60 Songs That Explain the '90s - DMX—“Ruff Ryder’s Anthem”

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

Rob explores the spiritual genius of the late rapper DMX. He observes X’s power of prayer, recounts the rapper’s destructive childhood, and tells the tale of how the breakout hit “Ruff Ryder’s Anthem” came to be. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Shea Serrano Producer: Justin Sayles Associate Producer: Lani Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, a quick note to say that on Thursday, on Thanksgiving Day, 2021, HBO will premiere the documentary DMX, Don't Try to Understand. It's part of the Music Box series of documentaries, brought to you by Bill Simmons and Ringer Films. I'm psyched for this one. In the meantime, you can check out the first two movies in the series. There's Woodstock 99, peace, love, and rage. And also the Alanis Morissette doc, simply called Jagged. Those will hold you over, but again, DMX, don't try to understand, premiering Thursday on HBO.

Happy Thanksgiving. Okay, thanks. Let us pray. I come to you hungry and tired. Give me food. Let me sleep. Every proper DMX album ends with DMX saying a prayer, usually acapella close to the end.

Another track or two after the prayer in most cases. DMX is the best prayer in rap history. It's not a competition for the obvious spiritual prayer is not a competitive sport reason, but also because he has no competition. I come to you weak.

You give me strength and that's deep. The prayer typically comes after an hour or so of exhilarating DMX songs, the majority of which involve him robbing and or shooting someone, or multiple someone. Let's not turn this

into an analytics thing, but he robs and or shoots a disconcerting action movie type body count number of people, a disreputable action movie. We better call a Senate hearing type action movie. Sometimes he gets shot. Sometimes he dies. Sometimes everybody gets shot. And whatever happens, it is exhilarating.

It is as exhilarating as crime rap has ever been or ever will be. So this prayer is at the end of his debut album. It's Dark and Hell is Hot from 1998. May 1998, plenty of 1998 left. And three tracks before the prayer on its dark and hell is hot is the song ATF, which is breathless and frantic and ultra-violent and less than two minutes long and finds our hero, DMX, pursued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and it packs a Raymond Carver's short story worth of detail and pathos and lurid bloodshed into a minute and 15.000. If Raymond Carver had written his short stories while watching his first wife, Marianne, play Grand Theft Auto 5.

Spoiler alert, but here's how ATF winds up. His death is in the air, now I don't know if it's mine, but I know if it's time, it'll be with it is. And all I can think of is, what about my kid? His death is in the air this time. You can tell by his voice that he already knew that. the shoulder, the neck, the ear, going out fast, and the last thing I hears. Last thing he hears is boom, boom, boom, open the door, ATF. Can we talk about the joint?

The joint he pulls from his boot amidst the shootout. The joint he's puffing on as he gets caught in the shoulder, neck and ear, stupendous. Radist dude who ever lived in that moment of his death. So this is the guy praying three tracks later. humble, penitent, supplicant, devout. And the first miracle of DMX is how visceral and genuine, both the shootout and the prayer sound, coming from his mouth, delivered in such an authoritative, such a terribly vulnerable, but also triumphantly invulnerable voice. He knows his death is always in the air. He knows God will protect him for exactly as long as he needs protection. He knows he's immortal for precisely as long as he needs to be. And I fear that what I'm saying won't be heard until I'm gone. But it's all good because I really didn't expect to live long. There is no contradiction.

He prays like he shoots and he shoots like he prays. His prayers can sound every bit as impassioned, as thunderous, as furious as his bonkers shootout yarns or his elaborate threats. Here's how his first prayer on record ends. So if it takes for me to suffer, for my brother to see the light, pain till I die! but please, Lord, treat them right. It's Dark and Hell is Hot went multi-platinum, meaning millions of records sold, plural. His first three albums did that.

It also debuted at number one on the Billboard album chart. His first five albums did that. First artist in history whose first five records debuted at number one. He was in pain until he died. This is a tough one. This is going to be a tough one. Let's listen to him pray some more, shall we? As requested, as demanded, God gave him strength so he could give us strength.

I think back how some people did me like violence was the remedy. And because I think of that now, I pray for my enemy. We've moved on to the prayer near the end of his second album, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, released in December 1998. DMX's rap career started in earnest with two Blockbuster albums in the same year, seven months apart, ridiculous. 1998, let's see here. Broncos won the Super Bowl in January.

Yankees won the World Series. Bulls won the NBA Championship, of course. Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. France won the World Cup. Marco Mirro won the Masters. Michigan won the Rose Bowl. Kentucky won March Madness. Israel won Eurovision.

Titanic won a bunch of Oscars. And I got pretty good at Golden Eye for the Nintendo 64, not championship level, mind you, but Grace Jones with grenade launchers and the facility. could do some damage. Just thought I'd mention it. Forget all that. DMX won 1990.

He won the whole year. They took every trophy. Anybody won in 1998 and melted them all down into a giant, gilded baseball bat, and gave it to DMX because only he could swing it. I'd be praying for his enemies, too, quite frankly, though DMX prayed for them for a different reason. Not because of what I'll do, but because they don't know.

there's something better after here but everybody won't go the prayer at the end of flesh of my flesh blood of my blood is the intro to the album's last song called Ready to Meet Him in which God and DMX have a disagreement, a misunderstanding, an airing of grievances.

DMX's grievances, naturally. Lord, you left me stranded and I don't know why. Told me to live my life now I'm ready to die, ready to fly. I cry, but I should. You told me you were dead those fears. It's been yeah.

