Run-DMC’s Darryl McDaniels Opens Up About Past Struggles With Suicidal Thoughts, How He Relates to Kurt Cobain

Run-DMC’s Darryl McDaniels is getting vulnerable about his mental health.

The rapper appears in the Generation X portion of MSNBC’s four-part documentary, My Generation, where recalls hearing Nirvana for the first time in the early 1990s. “Nirvana was an honest expression of not being ashamed to put your angst on the front page,” he said of the group.

He also revealed how much he empathized with the band’s frontman, Kurt Cobain, who died by suicide at age 27 in April 1994. “I relate to Kurt because I was there. Later in my life, I became suicidal. And I’m fortunate to still be here, so I have a responsibility to talk about it,” he explained. “They have a song, ‘Come as You Are,’  come happy and high and jovial, come as depressed as you are. But unless you admit how you feel, whether good or bad, you never heal. We’re all in this together.”

Back in 2016, McDaniels released a memoir, Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide, where he discussed his difficult journey with mental health throughout the late 90s. “I was probably at my suicidal worst in 1997 during a two-week-long tour in Japan. The only song I listened to then was a soft-pop ballad by Sarah McLachlan called ‘Angel,’” McDaniels wrote in an excerpt first published by People. “I cannot overemphasize how important that song was to me in the midst of my depression. ‘Angel’ kept me serene even when every fiber of my person was screaming for me to lose it [and] made me believe that I could soldier through.”

McDaniels was sober at the time after struggling with alcohol addiction, but was also dealing with losing his voice due to a thread condition as well as inner-band conflicts. “Whatever my hesitations about suicide, I sometimes think I would have done the deed easily if it weren’t for that record,” McDaniels continued. “I thought long and hard about killing myself every day in Japan. I tricked myself into thinking that my family might be better off without me. I considered jumping out of a window. I thought about going to a hardware store to buy poison to ingest. I thought about putting a gun to my temple. Whenever I’d listen to ‘Angel,’ though, I always managed to make my way back from the brink. 

If you or anyone you know is in crisis, call 988 or visit the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s website for free, confidential emotional support and resources 24/7.