DMC BMOC

Turning a bunch of feral Seventh Graders loose to photograph a King of Rap

Darryl DMC McDaniels hits his mark for Chloe, Chloe, Chloe, Chloe and Tyler.

On playground duty recently, a grizzled-old timer (8th grade) sidled up, looked around furtively, and muttered, “Mr. Carroll, remember that time I shot DMC?”

“Why yes, Chloe, I do. Last year, right? You would have been in, what, Seventh Grade, yes?”

Nonchalance with the Middle School set aside, I’ll never forget that day and Chloe probably won’t either. Darryl DMC McDaniel was coming to our school! For two days, he would serve as visiting artist, working with all three divisions and as many students as he could make time for.

Chloe’s name is not Chloe. FERPA, my employment contract, and general ethics prevent me from naming any of the kids in this article. Names are destiny, and in this case, hilarious. These kids are real, but these names are not. In fact, maybe I’ll call them all Chloe. We’ll see, but no how no way are there any identifying details here: I don’t teach and tell.

I have made it my practice to teach students to create photographic mementos. My favorite project involves photographing each participant individually, then compositing them back together into a long mural. I’ll make a big one, up to sixty feet long, but also provide little fun-size mementos for kids to take home to remember our play, class, or team. Oh, and I didn’t mention, my most super favorite way to rock involves teaching my subjects how to set up and shoot these things. Then I enjoy a nice cup of coffee (from my We Are Happy To Serve You cup) whilst watching my kids go to town.

I was rooting around the arts room at one of my schools one day, looking for light stands. It’s a well endowed Independent School after all. Microphones, memory cards, cameras, GoPros, lights, reflectors, cords, every single thing you might want to execute a film shoot. Except light stands. Mystified, I sought out my mentor who matter-of-factly explained, “Kids make the best stands.” Genius, that mentor. I was creating this photo mural with a bunch of recalcitrant Seventh Graders who were having trouble figuring out how to behave in the liminal space of the Black Box Theater. By asking kids to perform lighting duties, I avoided precarious and dangerous light placement. Now I required six kids (plus one more as subject) to be engaged and focussed (see what I did there?) on the work at hand. When one of your light stands gets bored and turns around and starts aiming it at his friends, the kid with the camera pretty immediately gives him no uncertain feedback to make him straighten up, fly right, and aim that light where you’re supposed to. When we learned that Darryl McDaniel, née DMC was coming to our school as a visiting artist I about had a heart attack.

You know, DMC, of the Run-DMCs? I’d worked with DMC several times back in the 80s, including photographing him and his band for the cover of SPIN. He didn’t really remember our shoots until I dropped that I had worn dreadlocks down to my butt at which point he suddenly and enthusiastically remembered exactly who I was and where we’d hung out. “Yassss! I remember you!” Hairstyle as destiny? Or cultural appropriation, you make the call?

My tony prep school was going all out and we were all Walking This Way in Our Adidas. In his role as Visiting Artist, Darryl spent two full days working with all sorts of constituencies. The work he did helping Lower Schoolers write autobiographical rhymes was nothing short of astonishing. In the days leading up to his visit, I had worked my way up the organizational chain to get my Seventh Graders on the schedule. I managed to get a half hour carved out for my project at the end of the second day, just before the culmination of DMC performing Walk This Way accompanied by a student rock band

Which half hour I then spent shuttling between my Black Box full of twitchy Seventh Grade photographers and the band room next door. The band room containing the charismatic Head of School, hyper-competent Assistant Head of School, the entire leadership team, the media people covering all this for Social, the entire Senior class, and DMC himself was humming. Dude is like the energizer bunny, could have gone all day. And did, rolling right over my allotted half hour as my heart sank. It seemed only the pull of a gym-full of chanting students could tear DMC away from this workshop.

I watched with something akin to despair as the entourage began to recede down the hallway toward the gym.

DMC plies his trade between the robot team and a Seventh Grade thumbs up.

“NO! WAIT…” I shouted, way too loudly. But apparently loudly enough that all ten or so people immediately froze, turned towards the commotion, and looked aghast.

“TWO MINUTES!” still sounding like a lunatic, I realized, unsure who even to pitch to. DMC was born good to go, he was up for whatever. August Head of School is the ultimate decision maker there in all matters, yet his assistant had been chaperoning and acting like a tour manager. So I aimed at her, lowered my voice, “Please…two minutes, serious,” gesturing towards the Black Box.

“OK,” permits the Assistant with nary a glance at our boss. Four steps and we were across the threshold of the Black Box. I don’t think my Sevens had really believed me, either that DMC would actually show or that we would be able to do a photo shoot in two minutes. They had certainly had their moments of doubt in faith as our allotted half hour had slipped past with no activity.

And then there we were. August Head of School, the entire leadership cadre, several types of live media capture in action, and himself, DMC. Who clearly understood the assignment. I pointed out the camera (nearly entirely concealing the tiny Chloe), showed him his mark (gaffer taped “X”, classic…) and stepped out of the way. After their initial astonishment and paralysis my kids leapt to their tasks with gusto. Background lights came up, the kid running the ringlite slipped into position virtually in Chloe’s lap, and I heard the old familiar sound of a motor-driven mechanical shutter begin to growl.

DMC was magnificent. It didn’t matter that his last hit was some forty years prior, nor that his audience was a bunch of Seventh Graders he understood the assignment. He hit his mark. He jumped up and down, gestured with his hands, had those Adidas hit that X so hard the room shook. It looked like he’d been waiting forty years for Chloe to bring her 12 year old eye to bear. Portraiture is a dance, and I was thrilled to see I was right to trust these kids, right to trust my old friend DMC, and right to risk my job by yelling at the Head of School. Each of my charges stared in awe at the world class entertainer doing his thing right in front of them. None more than Chloe, whose quiet gaze turned out to be steel. She danced with DMC, and the two of them vibed, with her clicking the shutter at just the right moment as he delivered this sick beat.

Chloe and her four brothers and sisters of the luminous lens all furrowed their brows and did their jobs. And DMC, he killed it, for thirty-eight shots. And every one of them would have made an awesome magazine cover. No light stands necessary. I had instructed Chloe to push down that shutter button and not stop ‘till the cows came home, the battery died, or DMC left the building. She and all her crew met DMC’s energy and channeled it into a beautiful artwork. They didn’t need two minutes, one would do. And in a blink he was out, off to the gym full of cheering students ready to Walk This Way.

It was such an unexpected delight to reminisce about this with Chloe a year later. She admitted to much more nervousness about the whole thing than she’d let on at the time. And therefore much greater triumph at being able to eat so hard. And it was a spectacularly unexpected way to bring my life around full circle since last time I’d seen Darryl, some forty years prior. I may have felt like a kid when I shot him, but not like this. He’s awesome, Chloe is awesome, the whole thing just kind of makes me verklempt just to think about. You know the thing Mastercard says? Yeah, that delightfully effervescent moment of a chat with older than her years Chloe was priceless. As was DMC’s minute-long monologue. Drop your mic, like Chloe and Darryl, boom!