DMX also voices God on this song and God answers and God sets DMX's mind at ease. This had also happened before. Come to think of it, the prayer on his first album led to a track called The Convo. DMX asks God why when he was struggling the most, there was only one set of footprints in the sand and God was like, that's when I carried you. Haven't you ever heard of that poem? Footprints. It's a super popular poem. Go to literally anybody's house.

and look at literally any wall in that house and footprints is probably hanging on that wall. Haven't you ever been to the dentist in the Midwest? And DMX is like, no. And God is like, fair enough. But still, how do you not know that poem? DMX is like, okay, all right. So now on album number two, ready and meet him continues this conversation, this confrontation. My favorite part is when DMX and God start running through the Ten Commandments.

thou shalt not steal But what if he stole from me Thou shalt not kill But what if he's trying to kill me Thou shall not take my name in vain No matter how hard it rains We've stand the pain They stop right there

Which is a drag Because I'd love to have heard One of the most prolific armed robbers In rap history Try to Galaxy Brain his way out of Thou Shall not steal Also DMX earned the right to rhyme Pain with Rain a lot

This is a super tough one Dude, can I keep going with the prayers? Do you mind? This is a very pleasing rhythm to me. I love DMX's prayers. And if we're going to talk in any detail about DMX, I'm going to need DMX's prayers. Is this okay?

My name's Rob Harvilla. This is 60 songs that explain the 90s. It's Rough Riders Anthem from It's Dark and Hell is Hot. Great song. Yes, we'll get there. Okay. Let us pray. And when I get going, I'm not looking back for nothing.

because I will know where I'm headed and I'm so tired of the suffering. His third album, and then there was X, came out in 1999. I don't mean to keep coyly alluding to the ugly parts of this story. Let me read you the first paragraph of Chapter 1 of Earl, the autobiography of DMX, as told a Smokey D. Fontaine. Book came out in 2002.

Here we go. My name is Earl Simmons. I was born December 18th, 197. in Mount Vernon, New York, the first and only child of Arnett Simmons and Joe Barker. I've always hated my first name because it sounded so corny to me. And no, I don't have any middle names. Why my mother couldn't give me the names of some of the other men she dated, I don't know. There were certainly enough of them around.

End quote, a few major themes deftly established here. DMX had an awful childhood. DMX stands for Darkman X, by the way. brutal child abuse, abandonment, isolation, a lot of time living on the street, turning to crime so he had enough money to eat, sleeping in Salvation Army donation bins, learning to prefer dogs to people for their loyalty and if necessary their viciousness. He could trust dogs. I don't want to dwell on this, but we can't ignore it either. His father was not in the picture. He had five sisters or half sisters. His mother, as he told GQ in 2019, used to beat him so bad at one point he lost teeth. He also said that one summer he wasn't allowed to leave his bedroom for any reason other than to use the bathroom. The chapter in his autobiography about school, about grade school is called From Bright to Board. DMX was later diagnosed as bipolar. And there's an especially awful chapter where his mother takes him, just to look around, she says, to a group home called

Children's Village for Boys. And when they got there, his mom told him he was staying there. And because all the other kids already there were looking at him, he could not betray on his face, his fear, or his anger or his impulse to start crying in that moment. And he lived there for 18 months. He was 13 or so. He says he really missed his dogs. When DMX says, I'm so tired of the suffering, believe him. I stand before you, a weakened version of your reflection, begging for direction for my soul. soul needs resurrection.

It's no consolation to him or to us, but the prayers and the abject suffering that fuels these prayers. This is the loveliest most striking writing in DMX's catalog. Maybe not everybody came to the album and then there was X, an album with a single called What These Bishes Want, hoping for a line as startling and beautiful as, I stand before you a weakened version of your reflection. But this is the contradiction DMX embodies and transforms. miraculously into not a contradiction at all.

The hurt and the violent anger, the wildly entertaining stories of X hurting others, fuel the grace and the humility of these prayers, which in turn makes the hurt bearable. This is the hardest part. This is the story about an encounter between DMX at 14 years old with his mentor. Guy DMX describes as his mentor,

a guy named Reddy Ron. In 2020, DMX went on the podcast People's Party with Talib Kuali and talked about Redi Ron, who encouraged Yom DMX to start rapping. But this guy, man, this guy, this guy, introduced me to what would be the best part of my life, which would be the rap. After DMX passed in April 2021, this is a story I read on the internet, like on Twitter a bunch of times. Somebody screenshots the words or paraphrases it. whatever, and I would read this story, and I would wince, and I would make myself forget it for my own

selfish protection, and I would succeed in forgetting it, and then I would read it again a week later and wince again, et cetera. But I do think if we're going to spend any amount of time with DMX, spend time with DMX praying, spend time with DMX praying in large part for us, I think we owe it to him to hear him tell this story in his own words, and most crucially with his own voice. So this is DMX talking about being 14 and Reddy Ron handing him a blunt, and DMX only finding out afterward that the blunt was laced with crack. Why would you do that to a child? And he's like 30, you know what I'm saying? And he knew how I looked up to him. You know what I'm saying? And I'm like, why would you do that to somebody who looks up to you?

Like, I mean? If we mean to honor DMX is one of the greatest storytellers in rap history. And I do. And that's both on record, fictional crime rap epics and real life stories. We can't just listen to his fun, funny, thrilling, escapist for us, action movie type stories. There is no escapism, really, for him. In whatever token, futile, helpless, posthumous way, I'd just like to imagine someone, anyone, at least imagining themselves trying to carry DMX, when he's struggling the most. The monster was born. That monster was born.

I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. I mean, as I said, firstly, there's someone that you supposedly love. Let us pray. And still you gave me love. I wasn't used to that. Most of the people that gave me love,

they ended up taking it back. This is the prayer for Roman numeral four from his fourth album, The Great Depression, 2001. Hopefully it's a little clearer now why I wanted to load up on prayers. We'll speed it up. I declare restoration of everything that the devil has stolen from me. I have honor in the midst of my adversaries and an increase of assets,

especially in real estate and an expansion of territory. The prayer five from Grand Champ in 2003. He added a backing track to this one and he sounds extra, extra, extra optimistic. Good for him. Awesome. Real estate. Great investment. That move doesn't last forever.

not that he was expecting it to. Doing wrong for so long that we've forgotten away. Please bring us back home. Instilling us the word, which is our backbone, which are children that act grown. The prayer six from the record, Year of the Dog, again in 2006. This record didn't debut at number one,

but I will say that the next song after this prayer, called The Lord, Give Me a Sign, is another super intense dialogue with God and one of DMX's best later period songs. It is vital that the first later period songs. These prayers come at the end of the album, not the beginning. Same deal with DMX Live. He headlined the National Survival of the Illest Tour in 1998 with Def Squad and Onyx.

