with nonsense.

LRI:  To be fair there’s not a lot of young rock bands that have any type of consciousness that are popular so maybe it’s a general dumbing down.  There’s no social conscious like the Doors or Neil Young originally had in the 60s or risk taking like Faith No More or Anthrax had in the late 80s

DMC:  or even like Rage Against The Machine or Nirvana did in the 90s, right…I listen to RAGE every day….every day.

LRI:  Rock and roll and rap were both rebellious and should by nature at least shake up the system a little bit not contribute to corporate radio formatting.  Even if it’s offensive, rock or rap it’s still supposed to have some substance other than just meeting a bottom line or being easily categorized….

DMC:  Exactly.  Right.  It’s not about being  “an old guy”… it’s that you recognize that it’s all about being creative, music is all about being an artform.  The creativity is missing from all the music and don’t get me wrong, I understand that you can never critique another person’s creativity but you know and I know that bad is bad and wack is wack (laughs).  When Run-DMC started having success I think it came along because we had a sincere, innocent respect for the artform.  All we wanted to do was be the best DJ and best MC’s that somebody could come see and I believe that we accomplished that which was really our own main desire.

LRI:  A lot of people mistakenly think that you guys incorporated the hard rock riffs and beats to cross over to the mainstream but the reality is that wasn’t the case at all, it was purely musical decisions.

DMC:  Nope, you’re right and I’ve said that over and over.

LRI:  Again, back to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Jammaster Jay sort of being the band or the musical backline to you and Run’s rhymes.  Do you think Jay would have been proud to have been inducted?

DMC:  He would have been, here’s the thing Jason was the DJ but that would have been a compliment to his desire to be musical, that’s all.  Here’s the thing, let me state this again because like I said I gotta say this every time, “Walk This Way” wasn’t the first Rap/Rock record!!  It just did a lot for us and did a lot for the genre and it hit MTV at a peak time and because it was some rappers with some established, official rock stars it made a big difference but “Walk This Way” was by no means the first rap/rock record.  The first rap/rock record was our song “Rock Box” which was also the first rap video to be played on MTV so we were already doing it well before “Walk This Way”, then there was “King Of Rock” where we had the BALLS (laughs) to say “Look, we’re the KINGS of rock” and we go into the museum and pull the plug on Elvis (laughs).   The real reason why we used rock riffs wasn’t to cross over it was because before rap records were ever made, the DJ’s used to have to find great beats for the MC’s to run their mouths over.  We rapped over a lot of James Brown because there was always a lot of funky drummer breaks, we rapped over a lot of disco records like “Good Times” by Chic which became “Rapper’s Delight” was a disco record with a bassline break so the MC’s were like “Ok Flash, ok Jay keep that goin so I can say my rhyme”.  We rapped over a lot of funk records, we rapped over a lot of jazz records, Bob James which was the sample on “Peter Piper” was a breakbeat that was in the crate of records, Bimbaataa used it, Grand Wizard Theodore used it, Jay used it, all the Dj’s used it.  This was before rappers were even going into studios to make records, back when they were just DJ’ing for MC’s at parties, all those records were in the crates but in those same crates were also rock records with big breaks like our record “Here We Go” was Billy Squier’s “Big Beat”.  Billy Squier is a rock artist but he has one of the top 5 breakbeats of ALL-TIME with “Big Beat” (starts singing and imitating the Billy Squier version).  If you let that track play, the guitars come in so when we started making records in the studio we said “Yo, what isn’t anybody doing or using?” and obviously nobody was using rock guitars and rock beats so we said “Well, let’s do that then”  just to do something different, that was all.  It wasn’t to get white people to like us (laughs), it wasn’t to get on MTV, it wasn’t to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or to get accepted by the rock community, the reason we rapped over rock was cause rock was dope.

LRI:  When I interviewed the Aerosmith guys they told me that the reaction the crowd gave when you came onstage with them last year to do “Walk This Way” was amazing and so much fun.

DMC:  Well, it works both ways, I can tell you that.  You know what the funny thing is about “Walk This Way” is that when we first put it out, originally they weren’t going to release it as a single because we didn’t want em to, we wanted “Peter Piper” and “My Addidas” to be the single, that’s the obvious MC/DJ thing but it was funny when they released “Walk This Way” they released it to rock radio and then they released it to urban radio.  The thing was, when they released it to rock radio and they played it in Aerosmith’s hometown of Boston it was 80/20 with 80% of the rock audience saying “Man, I kind of like that, can you play it again and then there was that faithful 20% who were like “This is blasphemy! Who are these guys? This is disrespectful, don’t ever play it again!”.  Still the 80/20 factor at rock radio was ultimately what gave it life, even though really, all in all, it’s ALL rock and roll.

LRI:  Run-DMC also understood the overall presentation of things right down to the group’s iconic logo, which some rock bands like KISS and Aerosmith also got but other’s just didn’t.  Do you remember arriving at that famous logo?

