Rest in Peace: Earl Simmons and DMX

 My next door neighbor started blasting "X Gon Give it To Ya" tonight. Instinctively I started bobbing my head and weaving like I was at a college party in the early 2000s. Some things are just muscle memory. 

I had a complex connection to Earl Simmons and his alter ego, DMX. I bought his first few albums and I pumped them in college, worked out to them in the gym, walked around reciting his songs. It wasn't until I watched the Source Awards one year that I snapped out of a trance. I just remember there were a lot of gangsta rappers on stage shouting incoherent threats into a microphone and I just thought 'WTF am I listening to?' It was like someone snapped their finger and I woke up and so much of the music I had collected in my teenage years just made me...angry, moody, confrontational, tribal, toxically masculine. It was the kind of music you worked out to because it was aural testosterone..."fuck you man, fuck you world, I'm the best, kill the rest, I'm the king, kiss my ring, etc etc..." And I looked at my towers of CD record and started dumping them into a garbage bag. The next day I went to a CD exchange store and handed in about 50 gangsta rap albums and all my DMX. 

I got the cash and purchased James Taylor. I purchased Paul Simon, Meshell Ndegeocello, Aphex Twin. I purchased albums that would make me less full of my ego and domination and shit talking. I regretted giving up my DMX albums. Even back then I knew he was talented, powerful, once-in-a-generation voice. I also knew that he was not what I needed in my life at that time. I knew that he was struggling with some demons that he seemed to be exorcizing in his albums. While admiring his search for redemption through art but I didn't want his demons to reignite my own. His work was like a good friend that you could no longer be around for your own sanity. 

Years and years passed. Now I can listen to his songs through a different prism. Earl Simmons had terrible asthma, too many kids, was in and out of jail, struggled with money, drugs, and the warrior myth of DARK MAN X. He couldn't escape the monster of his creation. I relate to that...but I still bob my head when I hear his song, recall the videos, think about all the drama, and the songs he left like the armor-plated suit of an imposing superhero. Dark Man X.