The highwater mark of Puff Daddy's gilded age came when he allotted $2.7 million on the budget for the "Victory" music video. That was March 1998. Two months later, DMX released his debut album It's Dark and Hell Is Hot. DMX hailed from Yonkers, the town adjacent to Puff's native Mount Vernon. If Puff was the king of the club, X was the champion of the streets.
This list revisits 10 standout tracks from DMX's peak: 1998's It's Dark and Hell Is Hot (the album that inspired Kendrick Lamar to start rapping in seventh grade) up through 2003's Grand Champ. Click through the image gallery to listen.
"Ruff Ryders' Anthem"
It's no surprise that "Ruff Ryders' Anthem" is the most enduring single from DMX's 1998 debut It's Dark and Hell is Hot. It's more than a song -- it's a document, the code by which DMX lived. The sticky instrumental was produced by a then-unknown producer named Swizz Beatz.
"Get At Me Dog"
DMX first conceived "Get At Me Dog" in the mid-'90s as a Tupac diss. The original version of the track, recorded before Tupac died, includes the line, "That nigga Tupac can suck my dick." X later expanded it, refined it, and repackaged it as a diss track aimed at K-Solo, another rapper with whom he was feuding at the time. He replaced the word "Tupac" with "K" in the final version of the track.
"How's It Going Down"
X's label wanted to have the It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot album signing in Yonkers. As X explained in a 2012 interview with The Boombox, he was initially skeptical of this plan. “I robbed like a lot of people in Yonkers. I’m like, ‘I don’t know if that’s gonna be a good idea,'" he explained.
The event was ultimately a success. “I was like, ‘Wow, yo, I really have this much love.' I seen niggas I robbed and everything, but supporting me.”
"Damien"
The titular Damien is a Tyler Durden-like figure whom DMX meets and and quickly befriends. Damien represents the demons that live within X; before long, he has convinced X to carry out robbery and murder on his behalf.
"Blackout" feat. The LOX and Jay Z
It's Dark and Hell Is Hot was a massive success: it sold 251,000 copies in its first week and it turned DMX into hottest rapper on the planet. Island Def Jam CEO Lyor Cohen had a proposition for X: a $1 million bonus if he could complete another album by year's end. Seven months later, in December 1998, X handed in Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood. It sold 670,000 copies in its first week.
Salute to Dame Grease, who made the "Blackout" beat and many other sublime DMX beats.
"Slippin"
FOMF, BOMB's first single "Slippin'" is about DMX's life falling apart before his eyes, and his determination to hold it together.
"X was writing 'Slippin'' for a while," Ruff Ryders Entertainment co-founder Joaquin "Waah" Dean told Fader. "Six months, a year. He wanted this song to be impacting people’s lives."
"Party Up (Up In Here)"
The second single off X's 1999 album ...And Then There Was X, "Party Up (Up In Here)" peaked at #27 -- his highest-charting single ever. It served as the music to the intro loading screen in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004. It got me so hyped to play Pebble Beach.
"X Gon Give It To Ya"
Despite being one of DMX's greatest songs ever, "X Gon Give It To Ya"didn't appear on an album, but rather the soundtrack for "Cradle 2 the Grave," a 2003 action film that casts X as a diamond thief and Jet Li as the Chinese agent trying to bring him down.
"Where The Hood At"
X's 2003 album Grand Champ was his fifth album to go #1 and his fifth album in six years. His star would fade considerably; his legal troubles worsened and his musical output nearly evaporated. The good news is that his reign ended with a bang, in the form one of the most legendary street anthems of the '00s: "Where the Hood At."