Back in '97 was the 1st time i heard of a rapper called DMX. When i heard Mase's 1st LP for the time, up came track #3 "Take Whats Yours". To me til this day that is one of the best tracks Mase ever did but i digress....As im reading the back of tracklisting i see a appearance on the track by somebody called DMX. Im thinkin who in the hell is that? So as im listening to it i can tell his voice is very raw & hard. Plus he was only on the hook on the record so i dont have alot to go on to form a opinion. Basically for me, he became a after thought and i didnt expect much from him. Then about a couple months later I copped LL's Phenomenon LP (dope album to me, i dont care what yall say), and thats when i heard him again on the "4321" track. Now i get a chance to actually hear this man rhyme! And boy he didnt dissapoint, he completely ripped that joint! We all know thats a classic record and X made sure people knew who he was! Now another question for me arose, what the hell this man look like? How does his style look? Is he that grimy? That question would b answered soon enough.
A couple weeks after the LL album came out, my family went to go visit my grandma's house to visit and chill. Me and my brother went to the back guest room to look at TV. As we was flicking thru the channels it crossed my mind that yo! Rap city is on, lets check that out. So i turn it to BET and i was able to catch it. I dont remember who on the show but they was talking to somebody then they went back to showin vids. When they did the vid for "4321" came on. I was like oh snap, they made a video for this joint!! I was very happy & amped for this cause this was my 1st time seeing it! So im watching and i see Meth's part then Redman's part then.....X's part came on! I was like now i know what this nigga look like! And he looked hard and those pit bulls he had wit him was no joke (and that would soon b a common theme of his)! I was like his style is tight and he sounds dope, i hope i hear from him again soon. Little did i know the next time i would heard from him will b a game changer for the whole entire hip-hop world!
Fast forward to early '98, i came home from school and straight to my room to catch Rap City (it was a daily ritual people!). So im sittin there watching it and once again I forgot who the guest was but they finished talkin to him and they went back to the vids. All of a sudden next vid was filmed in black & white, you can hear a sound of a heartbeat goin in the beginning, then certain clips start comin up like a welcome to Yonkers sign-X standing next to a little kid-a Tunnel Flyer saying DMX performing tonite. Then next the screen blacks out and all u hear is "Lets take it back to the streets mother beeeeeeeeep!! BAM! the beat kicks in and the vid starts! For next 4 minutes and 3 seconds im locked in watchin this vid! I never heard a record like that with that much energy in it!! It changed my life, i didnt think hip-hop music can b that hard!! Plus the vid was filmed at the Tunnel. Up to that point i only read about the Tunnel, i never knew what it looked like or anything so it was good to see that! After that vid, everybody's fav phrase was "Get At Me Dog" or "Where my Dogs at?" Niggas was doin dog noises and the whole nine, barking and everything! DMX brought that out of niggas, he represented for all the hard rocks. It was a connection there that he tapped to that up to that point only Pac did & Ja Rule attempted to do (hate to bring that up but its true). Remember this was only his 1st single and people was foaming at the mouth waiting for that LP to come out! He was featured on countless tracks after that and his buzz was at a all time high! It got only higher when vids for "Ruff Ryders Anthem " & "Stop Being Greedy" came out. When word got out that his album would b coming out in May '98, i circled that on my calendar and was ready for it!
Here comes May, and I made a b-line straight to my local music store "On-Cue" (store no longer exists) to pick up this LP. Back then if u cop albums the day they came out it would b on sale for like 11.99 or 12.99, then after a while it will b 16.99 or somethin like that. So u had to get the joints the day they dropped it to get the best price (do any of yall remember that?). When i made it back home, I popped that CD in with the quickness and began my musical journey. The LP gets u goin right away with the intro! The beat to the intro is very eerie like u watching a action drama or something like that! And X killed the beat to it so i love it!! And Tyson loved it too cause thats the same joint he played as his intro when he entered the ring during that time! The next track i love is "Hows It Goin Down", I jam this still til this day. I love the beat and everything about it. X lyrics on this joint is straight real with no filler. Plus the vid to this joint is real dope. Hype did a great job on it! Then we move on to "Crime Story", on this X just tells a story that u have listen closely to see what he talkin about. The beat is basic but perfect for what he talkin about. Movin on wit "I Can Feel It", Dame Grease did his thing on this one. He sampled Phil Collins' track very nicely and X went in on this as well. I love the way this track flowed very smoothly! Now we got the closers of closers! I cant think of another LP that closed the way X closed with "Niggas Done Started Something"!! 1st off every nigga killed this track!! I couldnt believe Mase can go that hard!! That was Murder Mase on that 1. The beat to this is crazy! I must have lost my mind when i 1st heard this! I repeated this song so many times that i remembered the lyrics to this very quickly!! Now for a tidbit that i didnt know on this track, did yall know this track orig. came in 1996???!!! I have this on a Clue tape from '96!! When I found out about this a couple years ago it completely blew my mind!! Im thinking this track was a new track that came out in '98 not '96!! Crazy right??? But this this track has to go down on the list as one of the best posse tracks ever!! No question!!
When i think back to '98 when this album came out it brings back memories of hip-hop that I once new. At that time hip-hop was hot and exclusive, everything was just on fire! Back then people was selling mad records, like u was gonna go to the record store and cop that album no matter what! Some of us didnt even make it home to listen to it, we just take it out the plastic and pop it in our rides and jam it right away! I still have my orig. copy of this LP from '98! Yes its scratched up but it still works and im keepin it!! The memories from this LP are countless. Like my senior year our basketball team had a whole pre-game routine wit "Ruff Ryders Anthem" You know what i mean? They all had white t-shirts with the sleeves cut, with the Ruff Ryders logo drawn on it in red on the front and with the players last name and # drawn on the back. My boy John Brinkley (R.I.P) had a vision and put it all together! But the energy for all that was DmX, he brought that out of us back then. It was crazy, i miss those times man. They just dont happen like that anymore.
I give this LP the complete 5 star rating!! Hands down!! Whats ur thoughts on this LP?