DMC:  I created it.  We needed a logo to put on our first T-shirt. I wanted it to be a representation of the sound but also it was simple.  It’s a simple logo but simple is almost always better.   I remember we were sitting in a car in San Fransisco and Jay and Run didn’t like to draw so they were like “D, come up with it” and I remember at first it was “Run-DMC” with the bars over it length-wise and I kept looking at it like “Man, that looks to long” and I was always really into comic books so I said “Let me make it look like something that would go on the chest of a superhero”.  My whole thing was superheroes and comic books.  So I was like “Lemme just…oh wow, that’ll work”.  I was kind of thinking of like “Iron Man” or “Superman” that kind of thing, something that could be centered on the body or on the chest of the T-shirt.  Even with the name Jammaster Jay, originally he was gonna be Jazzy Jay and I was like “No, you can’t be Jazzy J, first of all there already is a Jazzy Jay” and one of the rules of hip-hop is you cannot be a biter (laughs).  You cannot be a copycat so I was like “He’s gonna be the Jammaster cause the jam is two things….the jam is the party as in “Yo, that jam last night was dope” and the jam is the also the record, like “Man, play that jam you played last week” so as “Jammaster Jay” he was the master of it ALL.  Even with the name, when Russell (Def-Jam mogul Russell Simmons) said “Yo, you guys are gonna be Run-DMC”, even though it sounds good NOW, when he first said that name it was the worst thing me and Run had ever heard, ever, ever (laughs).  You gotta remember, we wanted to by the “Dynamic Two” or “The Towering Two” or the “Powerful Two” or whatever, that was the thing.  It sounds normal or cool now but I’m telling you when our manager was telling us “He’s Run and you’re DMC so that’s what you’re gonna be” me and Run was CRYIN.    But as for the logo,  my thinking was that,  I was into the comic book thing but I didn’t wanna do something that was too cartoonish, something people would get tired of, and it had to be simple but I still wanted it to be something that was BOLD.

LRI:  It’s decades later but the logo and variations of it or riffs on it appear seemingly everywhere on t-shirts, Facebook whatever….are you getting ripped off on some of that?

DMC:  We do licensing deals for the logo but the thing is that the logo is so widely used that there was even political and Obama shirts (laughs) that had it.  Everytime I go on Twitter or YouTube, everybody’s got some variation of it (laughs) but at the same time, it’s a testament to the popularity of the group.  The massive use or the popularity or familiarity of that logo by people, I don’t even wanna call em bootleggers, people just wanna use something that pops and is great and actually, actually it’s free advertising for us.

LRI:  I’d say it is about as widely recognized as the AC/DC or KISS logo.

DMC:  Exactly and let me ask you, when you see somebody use that logo or repurpose it what’s the first thing that pops into your head?  You think “That’s Run-DMC” so that keeps us from dying, it actually keeps us alive forever.  Even somebody who HATES us, when they see somebody who uses our logo the first thing they say is “Oh, that’s that Run-DMC logo” so technically it’s really not bad publicity and a lot of the people who really use it don’t even sell it, that’s what I’m trying to say.  On the occasions that we actually see some people bootlegging or sellin the Run-DMC logo we gotta do what we gotta do to keep that in check but a lot of times its just somebody putting their name in the bars on Twitter or something (laughs).

LRI:  You and Run still do gigs together occasionally but there’s been much written about you and his differences in recent years some people saying it was personal and lots of reports that it was really all musical differences with Run wanting to stick to the formula and you wanting to push in different areas.  Is that the case?

DMC:  It’s all musical, it’s all musical.  The problem is, you can’t have one person in the band grow and the other person who you’ve kept in the shell, you know?

LRI:  The Beastie Boys grew and evolved

DMC:  I wanted to do like the Beasties did.  I mean, they did, MCA… rest in peace but they could grow and evolve and still come to New York and sell out the Garden two nights in a row.  They weren’t just playing “License to Ill”, you see the thing is, Run just wanted to stick to the playbook but for me, from the very beginning there WAS no playbook.  I wasn’t thinking about how the radio would react or how could I get on the radio, I wasn’t thinking about how I could get people to buy my albums, I was thinking about how we could be ourselves but be creative and innovative and dope when it came time to put out a new record.  You know you don’t wanna sound dated but you still wanna sound like YOU.   The perfect example is our album from 1993 “Down With the King”, when you listen to “Down With The King” you realize that Pete Rock actually saved our careers because when you listen to that album you realize what Pete really did was let us evolve but still be us cause it still sounds like us.  I mean, the record that Naughty By Nature produced for us, sounds like Naughty By Nature, the record that Q-Tip produced for us, sounds like Tribe Called Quest, the record that EPMD produced for us sounds like EPMD but the record that Pete Rock did for us ,“Down With The King” sounds like a Run-DMC record from 1993, which it WAS because when we walked into his basement he said “Ok, I’m gonna take this beat, I’m gonna take “Run’s House” where DMC says “down with the king” and I’m gonna scratch that with the chorus and all you and Run gotta do is come in and put a verse down, I don’t need no ghost writers for you, I don’t need no A&R from the label in here with you, whatever you feel like saying is all I need”.  It worked because if you listen to that record, even though it’s 1993 and the music was so new I was still using my “Run’s House” flow on it.  If you remember my rhymes on “Run’s House” I was using the echo, “My name is DMC, the all-time great (great) I bust the most rhymes (rhymes) in New York State (state) and when I went in to do that record Pete said “D, when you go in the booth don’t try and sound like KRS-One or anybody else cause nobody flows better than you, just sound like DMC” so that’s all I had to do when I went in there (laughs).  We did other records where we did those other things but people didn’t really like those records but “Down With The King” took what we did and updated it to the new generation and busted everybody upside their head.  Pete understood what we already really knew which is that your sound has to go with your attitude and our attitude was that we were the kings of rock so even if it sounds modern and new,if it’s Run-DMC so it’s gotta have loud kick drums and loud guitars.

