The Black community sat in agony over the past week as we waited the official news of DMX’s health. We knew what was coming, but we also didn’t want to accept it. After the 50-year-old rapper reportedly suffered a heart attack from a suspected drug overdose, it was as if we crashed back to reality—a reality where even if you’ve made it, you’re still Black at the hands of a system that is not meant to work for you. Hell, a system that has been constructed to destroy you.
The rapper, whose legal name was Earl Simmons, had a jarring entrance on the hip-hop music scene. He appeared loud, barking, aggressive, and peppered his albums with Biblical references in what some would consider a blasphemous manner—which for conservative Black families is a big no-no. But still, if you actually listened to his music, you could feel the gentle nature of his being and the genius of his lyrical content. And if you really paid attention, you could hear the deep hurt in his voice—the emotional cries for stability and some sense of normalcy.
Born in 1970 to a young mother who’d already had two other children by the time she was 19, DMX did not grow up in the most functional household. He was estranged from his biological father, and his mother (and her boyfriends) would physically abuse him on the regular.
“[My mother] beat two teeth out of my fucking mouth with a broom,” DMX told GQ of a violent episode when he was six years old. “And I think about this today, I’m like, ‘Okay, you saw me erase something in your notebook. What did you think I was trying to do? What could you have possibly thought I was trying to do?’”
DMX bounced through the foster care system as a child; to escape his abusive home life, he’d wander the streets of Yonkers, New York, where he befriended stray dogs, who would become his surrogate family members. Eventually, he found himself trapped in the carceral system, having been arrested for starting fights and conducting stick-up robberies.
Despite it all, he developed a talent for battle rapping in the streets. That’s where DMX found his calling—swapping cyphers in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, as hip-hop culture really began to take hold in America. Unfortunately, along with finding his talent and purpose, the rapper also discovered drugs. At the age of 14, DMX’s 30-year-old musical mentor laced a joint of marijuana with crack cocaine without his knowledge.
“I didn’t smoke cigarettes, weed, I didn’t do anything… He passed the blunt around and… I hit the blunt,” a tearful DMX explained to Talib Kweli on a podcast. “I never felt like this before. It fucked me up. I later found out that he laced the blunt with crack… Why would you do that to a child? He was like 30 and he knew I looked up to him. Why would you do that to someone who looks up to you?”
It became a habit he struggled to break throughout his entire adult life, and was a contributing factor to his death.
Nevertheless, by the ‘90s, DMX made a name for himself in the hip-hop scene. He scored a deal with Def Jam, made history by releasing two No. 1 platinum-selling albums in 1998, became one of the founding members of the Ruff Ryders collective, and crossed over into Hollywood, with roles in films like Belly, Romeo Must Die, Cradle 2 the Grave, and Exit Wounds.
After navigating the storm that was the early part of his life, it seemed as if things were finally looking up for “Dark Man X.” He was able to achieve (and surpass) milestones that others with his background couldn’t dream of. His hardcore and edgy style of rap became a mainstream phenomenon, earning Grammy nominations and grabbing audiences of all makes and creeds. He married, had children, developed bonds and friendships.
But America’s authoritarian relationship with Black men loomed in the shadows.
During the 1970s and ‘80s, Yonkers was subject to redlining and issues involving desegregation, there was heavy racial discrimination toward Black Americans, and poor quality of public housing. As a child, DMX was caught smack in the middle of federal and local governments declaring their outright disdain for Black lives.
As globalization and outsourcing took effect, manufacturing jobs left American inner-cities and traveled overseas. Since many Black Americans made up the core of the labor industry, this led to a wave of unemployment. With unemployment came poverty. With poverty came crime, as people looked for any method of survival. In the ‘80s, President Ronald Reagan targeted primarily young Black and brown men with his so-called War on Drugs, arresting them for crimes at staggering rates compared to their white counterparts. This was the height of the crack epidemic, which decimated Black communities, destroyed Black families, and made livelihoods and possibilities nearly non-existent for an entire generation of Black people. In this environment, they were either lost in the legal system or lost to a drug that could—in their minds—help them escape the harsh realities of living in a racist and unjust America.
DMX was a young man caught in a never-ending cycle of pain and poverty with little to no resources available to assist him. He, like many others, were left to fend for themselves, and then blamed for their circumstances that they never had any control over. Really, DMX was not meant to make it. He came of age during a time when the U.S. wasn’t at war with drugs, but at war with Black men, hell-bent on denying them the right to an existence.
DMX performs at The Source Hip-Hop Music Awards 2001 at the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach, Florida on August 20, 2001.
Scott Gries/GettyAnd DMX’s death is a symbol of how America truly has no remorse for the damage it has done to Black communities. It didn’t matter how successful someone like DMX became, he still struggled with the land mines that were placed at his feet when he was a child. He could never truly figure out a way to walk past them and not look back.
Earl Simmons was not perfect, but no person is—let alone a person who is forced to battle demons their entire life. I can’t help but wonder—if he was a white man, maybe a white man who had an addiction for opioids instead of crack, would more people have cared? Would he have received chances to redeem himself without being ridiculed? Would he have gotten actual help rather than have the authorities tell him to pick himself up by his Timberland bootstraps?
DMX is an example of an ongoing crisis that we still have to grapple with as a country. As the nation becomes more lenient and relaxes its marijuana laws, we cannot be ignorant to all of the lives that have been affected by a government-mandated war that struck people down before they even had a chance to live. We can’t just push legislation that seemingly erases the issue. We need vast infrastructure efforts to rebuild those communities that were racially crushed.
The rapper’s death at the age of 50, though tragic, also proves the powerhouse that he was. Considering the world that raised him and gave him no hope or faith, and knowing all of the trials and battles that he had with outside forces and himself, he was a trailblazer in all that he could accomplish. And he should be commended as a brave soldier who fought the system and won.
