Throwback Write-Up #19: DMX - It's Dark And Hell Is Hot - HipHop | HipHop Channel

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Throwback Write-Up #19: DMX - It's Dark And Hell Is Hot - HipHop

Throwback Write-Up #19: DMX - It's Dark And Hell Is Hot - HipHop

Throwback Write-Up #19: DMX - It's Dark And Hell Is Hot

Posted: 03 Sep 2020 08:22 AM PDT

Artist: DMX

Album: It's Dark And Hell Is Hot

Listen:

YouTube

Spotify

Appple Music

Background

One December night in 1970, Earl Simmons was born in Mount Vernon, New York, and then raised in nearby Yonkers. To say that young Earl had a fucked up childhood would, unfortunately, be a profound understatement. From nightly trips to the emergency room thanks to asthma, to getting hit by a drunk driver, and not to mention the continued abuse he endured at home, 14-year-old Earl ran away, and was briefly homeless, bonding with stray dogs who also had nowhere safe to go. After being found in this condition, he was sent to a group home, where he bonded with other boys over their common interest in hip hop music, a genre which was still quite new at the time. He continued to practice rapping with the encouragement of his new friends, taking the name "DMX" from the Oberheim drum machine that he had written music with at the group home.

Fast forward to 1991, and after two prison stints, DMX began recording his own mixtapes and selling them on the street, which eventually landed him a placement in The Source's "Unsigned Hype" column. (At this point in history, The Source was kinda like a big deal.) He released his first official single for Columbia Records' Ruffhouse imprint in 1993, but it generated so little buzz that he was released from his record contract shortly afterwards. However, he ended up befriending a rap group from his own hometown of Yonkers, The LOX, who were signed to Bad Boy Records; this connection would prove to be crucial for DMX, as it would help lead him to landing two guest spots on fellow Bad Boy artist Ma$e's wildly successful 1997 album, Harlem World. Providing a hook on "Take What's Yours" and joining The LOX on "24 Hours to Live," these placements created more interest in the then-unsigned MC than he had ever seen before. (The LOX also saved DMX a spot on their top 20 hit "Money, Power & Respect," so that definitely didn't hold him back, either.)

After the East Coast-West Coast rivalry resulted in the murders of two of the genre's greatest artists, 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G., Bad Boy Records and damn near everyone else in the rap world decided to project a less violent and more celebratory, obscenely wealthy image. (Now, to be fair, it's not like they weren't slowly approaching that path already.) During what is now known as "the shiny suit era," producers took more influence from pop and R&B music, and rappers focused their lyrics more on the lifestyles of the rich and famous than those ov da poor & dangerous. On one hand, this paradigm shift made hip hop at large a bigger crossover hit than it had ever been before. On the other hand, much of hip hop's core audience was not happy at all about this new, heavily commercialized strain monopolizing the mainstream. Now, if there's one universal truth of rap music, it's that trends come and go faster than anyone can keep up with them, so naturally, by the time DMX's first single for Def Jam Records was released in February 1998, Biggie had not even been dead for a full year. "Get At Me Dog," featuring The LOX's Sheek Louch on the hook, clearly demonstrated that DMX's gritty, aggressive style was a far cry from what Sean Combs and company were on. Along with the equally unforgiving "Stop Being Greedy" and "Ruff Ryders' Anthem," interest in DMX quickly skyrocketed, and before long, he had become the hottest rapper around, thanks to the strength of his debut album, the incredible It's Dark And Hell Is Hot.

Review

1998 was the year of DMX. While his peers were busy showing off their immense wealth and catering to radio, X was more preoccupied with embodying the raw anger and desperation that defined his environment growing up. As the decline of California's gangsta rap and New York's hardcore hip hop led to the rise of the aforementioned shiny suit era, many rap fans were worried that the genre had forsaken its roots, so naturally X was immediately welcomed with open arms. If Puff Daddy and Ma$e were like the hair metal groups of the late 1980s, DMX was their grunge counterpart. He was menacing, he was belligerent, and he had been through too much shit; his aggression was driven by catharsis and bravado in equal measures. On It's Dark And Hell Is Hot, DMX established himself as a rapper with an intimidating presence, off-kilter flows, blunt lyricism, surprising versatility, and a voice anyone could recognize from a mile away - not to mention that he arrived into the rap game with impossibly perfect timing. (He also probably has the GOAT ad-libs, but that's another story.) All of these factors combine to produce one of the most compelling rap albums of the 1990s.

The first thing you hear when you put this album on is the sound of DMX pledging his loyalty to his Ruff Ryders crew, in a mock interview setting, repeatedly declaring, "that's my mans and them!" Whatever X is doing, his mans and them are doing, and when the "interviewer" predicts that they are "supposed to be locking down the industry on some shit, on some power shit," he couldn't have been more right. This brief skit leads into the proper "Intro," which is one of the album's most explosive cuts, with DMX demonstrating his brash, uncompromising flow over some fiery production from Irv Gotti and Lil Rob. Much of It's Dark continues in this vein, but X is far from one-dimensional, and proves himself a jack of many trades throughout the tracklist, demonstrating plenty of different emotions and levels of intensity over a wide range of beats, mostly produced by Dame Grease and P Killer Trackz.

The intense brand of hardcore rap most commonly associated with DMX is conveniently perfected on the album's biggest hit singles. The album's first single, "Get At Me Dog," finds X in his element, barking one threat after the next, combined with a few harsh realities for good measure; "the days are longer and seems like I'm facing time / I've got a lot of dreams but I'm not really chasing mine." While "Get At Me Dog," with its funky but intense production, charted higher during X's heyday, "Ruff Ryders' Anthem" has perhaps proven itself more enduring, becoming his signature song over time. And the funny thing is, it almost didnt' happen at all; according to producer Swizz Beatz, when he first played X the minimal, synth-guitar-driven beat, he didn't want it because he thought it wasn't "hood enough," but eventually his Ruff Ryders managers (who are also Swizz's uncles) talked him into it. Despite this hesitancy, X came through with one of his strongest performances on the album; in addition to the irresistible hook, his distinctive flow and direct, audacious rhymes almost feel like a military cadence, probably also thanks to the "WHAT?!" ad-lib punctuating every half a line. It's just got "hit single" written all over it, doesn't it?

From here, DMX doubles down on the aggression still on a number of other songs. The album's final track is a posse cut, "N-ggaz Done Started Something," where an ominous beat is attacked by The LOX and even Ma$e, whose verse is much rougher around the edges than anything on his own Harlem World, before X comes in at the end to steal the show, closing the album with possibly the hardest verse of his career; "now who gon' tell your mother her baby's under a cover / in the morgue, stiff as a log, sniffed out by the dogs?" Another one of the album's singles, "Stop Being Greedy," sees one of X's most creative performances, as he spends the whole song alternating between two different perspectives. Every four bars, his voice switches from a more laidback, confident side of himself, who wants to make an honest living to the best of his ability, to his signature gruff timbre, as it represents all the grimy shit he's ultimately willing to do to make ends meet. And it's not just X who's committed to this balancing act, either; Dame Grease and PK switch the beat from an elegant string sample to menacing horror-movie synthesizers along with the switches in lyrical point of view. A similar horror-like atmosphere is present on "Damien" and "X-Is Coming," which literally borrows its hook from A Nightmare on Elm Street, and contains some of X's most, um, peculiar lyrics.

