Suffering was the entire brand, and he never figured out how to turn it off.
At a glance
- Known for
- First artist with five consecutive #1 debut albums on Billboard 200
- Before fame
- Slept in storage bins as a teenager in Yonkers, befriending stray dogs
- Off-screen
- Ordained deacon who included a prayer track on each of his first six albums
Rise to Fame
In 1998, hip-hop was drowning in Diddy's champagne. Shiny suits, sample-heavy party tracks, a general agreement that rap should be fun. Def Jam's co-president drove to Yonkers to hear a guy rap with his jaw wired shut from a neighborhood beating and signed him on the spot.
It's Dark and Hell Is Hot debuted at #1 with 251,000 first-week copies. Seven months later, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood moved 670,000, making him the first rapper to put two #1 albums on the Billboard 200 in the same calendar year. Nobody was supposed to work that fast. Lyor Cohen had bet him a million-dollar bonus he couldn't finish a second album before year's end. He recorded it in about a month.
In the Spotlight
Five consecutive #1 debuts wasn't enough to keep him solvent. He filed for Chapter 11 in 2013 with debts over $10 million, including $1.24 million in overdue child support. That's the math on a career where the music always moved faster than the man behind it. He pleaded guilty to federal tax fraud in 2017 and got a year in prison.
The Verzuz battle against Snoop Dogg in 2020 pulled over 500,000 concurrent viewers on Instagram. The legal record couldn't touch the fanbase. But the estate told the real story: negative $1 million in value, 15 children from 9 women, no will. His music royalties alone were estimated at $17.7 million. Nobody could touch them.
Side Notes
Every one of his first six albums included a track called "Prayer." He was ordained as a deacon at an Arizona church and led prayer at Kanye West's Sunday Service in 2019. The faith wasn't performance. He said his ultimate goal was to become a pastor.
The contradiction didn't bother him. He told GQ he'd been to jail at least 30 times. A mentor he trusted tricked him into smoking crack at 14, and he never fully shook the addiction. Most artists manage their contradictions. He lived his out loud.
Final Chapter
A red casket atop a monster truck with "Long Live DMX" painted on it rolled through Yonkers to the Barclays Center, April 24, 2021. Kanye West, Nas, Busta Rhymes, and Swizz Beatz gathered for a two-hour memorial where all 15 of his children stood together on stage. BET ran a tribute with Method Man, The Lox, and Griselda on stage. Swizz Beatz released the posthumous album Exodus a month later, named after his youngest son, with every track recorded while he was alive.