The Great Depression by DMX

The Great Depression, DMX's fourth studio album, dropped on Ruff Ryders and Def Jam on October 23, 2001, and it hits just as hard as the ones before it. Just Blaze and Dame Grease handled much of the production, with Black Key and DMX himself also at the boards, and the album doubles down on his loyalty to the Ruff Ryders crew. The bark is as ferocious as ever, but so is the soul-searching: his rhymes swing between street menace and raw personal pain, and Stephanie Mills, Faith Evans and Mashonda bring softer voices into the mix. "We Right Here", "Who We Be" and "I Miss You" were the singles.

Reviews ran from mixed to warm, but the numbers were never in doubt. It opened at number one on the Billboard 200 with 440,000 copies sold that first week, his fourth straight album to debut on top, and went platinum by December.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.