DMX also utilizes the same dual perspective technique on "Damien," which arguably still stands as his crowning achievement. On top of Dame Grease's harrowing string sample, X demonstrates his storytelling ability, as he narrates making a deal with "Damien," who turns out to be the Devil, where he is promised fame and fortune in exchange for basically being Damien's full-time hitman. He provides the voices for both himself and Damien, structuring all three verses as an extended dialogue between the two, and the first verse even has a third point of view introduced - namely, that of X's own young son. At the song's conclusion, X is presented with an awful dilemma, as Damien tests his loyalty by commissioning him to kill "that kid Sean [he] used to be with in '89." The simple but powerful hook continues to capture the difficulty of making out people's true intentions, in regards to anything; "the snake, the rat, the cat, the dog / How you gonna see 'em when you livin' in the fog?"

Meanwhile, DMX continues to elaborate on his storytelling chops on "Crime Story," an overlooked album cut that features a direct but vivid lyrical narrative, again with X impersonating multiple voices, over a minimal beat consisting of little more than a lethally funky bassline, and some groovy drums to match. The comparative calm of this track is one of a few tracks which prove that, while X's mode of operation on It's Dark is primarily aggressive, he knows how to calm down a little bit sometimes. The laidback "How's It Goin' Down" was another hit single, wherein X contemplates his own relationship with a woman who already has a family of her own, ultimately deciding to call the whole thing off after the father of her children beats up a guy he mistook for X himself. Also in this relaxed vein is "For My Dogs," another posse cut featuring a host of little-known rappers who are presumably longtime friends of X's, as they all lay down verses expressing their appreciation for their loyal friends.

True to the tone of the aforementioned "Damien," towards the end of the album, DMX makes it clear that he is a very religious man; later in life, he would claim to have become a deacon, with intentions of becoming a pastor. An a cappella track, "The Prayer," is exactly what it says on the tin; a passionate verse addressed to God. This is mmediately followed by "The Convo," which sees X once again assuming two perspectives, this time narrating his own conversation with God as he reflects on his own wrongdoings. Both of these songs are free of profanity, and represent a more introspective side of X, which also presents itself in earlier, secular moments on the album. One of these moments is the somber ballad, "Look Thru My Eyes," which contains a haunting piano line, over which X explains all the fucked up factors in his life that made him so violent and reckless as he grew older. Even more brutally honest is "Let Me Fly," where X's poetry reaches its peak as he wears his heart on his sleeve, and holds nothing back; "didn't know, yet I persisted, it was the call of the wild / I merely say what's in my heart and you call it a style / Don't put it in a cage, don't mistreat it / You say you hunger for knowledge? Here it is, eat it!"

For a while there, the future of rap music was uncertain. Tensions were rising, its biggest stars were dying, and new up-and-comers were missing a lot of the edge that drew people into the genre in the first place. But DMX breathed new life into the good old spirit of hardcore hip hop when we needed it the most; from here, it would not take much longer at all for everyone to get tired of Puff Daddy and his cot damn shiny suits. The era of Nas, the Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep and the like was a whopping 3 years ago by this point, and X's contemporary spin on the East Coast renaissance may not feel quite as timeless today, but in some ways, It's Dark And Hell Is Hot is a stronger and more well-rounded album than many of the other classics from that period. Sadly, X did not end up with quite as strong of a legacy as he probably deserved. Even since he rose to fame, he's been arrested more times than you could count on both hands, for everything from drug possession, to tax fraud, to driving without a license, to even carjacking while impersonating a federal agent at the JFK Airport. (The magazines must have gotten a kick out of that one.) Meanwhile, his addiction to crack cocaine has resulted in multiple rehab stints. While DMX's legacy has been inhibited over time, his many hits still knock to this day, and It's Dark And Hell Is Hot remains one of the finest rap albums of not just its own era, but of any era before or since.

