Deaconlight.com at this stage is very undeveloped from where I would like it to be. What gets posted when almost depends which way the wind blows.

Or more specifically, which way the buzz flows. After all, Deaconlight.com's tagline is Segs & Buzz & Rock & Roll (Segs is short for segues - pronounced seg-way - a term used for how DJs flow one song into the next). I came up with this tagline as a take-off of the Ian Dury and the Blockheads' song "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll."

Today a friend of mine e-mailed me about the new record by DMC (Darryl McDaniels). (In case you didn't know, this is the DMC of Run-DMC. Even the most uninitiated in the music of hip-hop surely know Run-DMC's cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way.")

So I decided to go check it out. Besides, this would give me a good excuse to start on my long overdue rap/hip-hop section of Deaconlight with some Ice-T, Jurassic 5, Beastie Boys, The Roots, Ice Cube, Public Enemy, Dr. Dre., and other stuff along this line I never got to play when I was on the radio because most wasn't around back then. Probably the closest I got to rap was some Gil-Scott Heron, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and, well, does Prince count?

But it wasn't the title - Checks, Thugs & Rock N Roll - that nabbed me, even though I do find it cool that someone else decided to make a play on the "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" phrase.

No, it was the video for "Just Like Me" that knocked me out. It's a variation on the theme of Harry Chapin's "Cats in the Cradle," a song I remember from 1974. This DMC piece features guest singer Sarah McLachlan, who I agree is a talented musician even though I haven't listened to much of her music.

From the get-go the song made my hair stand up and by the time it was over, yours truly was sitting here at her computer with a wet face. OK, I'm a sap. Especially when it comes to dogs and kids. No dogs here, but this song deals with adoption and the separation of children and parents.

See, it wasn't until he was an adult that Darryl learned he had been adopted. He tells his story in the song which by the end becomes an ode to the mother he never knew. How he manages to put so much power into a five-minute video blows me away.

Then I got to thinking about my own mom. At age 4 1/2 she was riding in the back seat of a car with her two-year-old sister and six-year-old brother in Eastern North Carolina. Her dad William, the small town's doctor, was driving and her mom Lyda, a nurse, was in the passenger's seat as they headed over a rise in the road late in the day. The sun was bright and blinding. Suddenly there was a big bang. Lyda went through the windshield and William was crushed against the steering wheel. He hung on a few more days but didn't survive.

Although my mom, her sister, and older brother lived with their grandmother (William's mother), they were pretty much left to fend for themselves. William had been previously married to a lady named Edith, but that marriage ended in divorce. He married Lyda and they had three children together. As I understand it, my great-grandmother resented Lyda and took that resentment out on my mother and aunt.

My mom wasn't adopted but like DMC she knows there is a maternal piece missing from her life she can never recover.

So as I watched DMC going "I'm alright, Ma!" I didn't just see an artist rapping a song. I saw a little boy radiating the love for the mother he never knew. And I felt the pain of a little girl aching for a mother she lost too soon.

But enough of this sad stuff. Other parts of this record I have listened to also rock. I'm very anxious to give the entire CD lots of spins. But I gotta go now and get a hankie.

Meanwhile, the video's here for your to check out. I dare you not to cry.

-- 31 March 2006 (DD)