DMX

DMX, born Earl Simmons in 1970, stormed out of Mount Vernon and onto the top of hip-hop with a voice like a chained dog straining at the fence. After a dead-end stint at Columbia Records, he landed with Ruff Ryders Entertainment, in partnership with Def Jam, and his 1998 debut, It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, hit hard with critics and buyers alike, led by the snarling "Ruff Ryders' Anthem". Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood followed the same year, and ...And Then There Was X in 1999 became his biggest seller, carried by the stomping, shout-along "Party Up".

What set him apart was the whiplash between menace and confession. One minute he's all aggression, the next he's digging into trauma and the abuse of his childhood, and he could fold a prayer into a record without blinking. The Great Depression arrived in 2001 and Grand Champ in 2003, making him the first artist whose first five albums all debuted at the top of the album chart, and by the end he had sold more than 75 million records worldwide.

He carried the same intensity onto the screen, in Belly alongside Nas, Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds and Cradle 2 the Grave, and published his memoir, E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX, in 2003. He died in 2021.

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