A week after reportedly overdosing and suffering a heart attack, DMX has died, multiple outlets report. Born Earl Simmons, the rapper and actor was a foundational member of the Ruff Ryders hip hop collective, celebrated for breakout albums like 1998's It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot and its quickly arriving follow-up, Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood. As comfortable ripping through confessional tracks like 1998's “Slippin’” as he was on propulsive party jams like “X Gon’ Give It To Ya,” DMX helped shape the sound of rap at the turn of the century, favoring a verbally aggressive style that rarely relented and frequently stunned. He still holds the distinction of being the only musician to have albums chart at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 five consecutive times, and remains one of the most celebrated artists in all of hip hop. DMX died Friday at White Plains Hospital in New York on Friday, his family confirmed to People. He was 50.
Born in New York, DMX had a difficult childhood, often walking city streets to escape the reach of his physically abusive mother. It was during a stint in a boys home that he first began creating music, a process that soon saw him distributing demos on street corners. (It’s also this early period that saw him first develop the substance abuse issues that would color much of the rest of his life.) Quickly building a name for himself, with his own stage name pulled from one of the first instruments he ever made music with, DMX was signed by Columbia Records at the age of 22. But while little came of that first brush with success, his integration into New York’s underground hip-hop scene in the early ‘90s eventually bore fruit. Signed to Def Jam in 1998, his single “Get At Me Dog” primed the masses for the arrival of a new voice, and It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot paid off on the promise, eventually going quadruple platinum. The swift arrival of Flesh Of My Flesh just 7 months later cemented DMX’s new place at the center of New York—and, frankly, global—rap.
That increased profile and superstardom were also matched, though, with increased scrutiny from authorities, and DMX would spend the next several years balancing charges of drug possession, animal cruelty, criminal mischief, and more against his continued success in the musical world. (Certainly, early charges didn’t dissuade audiences from purchasing 1999's Grammy-nominated…And Then There Was X, which eventually went Platinum six times over.) It also didn’t get in the way of a budding acting career, which saw him debut in 1998's Belly before lending his talents to films like Romeo Must Die and Cradle 2 The Grave, both with Jet Li, and 2001's Exit Wounds, which paired him up with Steven Seagal. (And while “acting circles around Steven Seagal” comes close to damning with faint praise, DMX was undeniably praised for the charisma he brought to these roles.)