He prayed a lot on that tour. He toured at the height of his powers with Jay-Z and Method Man and Red Man in 1999, the National Hard Knock Life Tour. A huge milestone in the history of rap is a blockbuster live music draw as an arena proposition. Arenas, coliseums, coupled domes. a documentary about that tour from 2000 called Backstage. Not to be confused with the 2004 documentary Jay-Z Fade to Black, where Memphis Bleak is taking Outback Steakhouse orders. It's a different movie. I'm so mad at myself for never seeing DMX live, just an hour or so of DMX, physically picking up every human in the blockbuster Desert Sky Pavilion in Phoenix, Arizona, and running through brick wall

after brick wall, after brick wall, after brick wall, and then coming to a dead stop with the most moving and heartfelt and heartening prayer you'd ever heard prayed by anybody. Not a competition. No competition. The prayer's got to be at the end, not the beginning. The prayer's purpose is not to bless the album or the show. The prayer's purpose is to thank God afterward for the privilege of making the album or listening to it or being at that show, graced with DMX's presence. Because no matter what I've been through, I could deal with it.

Because if what I went through, I was still fitted. That's the prayer from his 2012 album, Undisputed. That prayer is in the middle of that album. Nobody's perfect. DMX explained his prayer at the end of the concert philosophy in his autobiography. He says, That's why I start off all my shows with fuck you.

suck my dick wear the hood at but then at the end i hit you with the prayer i'm paraphrasing strategically i have to say fuck that bitch to get you to listen or smoke that blunt or i robbed this person to get your attention i talk to you like you expect me to talk to you but then i bring you somewhere else okay you listening now then check this out come over here for a minute i want to show you something Pain is a lot easier to deal with when it's ours, not just yours. Last time, let us pray. First God, chapter 2, verse 15, do not love the world or anything in the world. We know what that means.

Have you ever in your life heard someone yell out a Bible verse? A Bible verse is location with more electrifying fervor. Will you forgive me if I still love DMX's prayer? in direct contravention of 1 John chapter 2, verse 15. He delivered that prayer on Easter Sunday 2019 at Coachella as part of a Kanye West Sunday service. The live recording appears on Exodus. For now, anyway, the final DMX album,

which came out in May 2021, six weeks or so after DMX's death of a drug-induced heart attack on April 9th, 2021. He was 50 years old. He'd struggled with drugs all his life, and especially after that day with a crack-laced blunt, when a monster was born. Goodness gracious.

I've been trying to lighten the mood around here by degrees. So much for that. I did not go into this thinking, I want this episode to wait 10 zillion pounds. Yeesh. There had to be a way to do a DMX thing that was like 20 minutes of me playing you clips from party up and blowing an air horn into my microphone.

Field recordings of me blasting good girls, bad guys from a giant boombox on my lawn while I throw my couch at passing cars. The road not taken, right? Let's get a little more proactive in terms of changing the vibe around here. Yes? Admit it.

You saw this coming. Here's DMX singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Come on. Rudolph's Red-Nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose, boom. And if you ever saw him, you would even say it close. This went viral in 2012.

It was a whole thing. There's a Spotify remix. He's just pounding on a table. This version came by request during an interview with New York City rap station Power 105. As New York City rap stations go, I'm a hot 97 guy myself. If you're forcing me to choose, they would play Beamer, Benz, or Bentley by Lloyd Banks more often back in 2010. This was my criteria, though I live in Ohio now. So maybe just leave me out of it.

But shout out Power 105 for this. Oh, maybe Rob won't play the end of DMX singing Rudolph, the Red Nose reindeer. Of course I will. You saw this coming as well. the red nose bean dear you're out of history Merry Christmas Now then

Let's try this again In essence Let's start over Let's talk about this guy That's DMX Huh The way he leans Into the words

Garbage cans is your only real indication that that's DMX By the late 80s, early 90s He'd honed his craft To battle wrapping Often in correctional facilities And he cut a few demos You can still find online

Unstoppable Force, three little pigs, a few others. Not terrible, but not him, as we know and love him. He sounds a little like Big Daddy Kane, a little like Rakim, a lot like LL Cool J. Same deal with this song called Born Loser. This is the first and only song he released on Columbia Records. Born Loser isn't terrible either, but it's disconcertingly self-deprecating. Sometimes at night my pants go to the bathroom by themselves and so forth. It's fascinating, though, because his song,

feels lyrically true, the poverty, the hunger, the degradation, but it's delivered in this whimsical, fresh print sort of way that feels tonally false. Ha ha, he's fighting raccoons for food. That's hilarious. No, seriously. DMX has punched a raccoon at some point in his life. DMX has punted a raccoon from one side of the street to the other side of the street. This isn't him.

Not yet. Not really. The sun is down, run it, clown, come up off that. I'm going to gun it down. Run it now. Whatever's going to go, it's going to be that. See that? That shit'll finish you, don't.

Believe that. There he is. The ski mask is audible. DMX, as we know and love him, first emerged from Yonkers as the scene stealing guest star on a handful of Alzheimer's. Mesa's 24 hours to live,

money power, respect by the locks. And of course, 4321. An LL Cool J Pasi Cut, also featuring Method Man, Red Man, and Cannabis. Though who can even remember those other dudes when you're being relieved of your possessions so charismaticly? DMX once told Rolling Stone that in his armed robbery years, which he pegged is roughly between the ages of 14 and 21, he didn't even use a ski mask.

He said, half of my weapon was my face. The other half, of course, was his voice. there he is. There he is. One heat one deep, leaving behind. There he is. Let's get this guy signed to Def Jam, shall we? Let's let him audition for Def Jam, in essence, by rapping while his jaw is wired shut after

getting his jaw broken in some sort of physical altercation. Justin Sayles, my editor, wrote the DMX obituary for the ringer. That's the toughest obituary imaginable, I think. And Justin starts off with this story. DMX with his jaw wired shut, rapping for Def Jam Big Shots Kevin Liles and Lear Cohen. Jaw Rule, talking to Vlad TV, tells his story too, because he was there. He was rhyming with the fucking wires in his mouth.

Like, crazy shit, like the shit about the pop and break. And I was like, okay, you know what I like this dude. You know what I'm saying? Like, I can fuck with him. DMX gets signed to D&MX. Def Jam. His debut album, released in May 1998, is called It's Dark and Hell is Hot. Jarl rule noted that not everybody thought DMX was poised for success. This barking armed robbery guy and overalls and timbulins barging into the apex of Puff Daddy's shiny suit era. A lot of jokes,

apparently among the skeptics, who's he going to sell records to, dogs and what have you? So much for that. Get at me dog First single's called Get At Me Dog Sheik Tch from the Locks Helping out on the chorus there Sheik Luch is on cameo 50 bucks for a personal cameo message From Sheik Luch, that's a bargain

DMX arrives fully formed on Get At Me Dog And yes, 85% of the appeal is that he's exceptionally charming and menacing guy yelling at you But the other 15% is that he's never Just yelling at you There's a deafness to him.

He speeds up, he slows down, he gets meaner, he gets funnier. Let's go take all these things in the rap game to barely move me because when I blow you up, I have niggas falling like white bitches in a scary movie. How many dogs do you think bought this record, though? Hundreds of thousands. A lot of dogs. It's dark and hell is hot debuted at number one, of course. Parts of this record, I suppose, qualify as horror core,

or at least play out like a horror movie and as a horror movie averse person. I find those parts legitimately challenging to listen to in a way I've always deeply respected. It's something about the way he says it's frustrating, isn't it? On X is coming. Frustrating, isn't it? When to kill me, but I'm going to kill you. Now watch me fuck just a little while longer. Please, will you?

You're better off not knowing the full context of that, if you don't already. This feels like a good time to point out that the extremity of DMX in every sense on record and in his personal life. There's no hand waving any of that away. He struggled with drugs all his life. He spent more time in prison. He was arrested for failing to pay child support. He was married to Tashara Simpsons for 14 years. They had four kids, but reportedly he had 11 other children.

He was arrested for animal cruelty, for abusing dogs. These contradictions are harder to resolve, and they make the viciousness of his most vicious music harder to bear. Where the Hood at? The first single from Grand Champ in 2003, it's his third biggest song on Spotify now, and the whole first verse is just straight. homophobia homophobic threats you can argue that his faults his mistakes his sins only underscore the power of his vulnerability on record his contrition his dire need to keep

praying but Craig Jenkins for Vulture wrote a great DMX obituary too and I really like the way he put it quote there are those who found X's good-natured lighthearted moments jarring against the uncompromising brutality expressed in his music, and the more lurid instances of sexual violence and homophobia peppering the catalog are reason enough to feel that way. But morality is a world of often jibing alignments, not a sliding scale, where several things can be true. This music can be coarse and offensive and also inspirational, and it's fine to feel conflicted, or even to not and just never engage. end quote. But for the millions who did engage in 98, 99, this is what they were shouting.

From school buses, from every passing car, from street corners, from gutters, from rooftops, from stadiums. Rough Riders' anthem was not DMX's breakout single, that'd be get at me, dog, nor was it initially pegged as DMX's enduring signature hit, but the word anthem is right there in the name. Yes, you remember the footage of DMX regaling 8 billion revelers at Woodstock 99 with his chorus. Yes, he's got the red overalls. His whole set

everyone's shouting pretty much every word right back at him. Unfortunately, given all the white people in attendance, including the N-word, there's crowd-surfing girls being groped even in the official footage you could pay to watch on TV at the time. Contradictions. Always. But you

feel always in this song the galvanizing necessity of this song and the genuinely huge relief that after all he'd endured, DMX finally had an anthem and finally had the Rough Riders themselves. That crew, that record label, would include the locks, and Eve, the illest vicious pit bull in a skirt, and Dragon, and M.C. Jin. And maybe most importantly, the producer Swizz Beats.

Most of its dark and hell as hot is produced by Dame Greece, or P.K. or Irv Gotti. But Rough Riders Anthem is produced by a young striver named Swiz Beets, three z's total. This is his first big song, Swiss Beats, and he will go on to be one of DMX's most important collaborators, in part because DMX could handle the

brashness, the blaring maximalism of a Swiss Beats production. Not everybody could. It's like trying to rap to an ambulance siren or an emergency broadcast system. Swiss Beets actually told Complex, and this has become something of a theme on this show, that DMX

hated the Rough Rider's anthem beat at first. Swiss says, DMX didn't want to do it. He was like, man, that sounds like some rock and roll track. I need some hip-hop shit. I'm not doing that. It's not hood enough. I told him, yo, we can make it hood.

DMX came around to it. All I know is pain. All I feel is rain. How can I maintain with that shit on my brain? There's pain and rain again. The pain was never far away. The pain gets closer, the more triumphant DMX got. Contradictions.

beats also says the what ad lib and all of that came about in the middle of us hyping him up we left it in the track to add energy that's one way to put it another way to put it is that every what gives you the strength to run through another brick wall one brick wall per what here's my personal favorite part of this song it's yawinckisie i bust you and be suezzy stop back in like a baby mind your business lady nosy people get it too when you see me spit at you know i'm trying to get bitter of you yeah i know it's pitiful Mind your business lady is actually very funny now that I'm listening to it again. I'll bust you and be Swayze too, I suppose.

