He was found in what emergency responders called a “lifeless condition” with no pulse, but was revived and returned to the hotel on Tuesday. “What’s My Name” and “What These Bitches Want” took a darker, tenser flip on that template, but now, DMX wasn’t just a growling, compellingly paranoid entry to the New York canon - he was a superstar.Rapper DMX collapsed outside a Yonkers hotel Monday night. His third album, 1999’s “… And Then There Was X,” was a juggernaut on the charts, going six times platinum on the strength of “Party Up (Up in Here),” which retooled his tense paranoia into a monster hit that would echo at clubs and sports arenas for years to come. “Used to get high, just to get by / Ate somethin’, a couple of forties made me hate somethin’ / I did some coke, now I’m ready to take somethin’… I’m possessed by the darker side, livin the cruddy life / s- like this kept a N- with a bloody knife.” “Group homes and institutions prepared my ass for jail,” he rapped. sample to moving effect, while DMX laid out how a childhood laced with uncaring institutions, absent family and drug use bent his sense of self. With his follow-up later in 1998, “Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood,” DMX was already wrestling with the demons of drug abuse. “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot” was an instant classic, and it made him an immediate but troubled superstar. But he hit more ruminative and tender notes as well, as on “How It’s Goin’ Down” with R&B singer Faith Evans. He also was a charismatic film star in critical and commercial successes like “Belly” and “Romeo Must Die.”ĭMX would prowl the stage with tendons rippling, eyes aflame, a physical manifestation of the storms in his head.
He possessed one of rap’s most distinctive, combative vocal tones, with gut-spilling lyrics churning through his difficult youth in 1980s New York, yet he was also a staggeringly popular artist, topping the Billboard 200 with each of his first five albums, starting with 1998’s landmark “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot” on Ruff Ryders/Def Jam. He was devoutly religious yet accrued a lengthy list of arrests and incarcerations - most recently, in 2018, he went to prison for tax fraud. Earl’s music inspired countless fans across the world and his iconic legacy will live on forever.”ĭMX’s life and career were contradictions from the start. He loved his family with all of his heart and we cherish the times we spent with him. Earl was a warrior who fought till the very end. DMX died on Friday after suffering a heart attack on April 2, following an overdose at his home in White Plains, N.Y.Ī statement from his family read, in part: “We are deeply saddened to announce today that our loved one, DMX, birth name of Earl Simmons, passed away at 50-years-old at White Plains Hospital with his family by his side after being placed on life support for the past few days. But the 50-year-old rapper succumbed to that longtime struggle. The interview seemed an encouraging sign that the rapper, born Earl Simmons, was finally rounding a bend on his difficulties with substance abuse, after canceling a tour and checking into rehab in 2019. You never know when the things you stored away are going to come out and just fall all over the place.” “There were things I went through in my childhood where I just blocked it out.
“Drugs were never a problem, drugs were a symptom of a bigger problem,” he said. He recounted how, as a 14-year-old, he’d unwittingly smoked a crack-infused blunt, which introduced him to drugs and began a stormy, lifelong relationship with self-medication to heal his pain.
One of the bravest things you can do is put it on the table, chop it up, and just let it out.” “I didn’t really have anybody to talk to … talking about your problems is viewed as a sign of weakness when actually it’s one of the bravest things you can do. “I learned that I had to deal with the things that hurt me,” he said. In a November interview with Talib Kweli, rapper DMX was searingly candid about his drug use and the trauma that drove it.