“Now we crash through walls, cut through floors
Bust through ceilings and knock down doors”
From “King of Rock” by Run-DMC
So much of who we are and what we do starts with imagination.
Imagination can be as small as thinking about something a bit differently from what is happening in our “real” lives. And that can simply serve the purpose of having a bit of fun – getting us out of our heads for a bit to ponder something interesting. Sometimes we use imagination when consuming things that help us dream such as music or literature. We may even take the next step and turn our imagination into creativity, whereby we translate what is new and different in our minds and make something tangible. If we’re lucky, our imagination and creativity can be part of our careers or personal lives. And every so often our imagination is the beginning of a journey by which we change the world.
And so, it was imagination that fueled Darryl McDaniels’ transformation into the Devastating Mic Controller – DMC of Run-DMC.
We recently spoke with McDaniels for the Hardcore Humanism Podcast and he described how, as a child, he was enthralled with comic books. He explained why he felt comic books were critical to him and other children growing up in New York City in the 60’s and 70’s. “The Bronx was burning,” he told me as he described how the City was marred by “drugs…gangs, pimps, pushers, prostitutes” and despair. “All these little boys or girls, they just had their imaginations,” McDaniels told me. “Every week … you will go to the corner candy store, the corner pharmacy drugstore, and there was a rack that spun. And there was comic books all in that rack — DC and Marvel … The comic books was our release.”
From McDaniels’ perspective, deriving imagination and even our identities from pop culture was part of everyday life. “Everybody from every generation are products of pop culture,” he recalled. “I am The Flintstones. I am I Dream of Jeannie. I am The Brady Bunch. I am a Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny. I am The Munsters. I am The Addams Family. I am Star Trek … We are products of everything that we see on TV.”
But comic books offered something different for McDaniels – a more personal and visceral and direct connection. “Comic books — you held them in your hands … Comic books was yours, whether it was Batman, Superman, or the Marvel superheroes,” he said. “It was a 3D experience. You saw it. You held it. And you read. It was very emotional.”
One of the most powerful aspects of comic books for McDaniels was how it blended imagination and fantasy with real life. Specifically, the fact that Marvel comics were set in New York City facilitated a stronger bond with the stories. “Stan Lee was smart, he puts the superheroes really in New York City. So, when you read a comic book, it felt real. It wasn’t make-believe,” McDaniels explained. “I couldn’t leave the block. But Stan Lee showed me this great city of New York that I lived in but I wasn’t allowed to go visit in person. Through my imagination, I walked out on 42nd Street. I was in Hell’s Kitchen. I was in the Lower East Side.”
Similar to how Marvel comics were set in New York City, depicting the superheroes with very tangible flaws also made them feel more real and more relatable to McDaniels. “Peter Parker was awkward. He was trying to make it through. He didn’t know what to do with girls, you know, obviously, but he was Spider Man,” he described. “Batman he had all of these mental issues that a lot of kids could relate to … We saw ourselves in these characters. Tony Stark was an alcoholic. I remember – I didn’t become an alcoholic till I got older – but I remember the Marvel comic books in the 70s.”
Soon, McDaniels took his imagination and turned it into creativity. While the impetus for his creative process was not particularly glamorous, it was something to which we can all relate. “Boredom — you get the comic book, you read it a million times … All the legendary comic book artists to this day — Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Rob Liefeld … They told me, D, we started the same way. You read the comic book over and over and over and over and over … nowhere else you can go with it,” McDaniels said. “So, I started taking tracing paper and tracing the cover … you’re imitating a motion. After doing that a million times, I realized I don’t need the tracing paper anymore … So, after drawing the same thing over and over and over, you get bored. I love Spider Man, Captain American, I’m gonna make my own guy now.”
And his “own guy,” rather than being a comic book character, was a Hip Hop Persona called the Devastating Mic Controller – DMC. And as he crafted his character, he drew from lessons he learned from comic books, specifically that he needed to not only embrace who he was, but also to emphasize who he wanted to be.
“Stan Lee taught me – define yourself … If kids are teasing you and bullying you or if you’re a professional – I don’t care what it is you’re doing – some reporter writes something bad about you, it doesn’t have to have any effect on you. But I didn’t know that. You know, I used to get teased because I wore glasses … When DMC came rhyming about his glasses being cool, all of a sudden, glasses are cool now, right? People that don’t even need glasses wanna wear glasses cuz of me.” he described. “So, Stan Lee comic books, especially Marvel comic books, taught me to define yourself with an adjective that’s powerful, productive and positive. And you can be that. For instance, if I say to the world, the Amazing, you’ll go ‘Spider Man’… If I say the incredible, you’ll go ‘Hulk.’… So, I saw that I said, ‘Wow, that’s how they do it.’”
Soon, McDaniels began to write his lyrics as if he was telling the story of a comic book hero. And in doing so he became one of the superheroes to whom young kids connected. “I’m in this make-believe world of comic books … so, when I get on the microphone to express myself, I’m no longer mild mannered, Queens Darryl McDaniels, I transform into the Devastating Mic Controller,” McDaniels recalled. “So mentally, through your imagination … you’re able to become that thing … If Darryl McDaniels is connected to Peter Parker, Tony Stark, and Bruce Wayne in a good way … there’s some kids somewhere — I gotta be that next connection.”
And he is indeed. Run-DMC is generally considered one of the greatest Hip Hop groups of all time. They have been the recipients of the Grammy’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2016) as well as inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2009). More, McDaniels launched his own comic book company, Darryl Makes Comics.
And while he has achieved great success and fame, he has found, during the pandemic, that he still continues to turn to his imagination and creativity for comfort, the same way he did as a child. “I’m enjoying the quarantine … The first three days was crazy … you have all this anxiety … Am I gonna die? What’s gonna happen next year? … Your whole existence was in jeopardy, because it was the unknown,” McDaniels explained. “Third day, a calm came over me, because I started to feel like when I was 12 years old, and I was in my room … I was one of those kids that had to be in a house when the streetlights came on … You got to figure out what to do … All you have is your imagination. And I realized that your imagination is the safest place to go when everything out there is going crazy.”
“I just been writing songs – I wrote like 50 songs. Now, not to make records,” McDaniels said. “I was just writing and writing … I had all these new songs and it was like looking in my little rhyme book that I had when I was 15 years old. The purpose wasn’t to make records and sell records to be famous.
“It was just to feel alive and feel good.”
Photo credit: gaisler is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
