Known for his work as a part of the legendary hip-hop group Run D.M.C, Darryl McDaniels, better known as D.M.C, was in town for an exclusive show at the Hard Rock Cafe. adidas Originals gave us the opportunity to sit down with him for a quick talk about his new album and where he’s headed, the misconceptions about hip-hop, as well as shared with us a little history of Run D.M.C.

With the success you’ve had with Run DMC, would you say that you’ve lived out your childhood dreams?

No, in fact I’m just getting started! In fact you think the first 25 years of my life was incredible creatively, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

So what’s next for DMC then?

Well I hope to put out a new album – Origins of Block Music, it’s the second solo album, hopefully it’ll be out in April. I also wanna start directing films. I’m a big film guy. But right now, I’m really excited about the new record.

What kind of films are you talking about?

Like Gladiator, pulp fiction – not science fiction or horror, but more spiritual and scary. Like Asian horror films – America is always making remakes of Asian horror films cause they can’t think of stuff like that themselves, I really want to get into directing.

Your new album is titled The Origins of Block Music. Why did you call it that?

When you say hip-hop now, especially in the states, there are images of thugs and bitches and hoes and gangstas flashing across the mind. You know you used to say hip-hop and think of a college kid, but right now they have this stereotypical image of what hip-hop is about. The reason why I called it Origins of Block Music is because before it was labeled hip-hop and before it became this business, all that talent was coming out of the blocks of every hood and every street globally. But now the record companies can just say “hey get that kid over there, dress him up, get him a producer, get him a ghostrider”. So I’m trying to destroy the “un-creativeness” of hip-hop.

I don’t want to sound stereotypical, but the main intent of creating a hip-hop song, or an artwork, or a piece of clothing, or anything creatively is to have a purpose. So you’ve got guys in hip-hop on their sixth or seventh album still rapping about the same things that they were rapping about on their first album. We always get those young kids saying “Yo DMC but you guys on the old school are materialistic too” and I say yeah we were, if we rapped about a car yeah we rapped about a car, but we only rapped about it once and you never heard about it again. Hip-hop is always supposed to give these kids a ‘what’s next’. Ok so you sold drugs, went to jail and now what? New album comes out, he’s still selling drugs cause he went to jail.

So what I’m trying to get away from is that we as a community have got to stop praising these dudes. My thing is that hip-hop was created to go against these dudes. Back in the day you could talk about your drugs and your gangbanging, but then you got to have a ‘what’s next’. If you came back next week talking about that like it was a good thing, the young dudes and the old dudes will be like motherfucker you ain’t coming into this park with that shit. That’s what it used to be. But now America’s like “wow, former crack dealer is a big rap star since he can generate business for us, he can sell liquor, sell sneakers and do movies, just let him in and play”. I’m trying to pull these motherfuckers out and kick Corporate America out, so that there can be a focus.I just don’t want the older generation to get a misconception about what hip-hop really is. All the talent and creativity is coming from the streets. But Hollywood is able to say “Oh we can take this guy from Harvard, dress him up, put his hat to the side and give him a role.” And that’s true, you can do that. Cause that’s show business. But now that you do that, that guy that was playing that role has a responsibility to say “yeah, guns exist but you shouldn’t use ‘em” or “yeah I was a drug dealer but don’t follow me and be a drug dealer; take your ass to school”, and that’s not happening now.

Why has adidas always been synonymous with hip-hop?

Cause it’s easier. Their product was more available and easier to find, and it was simple. Simple always works better. Pumas were cool – Pumas was a big part of hip-hop. Before rap records were made, when you see a flyer of flash in the Bronx , he had on. But the problem with Pumas was the suede – after two weeks, they were done for. These right here (points to a pair of adidas Originals superstars), all you needed was a toothbrush and you could wear those shits invincible. Adidas was so easy to manage. You could wear your blue adidas, just find a blue t-shirt and a blue Kangol to go with it and you’re out the door. Same thing with the Pumas but you can still wear the superstars three months from now; can’t say the same with the Pumas. Adidas was simple, easy, convenient and dependable.

