Planet Ill: In mythology, the gods have their glory, and then there’s Ragnarok, the end of all that is. And you have your run, and you start noticing your voice is giving out. How does that affect you as a performer and do you think that on a certain level, your voice was your penance for the heights that you were able to achieve?
DMC: No, not at all. Because Obama said you voice isn’t just the way you talk; it’s how you live. So even in my death I was able to give life. You didn’t hear, “Run and D ain’t rhyming no more, D’s voice is gone.” You heard oh I just saw D at school talking to the kids. Or I just saw D in an interview, I just saw D’s documentary. Yo, D just came to the jail. Mommy, some man DMC was at my school. And as opposed to me rapping about what I put on my records, I’m just sitting in a room trying to talk to you the best I can about it.
The DMC-voiced MC was just a setup for what I was really supposed to be doing anyway. Now creatively, the shit was a fucking nightmare. I went to every fucking doctor, who diagnosed me with everything. You don’t just have this condition and that one, and you don’t just have spasmodic dysphomia, you don’t have abductor and adductor or abductor, you got both of these shits. And then you go to another doctor, “I don’t see nothing on the vocal chords.” So it was frustrating. And then when I said fuck it, I didn’t want to do it no more, people were saying, “D you can still do it because people just want to see you.” So you go do the show the best you could, motherfuckers get happy because they singing the lyrics anyway. But now the critics is getting in your ass!
So you’re like what the fuck am I going to do? It’s like a football player that can’t run no more. It’s like the boxer that can’t box no more. Or it’s like the ice skater that can’t skate no more. It was total toal hell and then it’s a bigger hell when at the end of the day, you realize that most people, except for Jay, Eric, Tracy Miller, my wife. About 12 people I can name that loved me for me. But everybody else, “He can’t rap no more? Fuck him.” So then you realize I was just a voice to these motherfuckers, anyway? That hurts even more. That hurts even fucking more to know that damn, this only works because of the voice? That hurts even more.
Planet Ill: So you got Kid Rock on stage performing with Run DMC performing your parts. And you see Run and Russell yucking it up, they got Global Grind going on, and they got they reality TV shows and it’s like, on the outside looking in, it was like fuck him, he can’t rap no more anyway, let’s do what we gotta do.
DMC: Yeah, let’s do what we gotta to, which is fine! Go do everything you want to do. The shit that hurts is you don’t get a “Yo, you aight, D?” You want to rhyme with Kid, go put another DMC on stage! That’s just a human being trying to figure out what they’re fucking going to do. Go do all that shit. The thing that hurts is you realize they only cared about you when you was able to do that one thing. They just trying to figure it out, I’m trying to figure it out, too. They was supposed to be Kid Rock and Run. I’m supposed to have my ass in rehab! That’s my way out of this shit, you know what I’m saying? But what you’re saying is what the world is thinking. I hate when I see the comments, “Fuck Russell.” Nobody is supposed to take care of me. At all. You’re hitting it on the head. Run said on the Biography, “I got tired of carrying D.” Damn! I done carried you through the fucking fire, nigga. He only said that financially.
Planet Ill: Still you not supposed to say that. If that’s your brother you’re not supposed to say that.
DMC: I know.
Planet Ill: Joe Frazier, as much as he hated Ali, ain’t never come out and say, well I was paying his fucking rent.
DMC: Exactly. You’re right. You don’t say that, Joe. It ain’t about carrying me. All you had to do was say I had to move on. But that’s all he could say because he couldn’t in the next words say, “I call D every day. I’mma let D work for my Rev Run company or whatever.” When my shit went, everybody else went too. Except for the 12 people that know who they are. When I went through my rehab and stuff like that, I look at the stuff that they did, I look at what they were doing and I look at what I was doing. That’s all I could look at. The only thing that hurt is realizing that to those people, “Oh D can’t rap no more, fuck him.” That’s what happened.
Planet Ill: Isn’t that disingenuous if you’re a “reverend?”
DMC: Not really, cause at the end of the day, you’re still a human. These motherfuckers ain’t no fucking gods, fuck em all. Ain’t nobody special. You know, some people always react, like I see all these celebrities and there was a time when my son would be like, “Daddy, why don’t you go over there?” I’m like, “Yo, I’mma see that man either in heaven or hell.” Especially now, one of my phrases is stop saying you’re my fan. Cause when you’re saying you’re my fan, you’re implying that I’m better than you. I ain’t better than you, smarter than you. I tell the kids that. You’re my friend who happens to like my music and what I do. But I had to see that to learn to be able to say that.
The only thing that’s fucked up is for people to treat another person like that. You aint gottafuckign pay my bills. I would have been happy because I would have been home watching it. If Run would have went out and did a whole Run DMC with a new Run DMC that’s what happens in this business. The thing that hurts is when you down, loyalty friendship and love is eternal to me. Cause that’s the only thing on this Earth that we can say we have between friends. But all I can say is this: I know the people that really love me don’t love me cause I’m DMC and because I got a voice. They love me because I’m Darryl who just happened to be that DMC dude that did something special.
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