Favourite Lyrics

"What must I go through to show you shit is real / And I ain't really never gave a fuck how n-ggas feel / Rob and I steal, not 'cause I want to, 'cause I have to / And don't make me show you what the MAC do!" -DMX, "Get At Me Dog"

"Take away hate, now I'm supposed to love the one that cursed me / The one that wouldn't give me a cup of water when I was thirsty / It was always him versus me, but now I gotta teach him / Personal feelin's put aside, 'cause now I gotta reach him / What I'd like to do is turn my head, like I don't know him / But it seems like I've been called on to show him, so I'ma show him / And if you never met me, then you've no right to judge me / I've got a good heart, but this heart can get ugly!" -DMX, "Look Thru My Eyes"

"Don't came at me with no bullshit, use caution / 'Cause when I wet shit, I dead shit, like abortions / For bigger portions, of extortion and racketeering / Got n-ggas fearing, fuck whatchu heard, this what you hearing! / How much darker must it get, how much harder must it hit / See if your hardest n-ggas flip, when I start a bunch of shit!" -DMX, "N-ggaz Done Started Something"

"I sold my soul to the Devil, and the price was cheap / And yo, it's cold on his level, 'cause it's twice as deep / But you don't hear me, ignorance is bliss and so on / Sometimes it's better to be thought dumb; shall I go on?" -DMX, "Let Me Fly"

"Dogs bite, dogs fight, dogs knife / Scratch, shake, and hold all night / So when you hear that "ARF ARF," start runnin' / 'Cause when you hear that "ARF ARF," I'm comin'!" -DMX, "Stop Being Greedy"

Talking Points

  • What do y'all think of this album? Do you think It's Dark And Hell Is Hot is deserving of its classic status? Is it overrated, or maybe still overlooked?

  • How well do you think It's Dark And Hell Is Hot has aged over the years? How do you think it has aged compared to other rap albums from the same era?

  • DMX was on top of the rap game for quite some time, with all of his first five albums debuting at #1 on the Billboard 200. How do you think X kept this momentum up for as long as he did? Do you think this may have been some kind of fluke?

  • Unfortunately, DMX did fall off pretty badly after his prime years. Do you think this was inevitable? Did he have potential to be an even bigger deal as time passed? If so, what do you think would have made him stick around longer?

  • What kind of legacy do you think DMX has to this day? Would you consider X to be one of the GOATs, or one of rap's biggest what-ifs, or somewhere in between?

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Daily Discussion Thread 09/03/2020

Posted: 03 Sep 2020 04:29 PM PDT

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[FRESH ALBUM] Big Sean - Detroit 2

Posted: 03 Sep 2020 08:59 PM PDT

Apple Music | Spotify

Tracklist

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  5. Body Language (feat. Ty Dolla $ign and Jhene Aiko)
  6. Story by Dave Chappelle
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Points for discussion:

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  • How has Rodeo aged for you? Have your feelings changed since its initial release?

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  • Where do you hope Travis goes next, sonically speaking?

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HEY WHATS UP! MY NAME IS DUCKWRTH. I JUST RELEASED MY DEBUT STUDIO ALBUM “SUPERGOOD” I AM HERE TO TALK MUSIC, ART AND LIFE. AMA. LES GO.

Posted: 03 Sep 2020 11:03 AM PDT

PEACE YAH – I'M STOKED TO HAVE FINALLY RELEASED "SUPERGOOD", AN ALBUM I HAVE BEEN ANTICIPATING FOR NEARLY 7 YEARS. NOW ITS OUT AND ERRRBODY CAN PRESS PLAY. HIT ME WITH YOUR QUESTIONS! www.duckwrth.com - Stream/Download SUPERGOOD Here: https://Duckwrth.lnk.to/SUPERGOOD - Watch SUPERGOOD Here: https://Duckwrth.lnk.to/SuperGoodVisuals - Watch the Official Video for "Coming Closer" here: https://Duckwrth.lnk.to/ComingCloserVideo - Watch The Making of SuperGood: https://Duckwrth.lnk.to/TheMakingofSuperGoodProof: https://i.redd.it/a9bhpvmallk51.jpg

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https://www.instagram.com/p/CEpEKlWAvTg/. Posted on the directors instagram.

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