I hope we can extend some of that grace to everyone because we all have our battles. We knew he was battling and trying the way we all are and we cheered him on and used his words to fight our own battles. I think his rap, his poetry, gave us all the accessible words to battle ours, even if they were not the same. While DMXвЂ™s battles with his demons have been extremely public, the world has given him grace for years and I think I know why. And he did it while bucking trends, being extremely personal in his art, and praying at concerts in an era where most other rappers were kinda worshipping money. Remember how most artists donвЂ™t hit peak popularity until album 3 or 4? DMXвЂ™s first 5 albums debut at number 1 - heвЂ™s the only artist in the history of Billboard to do this. And here comes DMX, rapping about his struggles with drugs, PRAYING multiple times per album, and telling incredible stories of a pious man who does not give a shit about the law - he raps about professionally robbing people and turns around to pray and suggest wealth redistribution. Rap money was new money and rapper bravado about money was at a local maximum (Jay-z started rapping about his art collection FAR exceeds that maximum).

DMXвЂ™s debut album, ItвЂ™s Dark and Hell is Hot*, came out in 1998, during the rise of вЂњshiny suitвЂќ rap.

At the best rap concerts, every fan is performing along. At the best RnB concerts, fans listen and maybe sing along. IвЂ™m not gonna sit here and try to defend Big Meech (he did terrible things), but there are many scenarios where feeling like you momentarily have the bravado, charisma, and intelligence of him might be beneficial. When Rick Ross raps, вЂњI think IвЂ™m Big MeechвЂќ, well, shit, I think IвЂ™m Big Meech too. If you can stan over someone for words they didnвЂ™t write (ahem, pop stars), you should be able to stan over them for words they did.ДЄnother reason why rap is special is because itвЂ™s accessibility and story-telling allow fans to channel themselves as rappers and be in the story just as the rappers are. ItвЂ™s kinda weird, but no judgement from me. There are even academics that have fans and groupies that wait for new papers to drop and constantly read their old papers over and over. I talk about it at conferences (radio) and sometimes it even makes it into popular press (actual radio or TV) or textbooks. I write a paper (song), get it through my peer-reviewers (my A&Rs), and then it gets published in a journal (song release). I canвЂ™t even be mad at this if it helps my kids learn to read.ДЄlso, as an (ex-)academic, I always thought of the academic career as quite parallel to that of the musician, with my publications being akin to songs. In the old record label model, artists who sign record deals typically donвЂ™t make real money or hit peak popularity until their 3rd or 4th album.

The process of making the album, as can be seen from the making of a hit Rihanna record, can involve multiple people and cost millions of dollars, but it can also be one creative person and cost that personвЂ™s time. It seems like a terrible industry in many ways, but itвЂ™s fascinating that a person or group of people come together to make somewhat intangible, valuable, creative IP and distribute it as widely as possible to capture value, upon which they leverage those sales to capture even more value (tours, merch, etc.). The music industry in general is interesting to me. If you caught that all my email subject lines are the names of rap (+ afrobeat + RnB) songs or albums ( full playlist here), then you might guess that I love rap and you would be correct.ДЄnd I, like the countless people who have posted, written, mourned, am a fan of DMX.Д«efore I get into the details of why I am a DMX fan, I want to talk about why I like rap so much. I planned on writing about something else today, but the passing of DMX has changed that.

Dmx and then there was x full album