Timeline and thoughts:
1998 – We’d be clubbing in a place called bubbles which had a wooden box in the middle of the dancefloor as the stage. Ruff Ryder’s Anthem was the first song we heard and I always connect this song to see this Indian radio presenter cutie at the clubs. We’d always cross eyes at the club but the only interaction was Nasifa coming up to me one night with the mic to ask me about them sponsoring the artists that night. I was so shy and drunk I must have mumbled something. Anyway back to DMX. Grand Finale (with Method Man, Nas & Ja Rule from the Belly soundtrack) was a collab track that I really loved, especially the heavy piano riff.

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1999 – His next big song that year would be one of my go to songs to lift the mood… Party Up (Up in here), my 2nd favourite DMX tune. Drive to the club and I’d have this song along with songs like Fire It Up – Busta Rhymes. Good song, good style and he doesn’t go into his usual rapping cadence. And now we come Here We Go Again, my number 1 DMX tune. Because of this song he’s one of the rappers whose lyrics I quote the most. This was around the time he was getting in trouble for using real pigs blood all over him for his album cover or something like that. I really liked Good Girls, Bad Guys because it was him and Dyme kind of flirting with each other, pushing boundaries and setting boundaries. The flow between them is similar to the garba music I enjoy, she plays hard to get, he plays hard to get rid of. I also loved the production in What These B*****s Want feat. Sisqo.

2001 – We Right Here reminds me of my boy Tarang (Nemu) he just loved playing that in his car. Aint No Sunshine was a decent cover. My main track for that time was when he featured on Funkmaster Flex’s Do You. He felt like Ja Rule was copying him. This was around the time my clubbing days didn’t just include clubbing, it included putting on outfits, performing the songs with actually knowing the lyrics and creating my own styles. Some people around me started biting those styles and it gets more personal than that but that was then so don’t need to bring it up… unless you pay me. Anway the point is that the song came out at the same time I needed it in my life. I can’t explain it but a lot of songs in my collection are because they came out exactly when I needed them and told me what I either needed to remind myself or made me feel like I’m not alone. More on that coming in another DMX song below. I Miss You featuring Faith Evans is an example of how he can be so emotional or sentimental but still have the grit and grime in his music.

2003 – Don’t Gotta Go Home featuring Monica was another monster song in my life. First of all the production itself is amazing so change the lyrics and I’d still keep it in my collection. Even though the song is about infedility, it was just the infedility in my life, it was also about not wating to go home because I was “going through things”. So basically I didn’t wan’t to go home so I stayed at the office and I was DMX singing this song to the song itself telling this amazing song that “I ain’t going nowhere, when you wake up I’mma be right here”.

2006 – Lord Give Me a Sign. My mom passed away a few days before I heard this song on the car radio. As soon as I heard it I needed to get it. Another song with so many quotable lyrics that I keep going to. Just so many reasons to love this song.

After this DMX kind of dropped from my radar with new stuff. Soon my cousin Viv keeps me updated about him going to prison and addiction issues etc. We keep sending each other the DMX growls. Since then the growl has actually come a sound I’ve made my own version of in my head to summon my inner powers if I’m faced with a challenged. Years pass and DMX’s life is breaking my heart. Apart from seeing his mugshot, he’s also been doing talk shows to fix his relationship and seeing him lose it and blame everything else or walk away from family was really disappointing to me as I can relate to the fam. Especially when the son was trying to reconcile with him and … Again not something I’ll get into … unless you pay me. By now I found out that DMX was studying to be a preacher and had some projects in Japan. He did graduate to Deacon and his albums have always had some inspiring prayers.

2012 – Forward 6 years and there is some footage of him high as hell in the studio with Tyrese, which led to another video about Tyrese and DMX collaborating for X’s new album. I was so excited. To be honest, the album was not my cup of tea. Maybe Slippin’ Again was good but even the song with Tyrese didn’t make the album and I really liked that one. The bass was totally off in the album. X didn’t sound like he had the fire in him or he just sounded boring with the nursery rhyme cadence. I don’t even blame him because we’ve seen too many artist who become a shadow of their former selves after all the shit they went through. Again Cousin Viv put it perfectly about Michael Jackson in this post.

The man’s left us and he was working on a new album so looking forward to that. If you still don’t understand how crucial this man was to the culture, resurrecting Def Jam and being a rarity of having No. 1 albums… just youtube DMX GOAT and watch whatever comes up.

Rest in Power Earl Simmons