But my absolute favorite part is not so much of the lyrics, the words. Yeah, I know it's pitiful, but the way he delivers them as an aside, the change-up, the concrete cracking under your feet. That's the charisma. That's the charisma indistinguishable from the menace. Now it's time for that got the floor bed. Yeah, that nigger's dead. Another unsolved mystery.

It's going down in history. Via any standards of morality, it's objectively awful, especially when a vanilla sea of Woodstock 99 kids shot along with him. But it's objectively fantastic, too, just the energy and the propulsion and the elation and the messianic bombast of that voice. DMX's voice had this spine-rattling religious fervor to it even when he's doing the precise opposite of praying. I have this exquisite feeling of paralyzing anxiety right now that I get some times where I've got

like three dozen DMX songs across his catalog that I want to rave to you about right now, but I'm running out of time. This is the best worst feeling. How officially can I do this? Okay, best song and it's dark and hell as hot is called Crime Story. It's driven by my all-time favorite historical hip-hop sample from Funk Legend Edwin Starr's 1974 hit Eason In. If you know it's good for you, you'll know it when you hear it.

Crime Story is one of the best rap storytelling songs ever. DMX commits several capital crimes and also when the police show up at his door at one point this happens I feel at the door police we're looking for a man who killed a couple of cops last night number one is 10 grand

I play like a bitch It's just me here And I'm not dressing And that guy sounds kind of dangerous I hope you're making arrest I feel terrible How delighted I am by that voice Spoiler alerty

Suicide bombs a police station If we're looking at DMX Through any sort of spiritual lens I'd be remiss not to mention Damien, the first chapter in a trilogy of songs in which DMX, once again playing both roles, has an extended uneasy alliance with slash confrontation with the devil, in essence. DMX sells his soul, in essence,

for rap, royalty, type, fame and fortune, which now that I think of it, blurs fantasy and reality to a pretty uncomfortable degree. And also there's an argument that DMX's Damien voice is as scary as he ever got, especially when Damien starts asking DMX to kill people, he'd rather not. Nah, that's my man. I thought I wish you man.

But yo, that's my nigger. Hey, who's your biggest man, you can do it? Oh, give me your right hand. That's what you say. I see now, ain't nothing but trouble ahead. That story continues on Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, on the Song, the Omen. Marilyn Manson on the hook. It's a little on the nose in retrospect.

But two quick hits here. First of all, pretty much right off the rip on Bring Your Whole Crew, here's a contender for the single gnarliest DMX line of all time. I got blood on my hands and there's no remorse. They got blood on my dick because I fuck the car. So there's that. However, contradictions.

Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood also features by some margin my absolute favorite DMX song. It's called Slippin. Slippin is the prettiest DMX song. No competition. there either. And the one thing I thought I knew going into this is that I'd make some sort of corny joke here. Like, Slippin is my favorite DMX song is not a very DMX like opinion. But that's embarrassingly reductive to me now, that Slippin is any less true to him, having

spent so much time with him, with his prayers, with the pain and the rain and the heartache inherent in every word he ever rapped, even the ugliest words. Back on the scene at 14 of the scheme to get more green than I'd ever seen in the dream. That initial dam there can shatter glass. It can shatter concrete. Back on the scene at 14. Ah, God. Look at it in other way, slip it as the hardest song he ever did.

Last one I wanted to mention is from the Great Depression, actually, from 2001, the conclusion of that Damien trilogy, DMX versus the devil. songs called Damien 3. Damien complains that he didn't appear at all on DMX's previous album on and then there was X. That's funny. But what always gets me is DMX's shouted a little plea to God here. Lord Jesus. Come on dog. You'll be a fucking.

Please help me. Don't stop dog. Yeah, you buggy. Keep the devil. Dog got to be tight. Out of my life. I'll be that guy. Do me a favor.

Even if you're not the type to ever consider praying for yourself, don't ever stop praying for him. Our guest today is Shay Serrano, author of the new book, Hip Hop and Other Things. Co-hosts of the Ringer's rap album podcast, no skips. He's working on a TV show. He's very busy. Let's not waste too much of his time. Shea Serrano, welcome once again to the program. Oh, baby boy. How are you? You look as handsome as ever. That's very sweet. Likewise. Dashing is exactly what I'm going for. I was going to ask, are you going to be nicer to me this time than last time? That's really only question for you. I thought I was incredibly nice last time.

You were incredibly nice. I'm going to be much nice. I'm going to be nicer this time. Oh, I remember because you were making a bunch of terrible picks when we were. Those are great picks. J. Posse cut rap song.

That's what it was. Oh, yeah. I'm mad all over again. You haven't listened to the last as a since we talked last, have you, Jay. You haven't come around on the last as a, as one of the best top five posse cuts of all time. All right.

So you're not going to be nicer. That's fine. That's fine. That's what I expected. I can handle it. Shea, the DMX chapter of hip hop and other things is one of my favorite chapters in the whole book. And you start out by saying it was the second chapter you wrote and you revisited it after DMX died and felt a little better. And you called him one of the most impactful rappers in my life ever. And that word impactful to me carries more weight than like one of my favorite rappers or whatever. Like how has DMX impacted your life? So I didn't even think too much about this until I was working on the book.

And then after he passed and I went back, as you mentioned, and revisited the chapter because I had written it, you know, a year before that happened or something. And so I was trying to think my way through it. And I realized while I was working on the chapter, so this is a year prior, that he was the first rapper for me who I believe made me realize, is that like a thing a person is saying in a song

means more than just what they're saying in the song. You know what I'm saying? Like music exists when you're a kid on a very linear level. They said a thing and that's the thing that they meant, cool. And then once you get older, this happened for me, you know, 17, 18 years old or something like that. Right around then is when you start to realize by then you've lived like at least a decent portion of your life, 25% of your life likely.