LRI:  So, in a sense, at that point, that’s one musical area where you and Run actually agreed??

DMC:  Yeah, exactly but what it was, the bottom line is, we got older.  That’s the bottom line.  At this point, when Run-DMC performs it’s mostly at festivals where I’m taking the gigs because I wanna see Pearljam (laughs).  So, if you wanna pay me to come see some of my favorite bands I’m gonna do it.  I did another festival cause I wanted to see De La Soul (laughs).  When I get offered Run-DMC shows, my question is this….”Who’s on the bill?”(laughs).

LRI:  It’s more a question of what else you can do with your day after you’re offstage (laughs).

DMC:  Exactly!  Because I need to always be enthused and inspired by some real shit (laughs).

LRI:  When you do shows as DMC does it bother you or annoy you to perform the old stuff you and Run did?

DMC:  No, because really it’s just me givin the lines to the people cause they wanna do em (laughs).  My DJ takes all of Run’s parts and I just do em with him because that’s what the people want. Even Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones get it, “Motherfuckers wanna hear the hits, they don’t give a fuck about our new shit, even you do, they just wanna sing “It’s Tricky” with you” (laughs).

LRI:  I give a shit about new music from my artists but I know what you mean.  On that note, what is goin on with all of the collaborations you’ve been doing?

DMC:  I have been so inspired and so enthused by all the cats I’ve worked with.  I’ve worked on new stuff with everyone from Travis Barker  of Blink 182 and Sebastian Bach to Mick Mars of Motley Crue and Chuck D from Public Enemy.  I worked with the guys from Sublime, Vernon Reid of Living Colour and I have a new single with Wayne Static of Static X and it’s sick.  It’s real political, it’s called “Noise Revolution” because I believe that every revolution starts with the art, with literature, with poetry, with sculptures, with cartoons with music.  With taking the music out of the school and taking the programs out of the neighborhood I think it’s doing a major disservice to our youth.  We could use that creativity to build up the character within them that these kids need whether it’s rapping or playing instruments or art or spoken word or ballet, whatever it is, when you’re getting rid of the arts you’re getting rid of the character and we need the arts just as much as we need the sports but it seems like they’re not getting rid of the sports or education programs like they are the music and the arts .

LRI:  I saw an interview where you were wearing a Doors shirt.  I’m a huge Doors fan and have the same shirt, are people who know you as a rapper surprised when they see your collection of rock shirts ? (laughs). 

DMC:  All I do is rock.  All I listen to is rock.  People always ask me what MC’s I’m down with and I tell them I don’t listen to no hip-hop, I listen to rock.  I have to.  I wanna work with Robbie Krieger and John Densmore of the Doors, I have to because musically I’m just getting started.  The whole first half of my career wasn’t full song concepts and delivery, I’m just getting started.  Back in the day, I would be like Mike Tyson and knock you out quick with four bars and a freestyle rhyme and now I’m coming up with full songs and real music.  I’m listening to and living and eating, sleeping and breathing rock and roll, that’s ALL I do and all I want to do.  I’m in that zone creatively with all the rock guys I love and I’m inspired by them not to BE them but to be on the same block as them creatively.  I never really thought of myself as that political but me and Wayne from Static X made this song and it’s totally political when I say “Things that Obama did, there’s room for improvement, bailing out executives while schools are getting ruined” or “Hey Mr. President what the hell you doin?  Hate to bust your bubble but a trouble is a brewin”.  It’s crazy and I think what’s really special about this song and this album isn’t just what I’m talking about but also just that I’m working with real musicians and making real rock music that moves me.  Like you said, what you hear in your car as far as hip-hop isn’t movin you because to this generation of hip-hop  it’s not about the music, the music’s not important anymore, being a clothes mogul or a business mogul is what’s important.

LRI:  Thanks again for talking with me, I look forward to more of your rock stuff.  On a positive note, do you still see the true hip-hop outside the mainstream?

DMC:  I do, I do.  It’s still there in the underground and it’s not in danger, it’s right where it needs to be and there are still true MC’s who still live, eat, sleep and breathe music just the same way I do.  True hip-hop is the same spirit as rock and as we all know rock will never die, it just goes underground (laughs).

Follow DMC on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/THEKINGDMC

For all things DMC visit http://www.me-dmc.com/

 

Tags: Blink 182, Darryl McDaniels, Def Jam, DMC, full-image, mick Mars, Run-DMC, Russell Simmons, Sebastian Bach, slayer, Wayne Static

Category: Interviews