No one has ever sounded better over Swizz Beatz’s keyboard loops - it took a rapper as charismatic as DMX to imbue those Casio presets with such physical presence.
Dmx and the lox songs how to#
MR DMX, “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” (1998)Ī master class in how to ride a beat. Complete with an assist from Sheek Louch from the Lox on the chorus, “Get at Me Dog” kicked off DMX’s 1998 - a Year of the Dog if there ever was one - with a gold-selling top 40 hit. “ ’Cause nowadays, gettin’ by is nothing more than an occasional meal and gettin’ high.” He punctuates his words with yelping barks, and the track simmers with uneasy, menacing excitement. “I rob and I kill, not because I want to, ’cause I have to,” he raps over a pulsing Dame Grease beat that makes excellent use of a B.T. No wonder that his first major hit found him portraying the life of a hungry criminal who hustles for survival.
Dmx and the lox songs crack#
Many DMX fans don’t realize that before he seemingly emerged as an overnight sensation, the Yonkers rapper struggled to crack the industry for years, leaving a failed Columbia single deal (1992’s “Born Loser”) and random guest verses in his wake. Singer Paulette McWilliams on Her Years With Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, and Steely Danħ0 Greatest Music Documentaries of All Time DMX featuring Sheek Louch, “Get at Me Dog” (1998) This year, as news spread of DMX’s hospitalization, LL Cool J reminisced on Twitter: “Today is 4/3/21 - it’s only right that we celebrate the talent and genius of my brother DMX on the 4, 3, 2, 1 song.
“Do you value your life as much as your possessions?/Don’t be a stupid nigga, learn a lesson/I’m gon’ get you either way! And it’s better to live/Let me get what’s in your sock, ‘cause it’s better to give,” he instructs. Meanwhile, Method Man and Redman ladle the cut with punchlines, and DMX uses his verse to shout out energetic ski-mask threats. Produced by Erick Sermon, LL Cool J’s street hit from his 1997 album Phenomenon is not only famed for inaugurating Def Jam’s late-Nineties “Survival of the Illest” era, but also for sparking a subsequent war of words between seasoned vet Uncle L and brash newcomer Canibus. LL Cool J featuring Method Man, Redman, Canibus, and DMX, “4, 3, 2, 1” (1997) Here are 16 of DMX’s most essential songs. Effortlessly balancing raw charisma with hit-making savvy, X had a major impact on the sound and direction of an era in hip-hop, and the catalog he built stands as a landmark of passionate, profound performance. The Yonkers, New York, rapper, who died April 9th at age 50 after being hospitalized with a heart attack days earlier, burst onto the scene in the Nineties with one of the most distinctive voices on the radio - a commanding presence on the mic, from his earliest guest appearances to the five straight multi-platinum albums he released starting in 1998. DMX was a larger-than-life force in rap music at the turn of the millennium.