DMX

Former stick-up kid DMX emerged from Yonkers, NY, to become a multiplatinum hip-hop phenom who rhymed about blood and grime at a time when the status quo was champagne and diamonds. Using Jekyll-and-Hyde rhyme flows, a manic-depressive persona, and, when words won't do, barks, snarls, and yelps, the Dark Man X laid out his formula on his first LP. It's Dark and Hell Is Hot features odes to crew ("Ruff Ryders' Anthem"), deals with the devil ("Damien"), conversations with God ("The Convo"), detailed scripts from the underworld ("ATF," "Crime Story"), and good old-fashioned shit talking ("Fuckin' wit' D," "Get At Me Dog"). The production -- by Swizz Beatz, Dame Grease, and Irv Gotti -- is brooding and ominous, with gothic underpinnings. Built around shards, chunks, and crashes of smoking, aggressive noise, the album sounds like a burned-down cathedral in a post-apocalyptic ghetto.

DMX's next two albums were released in rapid succession. Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood came out the same year as his debut, making X the first artist to debut at the top of the Billboard charts twice in the same calendar year. Despite his prodigious success with Flesh and . . . And Then There Was X, DMX continued to spit his pavement poetry with the same desperation that made him a blue-collar hero. While the production is a bit more polished -- most notably on . . . And Then There Was X's Dru Hill team-up "What These B*****s Want" -- nothing ever comes off rehearsed, fabricated, or disingenuous.

Perhaps because he released three albums in two years, DMX didn't take stock of his celebrity until his fourth album, The Great Depression. There he taunts his competition: "15 million, nah-nah-nee-nah-nah," and he assumes the role of guardian of the hip-hop game, deriding the music's rampant materialism and excess. He also forays into rock ("Bloodline Anthem") and party music ("Trina Moe") and, of course, he prays, raps with God, deals with the devil, writes a letter to his dead grandmother, and barks every now and then. The Grand Champ is more of the same, but tracks such as "Where the Hood At" show that DMX can still deliver exhilarating fight music. (KRIS EX)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide