get these nets
Veteran
DMC shares “Dream” with kids: Rosa Foundation honors rap legend turned author
Nov 16, 2022*excerpt of article
He spoke about the book he was getting ready to introduce to a roomful of kids on the floor above us.
“Darryl’s Dream is DMC in the third grade. I wrote it so that every kid could know that they’re perfect just the way they are, and that everything that makes them who they are, right now at this little age, will be utilized for them to be successful when they get older. So, don’t be ashamed about your hair, your freckles, your height, not any of that, because everything the people tease you about is actually the thing they’re noticing about you that’s going to help you later. I got teased for my glasses and look what happened. Once you’re enthusiastic about who you are, people who don’t even need glasses will want to wear them because you made them cool.”
McDaniels then rapped from “Hollis Crew (Krush-Groove 2)”, the fourth track on Run-DMC’s eponymous 1984 debut album:
The D’s for doin’ it all of the time
The M’s for the rhymes that are all mine
The C’s for cool, cool as can be
(And why you wear those glasses?) So I can see!
“The book is very autobiographical. I was a kid, I got teased, bullied, and picked on. I was a comic book reading kid who wore glasses and never cut classes, and those classes were at St. John’s University in Queens, a Catholic school, which was another bad thing in my hood because the public school kids thought it meant my family was rich and I had lots of quarters in my pockets. So, glasses, Catholic School, and comic books, and I’m not stealing water guns, I’m doing my homework. I thought I had everything going wrong for me.”
And now he wants to help kids like the one he used to be realize that there’s nothing wrong with him then or them now.
“Kids need to realize that when they’re enthusiastic about who they are, it has an effect on other people around them going through the same thing. I didn’t do Darryl’s Dream so that kids could see the man their mothers, fathers, and grandfathers think is so magnificent. I wanted to show them that doesn’t happen overnight, and that this guy all these adults were going crazy over was once in the third grade like them, and going through the same things. The book helps kids realize about themselves, ‘oh, what I’m going through is not abnormal, and if I’m who I am, that should be a special thing to be celebrated! I shouldn’t have to change who I am to be accepted.’ If a kid doesn’t like playing basketball and wants to take piano lessons, he should take piano lessons. Or read books or draw pictures or whatever.”