Long before he rapped about his signature glasses, Darryl McDaniels (THEKINGDMC) got called 'four-eyes' and 'binoculars' by bullies as a kid. He mined that experience to teach kids about self-acceptance in his new children's book, 'Darryl's Dream.”
Back in 2007, MTV named Run-DMC the greatest hip-hop group of all time — butMcDaniels recently published his first children's book, “.” The book stars a third-grader named Darryl. He's a poet and the kids at school bully him because he wants to sign up for the talent show. He's got chunky glasses — reminiscent of McDaniels’ signature look.
McDaniels says he remembers all of these “knuckleheads” who made him feel worthless to this day. At home, McDaniels had a good life with his loving parents who didn’t tell him he was adopted until he was 35.When Run-DMC first introduced themselves to the world, McDaniels declared “I'm D.M.C. in the place to be / I go to St. John's University / And since kindergarten I acquired the knowledge / And after 12th grade I went straight to college.
“But I don't have to do it on a song. Maybe if I put it in a book so that when the kids read it, it's in their scenarios,” he says. “I'm just letting them know about the young DMC, who's no different from any man, woman, boy or girl on the face of the Earth.”People didn’t see celebrities when they looked at Run-DMC, McDaniels says, and that’s part of what made the group so popular.
People from all around the world told McDaniels, “When Steven Tyler took the microphone and knocked down the wall that was separating y'all in that video. That didn't just happen in the video or the record. It happened in the world,” he says. Despite his achievements, McDaniels says he didn’t feel good about himself. His feelings of guilt and shame led him to drink excessively to get him through the depression.
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