You realize people say things. things that mean other things. And then you go back and listen to and you real. And so he was the first one for me that made me realize that. With it's dark and hell is hot especially, you just start to put those pieces together. And I always, that might be part of the reason I love him so much if I had to guess. But that's what, that's what it was for me. Is there a song or a line on it's dark and hell is hot that sort of crystallized that for you?

like the double, the triple meaning of what he's saying? It was the part when he's doing the prayer. Essentially he's saying if it takes for me to suffer for my brother to see the light, then Lord, treat him right, basically. That's a version of what he says there. And I remember hearing that. And that was like when the key goes in the lock and it like unclicks it for you. And you go, oh, shit.

Oh, okay. And then the whole album sounds different to you when you re-listen to it. And then all of music sounds different to you when you go back and let's do it. Well, what is that really? You know what I'm saying? Right. Yeah, absolutely. Give me pain till I die, but please, Lord, treat him right.

Yeah. You wrote about that in the book. And that's, do you think in the end he helped his listeners, his fans, see the light? I don't mean necessarily like, did he convert anyone to anything? But like, what impact do you think his spirituality had on rap music? Well, I think he definitely helped his listeners. For certain, he helped me. I assume it worked.

I assume that's like part of the reason he was so beloved because you listened to this guy saying these things. And it just made you feel a little more comfortable inside your own body. It made you feel, it made me feel a little bit safer in the universe. It made me feel like there was maybe somebody out there who was looking out for me in a way I wasn't expecting. Not necessarily DMX, but somebody else was going through a thing so that I didn't have to go through a thing. Right. You know what I'm saying? I would assume a lot of his listeners felt that way.

I would assume that's why his passing was such a big, like, moment, like a big heartbreaking moment in rap. You saw everybody reacting to it with the same sort of, like, grief or a version of the same sort of grief. Absolutely. Yeah, it was grief. It was legitimate, visceral grief, you know? And most people, of course, we don't know him personally, but he's one of those guys. Like, you feel like you did.

And he felt, as you say, like a guardian. angel, I think, to a lot of people or just somebody walking beside you. I went to a buddy of mine. This was well over a decade ago, but a buddy of mine, his father passed away. And I went to the funeral. You know, Laramie and I went just to be there to support. And I'd only met his dad a couple of times, but his dad was clearly somebody important in this guy's life. And we were sitting in the pews or whatever, and the preacher was up there delivering a sermon. And this was the first time in my life that I felt like I had even a tiny understanding of what death was. Because the guy was up there and he was explaining,

people will always ask when somebody passes away, why did this bad thing happen? Why did this person get taken away from us? So and so forth. And I was sitting in the audience like, yeah, that's a good question. I would like to know the answer. And then the preacher, he explained it in a way better way than I'm going to right now. But he essentially said that the experience of death is not for you.

It shouldn't have any impact on you. It's for the person. they're being released of their of of their like mortal selves and ascending into a better place and so of course it's going to make you sad because you're not the one who's experiencing this thing but i remember thinking about that and when dmx passed it seemed like a lot of people even if they weren't saying exactly that they were saying kind of that like yeah it was it sucks for us but it seems better for for him that that you know maybe he's in this better place or, you know, something like that.

I don't know. It's a very big thought, very confusing. But there was a tiny bit of relief in there is what it felt like. I think especially when you're talking about DMX, like you've talked about, you've written about like his childhood, like his abjectly awful childhood. You mentioned his autobiography. You know, if there's somewhere, you can honestly say they're in a better place now, I think that's DMX.

Like even the fame that he had, you know, starting in 98, you know, from that moment forward, he was a rap star. But his just, his childhood was so awful, you know, the abuse, the abandonment that he suffered that I do think this is one of those cases where the cliche, like, they're in a better place, like absolutely applies. Yeah, I hope so. I certainly hope so. I was going to ask you sort of said that he made you feel better or safer, which is very funny on one level because like there's, he's just robbing and killing people. you know, 65% of the time. Like, does listening to DMX make you feel invincible like DMX? Or did he ever make you feel like vulnerable like most of the people DMX is rapping to and or robbing and shooting?

Like, is it DMX album, crime movie, escapism for you? Or is it something more like a horror movie and like you are maybe the victim? Well, I think it depends less on like, yeah, I think you can't look at the entirety of an album and assign it one single feeling, which is what makes it so special. Like if you're listening to the album and you're hearing a song like X is coming or crime story. I love crime stories so much. Yeah.

Or fucking with D or a song like that. Like when you listen to those songs, those are very much like you feel like you want to get into a fight. You feel like you could you could fucking pick up a mountain and throw it to the sun if you needed to but then you you know you listen to some of the more somber stuff he has this great song where he talks about his grandma you listen to something like that or you listen to the ones where he's expressing some sort of hurt and and then you feel the other sort of way you know you you do feel vulnerable you do feel sadder or more sullen but in a way that makes you feel like like you have

your own stuff in your own heart but you're not going through it alone you know what I'm saying Sure. It's just interesting that he's such a threatening rapper in terms of like the crimes he commits, but it never feels threatening to you to the listener, right? Like it's, I think you said in no skips that like he was like the guy in your neighborhood to like beat everybody up, but not you. You know, he feels like you're in your neighborhood. He would protect you. Like it's just very interesting. He could be such a threatening figure, but it translates to you as like threatening everybody who's threatening you. Like this is my. protector. Yeah. He very much felt like he settled into a big brother kind of role. Yeah. Even though I never met him, but being 17, 18 years old listening to this album, you just felt like, yeah. Yeah. That's basically meeting someone if you come to a rapper like that at 17. DMX is by a huge margin, the best prayer in hip hop history, right? Like Kendrick is prayed. No name is prayed. But like there's no equivalent to the prayer at the end of every DMX. MX album thing.

Is that fair to say? That's 100% fair to say. I went to a show and I watched him live and he did a prayer live. And it was just like, it was exactly as, as weighty. It had exactly as much gravity as you would expect to just go through, do this whole like an hour of music and then just be like, all right, we're going to do, we're going to do a prayer now. I remember Jay-Z talked about that when they were on tour together.

and like DMX comes out, he gets everybody crazy wild, and then he does like a prayer. And people are just in the audience crying. Like he just went from, like, he's just whipsawing you around because that's how good he is. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think there's anybody better at praying on a rap album than DMX. He's the top level.

