Rapper DMX, one of hip-hop’s darkest figures whose fierce rap chronicled urban violence, died two weeks ago in New York City after a week in hospital with a heart attack. He was 50 years old.
On Saturday April 24, a spectacular tribute was paid to the artist in the streets of New York. A crowd of fans, VIPs and the DMX family gathered. Bikers and monster trucks were part of the procession that traveled through the streets of Brooklyn and Yonkers. The coffin of the rapper was posed in a monster truck on which was written the words “Longue Vie à DMX”.
With you
DMX, real name Earl Simmons, was one of the great hip-hop figures of the late 90s and early 2000s, with hits like “X Gon‘ Give It To Yes“or” Party Up“.
“Earl was a fighter who fought to the end“his family said in a statement.”He loved his family with all his heart coeur, and we cherish the time spent with him.“
“DMX was a brilliant artist and an inspiration to millions of people around the world.“, also underlined Def Jam Recordings, record company with which he had released several of his most famous albums. “He was a giant.”
Born in Baltimore on December 18, 1970, he had grown up with his mother and brothers and sisters in an HLM in the New York suburbs of Yonkers, where he was frequently beaten.
“I didn’t really have a childhood“, he confided to the magazine Rolling Stone in 2000. “It was always dark and depressing back home.”
He acquired a reputation as a difficult child, known for his outbursts of rage, and spent a good part of his youth in foster homes.
From the age of 14, he spent several periods in prison, notably committing a series of burglaries., and has drug problems, which will accompany him throughout his life.
Even after he rose to fame, he will continue to be in trouble with the law, with charges of possession of narcotics, cruelty to animals, dangerous driving, non-payment of child support, or even posing as an agent. federal.
In 2017, he pleaded guilty to tax evasion, was sentenced to one year in prison and had to return some $ 2.3 million.
“This guy is really crazy”
But his legal setbacks did not prevent him from marking the rap with his throaty voice.
In 1984, he began beatbox, genre rooted in music hip hop which consists in producing with his mouth a multitude of sounds. After a stay in prison, he begins to write his own lyrics and to perform in a neighborhood entertainment center.
A again released from prison in 1988, he began to make and sell mixtapes.
Charismatic, constantly bubbling with energy, he spent most of the 1990s making a name for himself on the New York underground scene.
It was at the end of this decade that he adopted this deep voice and this threatening style, with exacerbated masculinity, which would make his reputation.
He participates in “battles“of rappers in which each one clashes in an exercise of style, with in particular, in the mid-1990s, a duel which has become famous against another New-Yorker, Jay-Z, then on the rise, in a smoky billiard room in the Bronx.
“It was awesome. A back then, I had never really heard of DMX. I didn’t know who this kid was“, told the site HipHopDX the ski producer Beatz, which was then in the audience.
“But to hear him rap in live, I was like, ‘This guy is really crazy’.“
DMX loved dogs so much that it incorporated barking and growling sounds into its sounds. “Your dog would die for you. You can hit your dog, if he sees you in trouble and you are going to die, he will be there for you,” he said in 1999.
Son premier grand single, “Get At Me Dog“, with Def Jam, released in 1998, from his first studio album, “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot.”
The album, which includes a second hit, “Ruff Ryders‘ Anthem“, climbs to first place in the ranking of Billboard. It is the beginning of a commercial success which will last several years.
“energy atomic”
In all, DMX will have seven official albums to its name, plus an unofficial eighth released in 2015, and an autobiography, “EARL: The Autobiography of DMX “(2003). He will be nominated three times for Grammys, without however winning the precious trophy.
Despite his reputation as a fierce rapper, this father of many children – 15 of several different women, according to several media – could sometimes show a softer side, as in the remix of a Christmas classic “Rudolph the Red–Nosed Reindeer“, which went viral in 2012.
He also flaunted his Christian faith, even saying that he would like to become a pastor.
Returning to 2020, in a podcast, on his difficult childhood, he had explained how it then seemed impossible to him to talk about his problems.
“No one in the neighborhood wants to hear about it … Talking about your problems is a sign of weakness, when one of the bravest things you can do is put them on the table, and let them out“.
Tributes rained down on Friday after the news of his death was announced. Rapper TI called him a “cultural icon”, while Missy Elliott called him “a heavy loss for the hip-hop family”.
“No one exuded a sense of suffering, pain and atomic energy so much“the rapper tweeted Biz Markie. It represented “pure adrenaline, lawless genius, total surrender.”
“The poet of God”, greeted In the. “I love you.”
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