By Nolan Strong
Pioneering Hip-Hop artist Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run-DMC has come along way since founding his legendary group in 1983.
He's entering a new phase of his career, dropping the familiar Devastating Mic Controller (DMC) moniker for something much more profound: Deliver My Children.
The rapper's critically acclaimed one-hour VH1 "Rock Doc'" documentary, My Adoption Journey premiered in Feb. 2006 and has been nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Arts & Culture Programming, during the September 16 awards ceremony.
"To be nominated for such a prestigious award means the documentary did what it was supposed to do, it touched people," DMC told AllHipHop.com. "Now I really have to take it to the next level for the foster kids."
His new mission is shedding light on America's foster care system.
The pioneering rapper announced today (September 12) that he is producing a follow-up documentary titled DMC: Deliver My Children, aimed at shedding light on the ills of the foster care system, which houses over 800,000 children annually.
"The foster care system is totally obsolete. Kids are being killed, abused and even experimented on. I was fortunate. I got adopted," DMC said. "There's a half a million kids here every year here that don't get adopted."
My Adoption Journey explained the legendary rapper's search for his biological mother, who game him up for adoption in 1964.
DMC was not aware he was adopted until his mother told him as an adult in 2000 when he was 35-years-old and gathering information for his autobiography King of Rock: Respect, Responsibility, and My Life with Run-DMC.
It was then that he set out on a spiritual and personal journey to find his biological mother.
At the start of the documentary, all DMC knows is that a 16-year-old girl named Brenda Lovelace, who hailed from the Dominican Republic, gave him up for adoption.
The revelation about his adoption so late in life led DMC on a spiritual search and the rapper believes he has found his calling.
"If my birth mother would have never gave me up, I would have never moved to Hollis [Queens] and I would have never met Run and Jam Master Jay. The world would be totally different. I was in the system until I was five-years-old. I was a ward of the state. I didn't even ask my [adopted] mother why she didn't give me back. It was fate. You have no idea what you are destined to be."
According to statistics, the number of children in foster care has doubled since 1987 and more than 90% of the states in the U.S. have reported issues in finding adoptive families for children in foster care.
To complicate matters, children "age out" of care around 18-years-old, sometimes without living arrangements as young adults, resulting in homelessness and sometimes, prison.
"At age 18, they are aged out of the system, they give them $5 and a bag of lunch and say go live your life," DMC told AllHipHop.com. "Most of these kids end up in trouble, jail, or a mental institution. All the kids in the group homes, juvenile detention centers and over half of the people in prison overall come from the foster care system."
DMC is in the process of organizing a rally for adoption rights in Washington D.C., in front of the White House along with The Throw Away Kids Foundation. The rally will include a number of celebrities who were adopted, or spent time in a foster home.
"There's a bunch of celebrities, movie stars and entertainers that have come from the foster care system that can be role models," DMC said. "They need to speak out to help prevent some of the abuse that is taking place in this foster system."
The 59th Primetime Emmy Awards airs on Fox September 16 at 8:00 PM, live from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
For more information of DMC, visit http://www.me-dmc.com.