And I think it's crucial that it's at the end and not the beginning, like you say. Like you go through an hour plus, you know, of violence, you know, and pain. And then it ends with that prayer. and it's such a beautiful, striking way to end, you know, every album he ever did. And like, when he, when he does it live, like, is the audience, like, silent in reverent or, like, reverent and, like, cheering him on or, like, what is the energy like around you? When I saw him in Houston doing it, it was quiet. It was like, it was like, it was time for the, okay, let's, you know, it was, it makes the album feel like, it's dark and hell it, and hell

hot, hell is hot especially. It makes it feel like a confessional. And then you get to the end. and he's like absolved, absorbing himself, absolving everybody or whatever. When I saw him, person, it was a wildest thing to watch everybody

just like chill out for a second to just go from straight into whatever to Rough Rider's anthem into this. And then be like, all right, cool. That's perfect. You write about the song slipping, which is my favorite DMX song.

You write about how it made you feel real bad when he rapped. Was it my fault something I did to make a father leave his first kid? Like overall, do you think the DMX story is about a guy overcoming a guy overcoming his absolutely horrible childhood? Or is it a story about how you can never really overcome something like that? You can succeed in spite of it, obviously. But like that's always with you.

It never feels like it's the past to you. I think it's probably, it's probably a hybrid of the two. It's probably like a reckoning of sorts. Here's a thing that I lived through. Here's how it has affected me. and here's how I have assigned it meaning, a meaning that makes me feel okay with it or better with it, as good as I can feel about it.

Sure. You know what I'm saying? I think that's probably where I would land on that. Yeah, because I'm reading like Rolling Stone interviews from like the height of his fame. And, you know, he's sitting in a fancy hotel suite talking to a reporter and he's got tears in his eyes because he's talking about his mother. He's talking about being abandoned by his mother and how he loves his mother,

but he hates his mother. Like, it's always with you, no matter how many multi-platinum albums, you know, you put out in 18 months or whatever it was. He had the interview where shortly before his passing, where he was talking about how, like the guy that he looked up to the most in the,

when he was growing up, a surrogate father figure of sorts tricked him into, I think it was like smoking crack for the first time. That's right. Oh, God. And like, why would you do that to a kid? Yeah. Exactly.

And so when you watch him tell that story, you can see him go through the entire range of those emotions of it. You see him processing the hurt again. It still hurts. He's like in tears talking about it. And then you see him get mad about it again. And then you see him sort of like come out of it. It's like that's sort of just who DMX is or what he is. Like he's always, it felt like when you're watching him, just somebody who you just couldn't pin him down.

But he was never afraid to tell you how much it hurt. that people had tried to pin him down so many times. And he was 50 at that point, you know? You're theoretically 35, 40 years removed from what happened, but you're not removed from it. You know, that's sort of the lesson, yeah. What was it about DMX in 1998? Like, it's dark and hell is hot and flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. Two multi-platinum number one albums, seven months apart.

There is first two albums. He sounds totally out of step with the shiny suit era, as you and Jing said. Like, how many rappers ever had a better year? ever than DMX had in 1998. It's got to be up there. It's got to be like top, top three individual years ever from a rapper. Because as you mentioned, he has two albums that come out and they're both platinum. It's the first time a rapper who was living had, Tupac did it.

Right, right, right. Tupac did it, but his album came out after he had passed. So it's the first time a person who was alive had done anything like that. So when he shows up, he just, he was sort of the reinvention of gangster rap is what it felt like. Sure. Right. Like he shows up right on the tail of Puff Daddy and Bad Boy having just dominated everything, everything. They were just in charge of all of it.

All the charts, yeah. And he shows up. And he's doing the exact opposite of what they were doing. Everything was big and bright and shiny and glittery and like, look how happy we are. And look at all of this money that we got. and it solved all of our problems. They're doing this whole thing. Sure.

Very much as the, as like the direct result of Biggie's passing. Right. Puff Daddy steps in and does that. And then DMX comes. And if you look like the, I think it was the first single that they put out for the album was get at me, dog. Mm-hmm. And that video is the exact opposite. It's just him in this dungeon of a nightclub and it's in black and white.

And there's no, he was just like, let a bunch of people in and give me a microphone and get out of the way. No suits, no shine. Grawling, barking, no suits, no shine. He's not even wearing a shirt. He's doing all of the other things. But he's like, he's like, okay, when Puff Daddy had like this horrible thing happen with him when his best friend and like creative mastermind person gets murdered, Puff sort of absorbed all that and came out with the like shining suit thing.

And DMX absorbed all of the hurt and came out with this whole other thing. And we were like, oh, this is this is valid. too. Like this is how this sort of feels like how you process pain also and it's okay to do that. So everybody just sort of, it helped that his voice is incredible, one of the all-time great rap voices. It does. Absolutely. It helped that he was wildly charming and charismatic. You watched him on whatever interview or documentary and you just were like, it helped that he was handsome. It helped that he was cool.

Like all of those things helped, but he was able to package it all together in this way that we had never, ever seen. and there was no avoiding it. It was like every version of rap loved DMX. It didn't matter if you were like the, it didn't matter if you were one of those kids who was mad that Puff Daddy was so popular and you're like, what about most deaf? You know what I'm saying?

It didn't matter if you were like that. It didn't matter if you loved Puff Daddy. It didn't matter where you found yourself in rap. When DMX showed up, you were pulled toward him and just like totally in awe of what he was able to do. I was going to ask you if anyone since, anyone rapping now or even anyone that came up after DMX has matched, like, his menace and his charisma, as you say. Like, you can try to be scary or you can try to be inspiring and super likable, but I don't feel like anyone will ever be both at the same time on DMX's level.

