The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog (DMX in general)

Member Name: davidso_99

Product:	DMX in general
Date:	07/07/02 (1034 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: versatile, honest

Disadvantages: N/A

DMX. Real name Earl Symmons. East coast hiphop artist. Figurehead of Ruff Riders. Four albums....blah blah blah. Contrary to others, i'm not going to bore you with useless facts and statistics. Firstly because i can't be bothered doing extensive research and secondly because its all about the music.

An all too popular HipHop phrase is 'Keep it real.' That is 'Lest we forget our roots. We are from the ghetto and will always be from the ghetto....and so on.' This slogan is spouted by artist after artist, time after time and has been used to death to a point where it is a recognised cliche. However this slogan is at the core of DMX. His tracks are characterised by honest depictions of 'the streets' and thug life in general.

Despite being raised in run down ghettos of New York, DMX is undoubtedly an immensly intelligent man. Contrary to the modern day 'bling bling' hiphop artists such as P Diddy and Master P, Dark Man X tends to shy away from rapping about repetative materialistic obsessions like 'Ice,' expensive cars and 'hoes' for it is here that claims of 'keeping it real' are often questioned. Instead Earl Symmons addresses more down to earth, 'real' issues. His tracks tend to consist mainly of honest depictions of his thug life where he considers loyalty as a prime virtue, 'I'd shed blood, for my niggaz.' His continuous likening of his 'clique' to dogs are because dogs are renowmed for their unconditional loyalty.

'All a dog wants from you is love, food and water and he will love you back unconditionally. He would die for you if needs be.' DMX

The legendary series of 'Damian' concurrent throughout his albums are particularly outstanding. They are an expression of his inner demons, represented by an inner voice which he names Damian (Devil's child) to whom he often succombs when asked to perform bad deeds. It is profoun
d tracks like these which set DMX apart from the rest.

However this is not to say he is a soft touch. Hard hitting tracks such as 'Whats My Name?' on his third def jam album, (And Then There Was X) and the legendary 'Ruff Riders Anthem' on his first (Its Dark and Hell is Hot):

'Cos now you on the floor,
Wishing you never saw,
Me walk through that door,
With the four four,

Now its time for bed,
Two more to the head,
I got the floor red,
Yeah that nigga's dead,'

have often provided me with a channel for outlets of tension.

And this is all delivered by his distinctive, honest and seemingly-weathered-by-the-streets coarse voice.

My favourite

Long live DMX.

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