How DMC Earned His Stripes on Way to Start Line

When Darryl "DMC" McDaniels performs at the start line of the Northside Hospital Peachtree Road Race on July 3, it will be a moment 40 years in the making.

In 1986, about a month before the great Grete Waitz of Norway - coincidentally an adidas athlete - won the third of her four Peachtree titles, the hip-hop group RUN DMC released "My Adidas," the first single from its groundbreaking "Raising Hell" album.

"The group had committed themselves to that brand of sneaker when they were 10 years old," a publicity director for RUN DMC's management company told Newsday, explaining the unprompted love letter to their ever-present Superstars.

"We travel on gravel, dirt road or street
I wear my adidas when I rock the beat
On stage, front page, every show I go
It's adidas on my feet, high top or low"

An historic partnership, the first between hip-hop artists and a sports brand, soon followed, after a co-manager of the group brought adidas executive Angelo Anastasio to a performance at Madison Square Garden.

There, Anastasio told that same Newsday reporter, "I was standing on the stage behind a speaker. There were 20,000 kids … waving their shoes in the air or any other adidas product they had. I literally got goose bumps."

RUN DMC, now regarded as one of the most influential acts in the history of hip-hop, would go on to become only the second hip-hop group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 2009, and in 2016 in received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

After the 2002 murder of one of its members, Jam Master Jay, the group disbanded. McDaniels went his own way, even branching out from his music with a publishing label, Darryl Makes Comics, featuring himself as a superhero who wears adidas.

But, as they say, not all superheroes wear capes. A year before RUN DMC dissolved, his autobiography, "King of Rock: Respect, Responsibility, and My Life with Run-DMC," was released. While researching it, DMC discovered at the age of 35 that he was adopted, leading to a search for his biological mother that was documented by VH1 in "DMC - My Adoption Journey," which won an Emmy for Outstanding Arts and Cultural Programming. Along the way, he has become an outspoken advocate for adoption from foster care.

In a video last year for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, McDaniels - who had struggled with alcoholism and depression - said: "The missing part of my identity was, I'm adopted. And it's nothing to be ashamed about. Matter of fact, it's a blessing. The only thing people need to understand about kids in foster care who are waiting to be adopted is this: They're the next great doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, rappers, hip-hoppers, scientists, physicists, playwrights … they are the next generation of greatness."

DMC's latest song as a lead artist is "She Gets Me High," a reimagining of the 1977 classic "Black Betty," released in January.

His DJ set, for registered participants in the 57th Running of the Northside Hospital Peachtree Road Race, is free and will begin at 8:30 p.m., followed by fireworks, in Lenox Square on the eve of the race.