3 minute read
Music producer Mike Mac gets personal in a new song
Mike Mac FIGHT SONG
The music producer taps into the story of his own spinal cord injury in a new anthem for Wings for Life.
Mike McNamara’s life is like one of those songs that builds and builds, and you think you know where it’s going until it shifts. The shift feels wrong, until it takes you to a crescendo that gives you chills every time.
“A lot of people think, Mike’s injury must’ve made his life a lot harder,” says McNamara, 33. “No. It made it better.”
McNamara, who lives in Los Angeles and goes by Mike Mac, is a music producer and a spinal cord injury survivor. Along with Jordan Baum, he’s also one half of the 87’s, who—together with New Jersey rapper and Red Bull Records artist PineappleCITI— are creating an anthem for this year’s Wings for Life World Run on May 9.
Wings for Life is a nonprofit organization dedicated to curing spinal cord injury (SCI). The World Run is a walk, run or roll event where participants across the globe start at the same time and try to hold off a real or virtual chase car for as long as possible. This year’s event will be an app run due to COVID, but the app can be used as a workout buddy leading up to the event and a way to connect with other runners on race day.
Mac was 15 years old and captain of his basketball team when he went for a layup during a game. He made contact with a defender that sent him flying, and he landed on his back. He got up, unaware that he’d torn two ligaments in his back. A few days later he couldn’t run. A blood clot was slowly forming along his spinal cord, compressing it and causing waves of agony that made it hard to sleep, sit or stand. Three weeks later he collapsed on the couch and couldn’t get up. He pushed himself onto the floor and tried again to stand.
“I touched my stomach and it was like Play-Doh,” says Mac, describing the loss of feeling. “The next thing you know, everything was mush, and I couldn’t breathe.” A 6-inch spinal epidural hematoma had paralyzed him from the chest down. When Mac went to rehab after surgery to remove the clot, the doctor told him it was unlikely he’d ever recover.
“I said, ‘Well, I’m not leaving here until I walk again,’” says Mac. Three months later, with the help of forearm crutches, he did.
Today, Mac wears a brace on his right foot, the one inked with the mantra he adopted during his recovery: “Can’t Stop Me.” He always does something on the anniversary of his accident to stoke that mantra— this year, he and a buddy did a 2-mile hike, a 16-mile bike ride and 18 holes of golf. He does have a limp, which means the only thing he can’t do is run. And running had been one of his favorite things; it calmed a brain that was always shooting off in a million different directions. It also fueled his competitive drive, turning him from the kid who came in last on a hilly training run to the guy who finished first every single time, eventually clocking 15:45 for 3 miles.
For the World Run anthem, Mac wants to channel the journey of his recovery. And he has a unique partner in PineappleCITI, who herself was unable to walk for two years after a near-fatal car wreck in 2016. They both know struggle and triumph. And they know how to make the music that will turn their story into a sound so resonant, World Run participants and everyone affected by spinal cord injury will find something to latch onto.
But there is one message Mac hopes they all hear.
“You can do anything you set your mind to. I was paralyzed 18 years ago, and who would have thought I’d make a song for Wings for Life,” he says. “No struggle or injury defines who you are. Never let it stop you.” —Christine Fennessy Register for the app run at wingsforlifeworldrun.com. One hundred percent of entry fees goes to spinal cord research.