You talked about rapping for a purpose. You guys did a song called “My Adidas”…

Dr Dees. He was a prominent person in the community. He would write editorials – teenage pregnancy…drugs in the hood…so then one day he wrote this thing called Felon shoes, because he was like “if you see the dudes with the shell toe adidas shoes with no laces and Kangols, gazelles and gold chains, that’s the problem with our community”. So we were like “what the fuck are you talking about? How can you say that? I don’t sell no drugs, I go to Saint John’s mother fucker”. So we had no way of getting to Dr Dees. Now Russell Simmons, he originally came up with the idea and said “yo make a record about your sneakers”, me and Run were like “yeah”. Cause we could have just made a record like “ I’m DMC, I’ve got a hundred pairs….”, but to get at Dr Dees, I said “ok yeah I’ve got adidas, and I’m on a corner, but I don’t live on this corner, my adidas are in Saint John’s with me, and now we’re going around the world. That was in ’86. We did Live Aid, stepped on stage at Live Aid, so we were saying don’t stereotype us. The adidas record gave us the chance to address the stereotypical image of the youth of our community.

So you did that cause you guys felt you had a voice and wanted to use it?

People are always saying we had a social and political conscience by listening to our records, but we didn’t do that on purpose. Like how gangsters rapped about their drugs, I just rapped “I’m DMC in the place to be, I went to Saint John’s University. Since kindergarten I acquired the knowledge, and after twelfth grade I went straight to college”. I just rapped it because it was sincere, and it was real. The kids in my hood were going “how the hell can you rap and you go to school?”. That’s their perception. And I’m like “motherfucker not only do I go to school but I’m a straight A student”. So three of those kids were like “you mean I don’t have to sell drugs and carry a gun and act like a fool to be hip-hop?”. No you don’t. Two of those kids said “fuck that shit” and went back to their corner but they probably wound up in jail the next day. But we just did it because it existed.

The first record that Run DMC put out was “It’s like that, and that’s the way it is”. It was kind of Planet Rock and a message together. Because after the message came out every rap record was about life in the ghetto, and growing up in the ghetto. That shit gets depressing. But these were true conditions. Broken glass remember? But that was just because the message was successful. So that tells you the mentality of the record labels. The message was out, but Planet Rock was out. Afrika Bambaataa founded the Savage Seven, which was one of the biggest street gangs in New York. But when they got the chance to make a record, they didn’t talk about the gang fights, they didn’t talk about all the money they were making off selling cocaine and weed, they envisioned a place. It was good. I mean I lived in Queens, the suburbs. I had a backyard, and a dog running around. Bambaataa didn’t have shit in the South Bronx. But Bambaataa sat down and wrote this record, so that made us know that when we do our presentation, we can’t just be pessimistic, but it should be what it is. Okay so there’s guys shooting guns but there’s also guys going to school. There are bitches and hoes but there’s also Mrs McGillacuty. So we knew to make our records as the complete balance of what hip-hop is. Because it existed.

The reason why our fashion was the way it is was because when we were 8,9 or 10 years old, there were kids who were 15 and 16 wearing adidas with no laces.

Speaking of which, why the whole adidas with no laces and tongue out thing?

The reason why that happened was that when we started getting money to get adidas, we would walk into the stores with the old ones on, take the old ones off, throw ‘em into the box, and put the new ones on, and there was no time to lace ‘em up. So we’d just go out and we started noticing that they don’t fall off. We were just so eager to wear ‘em. We didn’t want to sit in the store and lace up the sneakers. We were buying so many adidas sneakers cause money was coming in, and we would run on stage with adidas on, and then we’d realize that they were staying on our feet. That was the reason why it happened.

That actually ties in with the question you just asked. Everything we did already existed.

So what kind of music does your son listen to now?

My son is good; you know what I like about my son? He likes KISS and Johnny Cash. Because of video games – Grand Theft Auto, Art of War 2 and all these games, and they have this music in them. So several years ago, I came home one day, and he’s playing a video game, listening to the music and goes “Daddy who is this?”. And I tell him its Johnny Cash, and he was like “I like this”. I’m like “little black hip-hop kid likes Johnny Cash”. So he asks me to get him a Johnny Cash album, so I go out and get Johhny Cash’s Greatest Hits and he learns all the songs. Then I come home one day, and my son asks “Daddy, can I meet him?” and I go “Oh yo he died”. And my son actually got teary eyed, you should’ve seen it. I come home again, and he’s sitting there listening to KISS. So next time KISS goes on tour, I got to take him to that. But he listens to that, and he thinks the rock songs of the 70s and 80s are great, and he always asks me why can’t groups today sing like them. Same thing with hip-hop. He listens to Lil’ Wayne, and he really likes the Beastie Boys. He prefers Lil’ Wayne to Jay-Z.

What’s your favorite pair of adidas sneakers?

My favorites aren’t even the shell toes. I like the pro models. Got to be high tops.

Photography by Juffrie Friday