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Run-DMC’s Darryl McDaniels has revealed he was drinking a ‘case of Olde English’ a day during the height of his alcoholism battle.
The music icon, 59, who is a founding member of the iconic hip-hop group formed in 1983, said changes brought about to Run-DMC’s look and sound by late bandmate Jason Mizell, known as Jam Master Jay, left him in a pit of depression.
Speaking on Will Smith’s new podcast Class of ’88, McDaniels said: ‘Jay got me wearing a green, yellow, purple and green suit doing the running man.
‘There’s nothing wrong with Jay bringing New Jack Swing into Run-DMC. It just wasn’t for me, but I did it anyway, not realizing it was going to affect me mentally later.
‘I was drinking a case of Olde English a day — not one or two 40s — a case. I was so alcoholic, I put a freezer in my monster truck so I didn’t have to stop at the grocery store.
‘This is during the day, Will. From 11 am to 8:30 pm. Now, we’re going out at night and it’s Courvoisier and Hennessy and all of that. So I’m doing all of that all through the night. So I’m just drinking, drinking, drinking…’
McDaniels also battled suicidal thoughts when he was left unable to rap due to unexplained vocal spasms.
He said: ‘I go to Mariah Carey’s throat doctors, Lenny Kravitz’s, but they look at me and go, “Son, there’s nothing physically wrong with you.”
‘Somebody tells me to go get a Botox shot directly into the vocal chords to stop the spasms. The f*****g needle was this long. They put this thing down in my throat and as they started, I faint. I wake up, my wife’s over there crying because she thought I died. Whatever, it didn’t work.’
‘Your voice is not just how you sound, it’s who you are. After nothing worked, now I’m thinking of killing myself.
‘Because I’m thinking, I can’t do the thing that I was put here to do. So I don’t want to disappoint Run and Jay, I don’t want to go tell them I can’t do this no more, so let me just kill myself.
‘My life ended, so I thought, when the Run-DMC thing quieted down and I lost myself. So now, I’m really gonna kill myself. I have to kill myself.’
He was later diagnosed with Spasmodic Dysphonia which causes involuntary spasms in the muscles of the larynx
McDaniels has also found success in other fields over the years, having released his own collection of comic books while claiming awards for his charity work.
McDaniels is widely considered one of the pioneers of the hip hop scene after founding the legendary New York group Run-DMC with Mizell and Joseph Simmons.
Mizell was shot dead at his recording studio in Hollis, Queens, on October 30, 2002 aged just 37.
Mizell was shot once in the head with a .40-caliber bullet by a masked assailant at his studio in Hollis, the Queens neighborhood where he grew up, police said at the time. He left behind a wife and three children.
Police identified at least four people in the studio with Mizell, including the two armed gunmen.
The city and Mizell’s friends offered more than $60,000 in reward money, but witnesses refused to come forward and the case languished.
In 2020 Ronald ‘Tinard’ Washington and Karl ‘Lil D’ Jordan were indicted in the killing and have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder in a drug related homicide.
Their trial is currently scheduled for November 2023.
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