Nobody, nobody has done it as well as he has. Probably the closest anybody got was when 50 cents showed up. But even then 50 cent was more charming than terrifying. More of a jester. He had that southern drawl about the way that he talked. And he had all of the bona fides and like he was muscular and walking around in a bulletproof vest or whatever. But it felt different than when DMX was doing it. Yeah.

Where are you on Exodus, the 2021 posthumous DMX record? It came out like a month and a half after he died. It came out in May, I think. My sense is that it weirded people out or he bummed people out a little. Like, did you get into that at all? The posthumous albums are always a little tricky to get into. Of course, yeah. You know, you're not quite certain.

How much of this was DMX is doing? How much of it was somebody else is doing? Right, right. So you weighed into those waters with that in your head. There are parts of it that I liked. I thought the most interesting thing about it. was that if you listen through it, like the first, I can't, it's like the first four songs or something.

It feels like he's in the background again. Of course. He's, he's positioning everybody else to come before him. Like on each of those first few songs, another person raps before he raps, if I'm not mistaken. And that was a part that I remembered when I was playing through it,

of him being like, oh, this is the part of his career when he, when he does this. And that's kind of, And that's kind of neat to see, especially if you look at it in comparison to his first album, which was just all him, it felt like for the entirety of it. I mean, there are a few guest features on there, but mostly it was just all DMX as raw and pure as he could present himself.

And then his final album is sort of the opposite of that. And you still get like glimpses of the original DMX in there, which is neat to see. But yeah, I think I probably felt the same way about it that mostly everybody. anybody else did. Yeah, Justin Charity wrote about it for The Ringer, and he talks, as you're saying, like he was the third or fourth verse on the first several songs. Like, he sort of takes over toward the back end, but he feels like an afterthought. Like, Jay-Z is talking about his endorsement deals, you know, there are sometimes the guests feel like they're in sync with DMX, and sometimes they don't. But what Justin said that struck with me is like, DMS just sounds exhausted, right?

Like, he's, he's, I think that that's colored by the fact, obviously, that he had just passed. But I 2020, like two of the biggest rap records were pop smoke and juice world, who are obviously those are posthumous albums. They were top 10 chart hits like for the whole summer for the whole year. But I, something about the DMX record felt like more like a glum sort of wake to me than those records. Like he just, his voice sounds so rough, you know, it's cracked. You know, he sounds older than he even was. He's 50 at that point. But it's, there's just something really funereal about it. Even, you know, that's what. DMX is to an extent, but there was just something very striking and sad about just the sound of his

voice, which, as you say, is so crucial to him always. Yeah. Also, Bono was on it, you know, I, you know, for what that's worth. Which is weird in and of itself. It's super weird. Just in the past year or so, we've lost DMX, we lost MF Doom, you know, Black Rob, Gift of Gab, Shockie, Biz Marquis, Prince Marki, and like all these guys were veterans, but none of these guys were old, right? Like, does hip hop have a legitimate crisis in terms of taking care of its icons. And is there anything like on a human level to do about this? It feels like a like an epidemic, like just a crisis that once these guys, they're like 50 years old and they're dying off.

I don't know if I would describe it as a crisis or epidemic or anything like that. I don't think hip hop has any problems within itself that other genres don't have as far is when artists get older. It's just like part of how it goes. Yeah. Like there's no retirement savings or whatever set in place for anybody. Right. I think what makes me say that is like when Black Rob died, like there was all this talk

about how he had been sick for a long time. He didn't have health insurance. You know, he wasn't living anywhere. You know, people are raising money to get him a house. You know, and I'm sure Diddy or whoever was helping him out financially. but I just remember DMX saying on record, like, I won't live long. You know, it's okay, whatever happens now is fine. I won't live long.

Like his earliest biggest records, especially, nothing DMX says or does suggests that he thinks he'll live past 50. Yeah. Yeah. And then especially when you listen to like something like 24 hours to live when he shows up on there. Yeah. You just sort of like, like he, I don't know, I guess he knew. what his life was going to be.

Surely he knew it before anybody else did. Again, if you listen to that one, on that song, you have several different verses from several different rappers, and they're all talking about how they would spend their final 24 hours. And then DMX comes. And mostly all the other ones are like,

I would see my kid. I would give my girl a kiss. I would like, whatever. And DMX's stuff is just like him inflicting pain on others as much as possible on like his way out. Blades of glory. What a person. You mentioned in the No Skips episode of It's Dark and Hell is Hot that your grandma bought you that record and it changed your life.

Did your grandma ever listen to It's Dark and Hell is Hot herself? I want to know her personal opinion. I don't imagine she sat down and listened to it while I was at school. With a cup of tea. Yeah. You just put it on the record player on your radio. So I'm sure she had to have listened to it through the walls. Right.

Just absorbing it secondhand, of course. And the house where we were saying. So I was living with my grandma at the time. It was a two-bedroom house. And the two bedrooms were literally right next to each other, separated by a wall that was thin as cardboard. And I'm just in there with a volume all the way up listening to fucking DMX. She heard it that way.

She never mentioned anything to me about it. She was just like, you like this thing. maybe you'll like this. That's top shelf grandmaying right there. That's elite. What a high percentage she has of album selections. Like the one album that she bought me and gave me ended up being one of my five favorite albums ever. Yeah.

I have to say my favorite part of the No Skips episode is one of your girlfriend cheats on you at the zoo. I'm sorry to bring that up. It doesn't have anything to do with DMX. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just laughed out loud. I'm very sorry. My heart was broken,

Rob. Ninth grade, Shea fucking heartbroken. Well, we've established that you never get over you. That's terrible. That's a terrible state of affairs, and I apologize to you. Shea, thanks so much for being here. This has been awesome. All right, man.

Take care. Thanks very much to our guests this week, Shea Serrano. Thanks to our producers, Justin Sales and Lonnie Ronaldo. Thanks, as always to you for listening. Now, without further ado, here's DMX with Rough Rider's Anthem. we'll see you next week