Inside the
Summer Issue:

Home Page

Harry Chapin’s
“Ripple” of Influence
Grows Every Day

Jen Chapin Leads Us
On A Lushly-Written
Journey Into Her Life
In “Ready”

WHY Takes Holistic
Approach to Fight
Hunger & Poverty

DMC’s New Disc
Strikes Many Chords

Hard Rock Café
Serves Up Benefit CD
to Fight Hunger

When Howie Met Harry:
Catching Up With
Drummer Howard Fields

Performing Artist
Inspires Audiences
Through Prose

Celestial Cross-Pollination
Yields a Harry Chapin-
Dante Anthology of
Student Essays

Amish Farmers’ Co-op
Finds Innovation in
Simpler Ways

Still Wild About Harry

Behind the CD “Cause”

Do Something!

Goat Tales

Circle! Calendar

DMC’s New Disc Strikes Many Chords

by Mike Grayeb

It should be no surprise that the music in Darryl “DMC” McDaniels’ new CD Checks, Thugs and Rock ‘N Roll crosses many boundaries.

After all, DMC was a member of the legendary hip hop group “Run DMC,” which broke down the barriers between rock and rap music and brought together generations of fans from diverse cultures with its smash 1986 remake of the Aerosmith song Walk This Way.

But the tracks on this record include some socially-conscious, sometimes dark, and often very personal themes that one might more expect to find in a Harry Chapin album than in a hip-hop disc – finding one’s purpose in life, the deadly price of war, the realities of adoption, and even suicide.

Darryl “DMC” McDaniels performed “Just Like Me” with Jen Chapin at the annual World Hunger Year (WHY) awards ceremony in New York. McDaniels received the 2006 ASCAP Harry Chapin Humanitarian award for his socially-conscious music and work. (AP Photo courtesy of Diane Bondareff).

McDaniels explained how he came up with the title for the CD. “I was looking at what a lot of hip hop is about today – the checks that come from hard work and talent, and the thugs image – that’s all part of the equation – but it’s not everything,” McDaniels said. “Whatever happened to the hip hop album that didn’t talk about the car he’s driving? I wanted to make a record that focuses on the music.”

The CD, which features many special guests, includes a cover of Jimmy Hendrix classic All Along the Watchtower, featuring Josh Todd from the group Buckcherry; Joey Kramer and Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith; and Eliot Easton from The Cars.

McDaniels said he initially had reservations about including a timely version of another Hendrix song -- Machine Gun.

“I didn’t want to be political. I didn’t want the CIA and the feds to be tapping my phones,” he said. “My producer said ‘you don’t have to be political but if you’re going to be socially conscious, you’ve got to be aware of the war. Think about the songs of the ’60s – the Dylan songs. You’re a baby of the war generation.’”

Although McDaniels didn’t know anyone personally who’d lost their life in the war in Iraq, he turned to the feelings he experienced when he lost his longtime friend and bandmate Jason Mizell (known as “Jam Master Jay”), who was murdered in 2002.

“My thing is not about what’s right and wrong in the war – but that people are dying,” he explained. “You can sit here all day and talk about the reasons for the war, but I don’t hear people talking about who’s dying and how we’re going to stop the war.”

To share his feelings of loneliness and his search for a sense of purpose in life, he teamed up with Kid Rock on the track Find My Way, which features a heartfelt nod to his fallen friend Mizell.

One of the most poignant tracks on the CD is McDaniels’ song Just Like Me, a song he recorded with Sarah McLachlan and which features the chorus from Harry’s Cat’s in the Cradle to tell his own personal story of adoption.

“Ten years ago, I was saying to myself, ‘am I just here to be DMC?,’” he explained. “I had suicidal thoughts. I don’t think I would have actually done it, but there was a part of me that was missing and I didn’t know what it was.” It was then that he heard McLachlan’s song Angel on the radio and he said it saved his life.

“Her song said it’s good to be alive. When I met her I told her that it saved my life. She thanked me and told me that’s what music is supposed to do.”

Years later, when McDaniels found out he was adopted, he went through a range of emotions – from hurt to anger. Then, as he reflected on the choices his natural parents made for him, he came to realize the opportunities that twist of fate meant for him – first with Run DMC – and then for something bigger.

When he decided to tell his personal story of adoption through song, McDaniels remembered the three songs from his childhood that stayed with him through his adult life – Elton John’s Bennie and the Jets, The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, and Harry Chapin’s Cat’s in the Cradle.

He contacted McLachlan and asked her to join him on the song and she instantly agreed – and invited him to her home studio in Vancouver, Canada, to record it. “I was thinking I must have really committed suicide because I’m in heaven.”

“After we finished the record, she turned to me and told me that she was adopted too. That’s when I knew I had a purpose and a destiny – much bigger than anything I’d done before.”

Fan reaction to the song has been overwhelming for McDaniels. “It’s so crazy. They tell me they get chills up their backs. They can feel me because it’s like they’re discovering something about themselves – whether they were adopted or not,” he said. “I had one guy in Los Angeles come up to me and he hugged me for five minutes and said thank you for everything. People are touched by this story.”

McDaniels said he has been receiving emails from young kids who were adopted and who tell him the song has helped them learn more about themselves.

View the video for “Just Like Me” at www.me-dmc.com).

His emotional and successful search for his natural mother was the subject of a VH1 television show, which was watched by millions of people. “I just needed to know where it all began. The emotions became overwhelming. I have sessions with the adoption group that show the whole spectrum of what it’s like to go through that journey – the anger, the shame, the guilt,” he recalled.

McDaniels is putting his music where his mouth is – helping others in more ways than one.

Inside the booklet of his Checks, Thugs, and Rock ‘N Roll CD, fans will find a page full of information about WHY’s (World Hunger Year’s) Artists Against Hunger & Poverty program, of which McDaniels is a dedicated member who helps to raise funds and awareness for the cause. He also donated the use of the track Just Like Me for WHY’s new benefit CD with the Hard Rock CafŽ, called Serve.

McDaniels has also performed that song (and joined in for a chorus of “Circle”) at recent Harry Chapin tribute concerts, which were benefits for WHY.

And McDaniels’ work to help others doesn’t stop when the music does.

He works with the New York Foundling on behalf of adopted children everywhere. He has served as Ambassador for DKMS (the largest private bone marrow donor foundation in the world) and helped raise funds for the fight against leukemia. He has even rolled up his sleeves and led the Timberland Community Builders tour to improve the surroundings of kids in communities around the country.

Last month, DMC was presented with the 2006 ASCAP Harry Chapin Humanitarian Award for embodying the spirit and legacy of Chapin through his socially-conscious music and humanitarian actions.

Sandy Chapin with Zuri McDaniels (wife of Darryl “DMC” McDaniels) join in during the audience participation of DMC’s live performance of Just Like Me at the 2006 WHY-Chapin Awards dinner. McDaniels was awarded the ASCAP Harry Chapin Humanitarian award for his support of WHY’s Artist Against Hunger & Poverty program as well as his other efforts to help people in need.

Watch for the Next Issue of Circle! on September 7