Day 40 of 365: Top 10 DMX Songs

Only Jay Z has spent more time as my favourite artist than DMX. Born Earl Simmons aka Dark Man X aka Divine Master of the Unknown, DMX had a late start if compared with his peers (my opinion). P Diddy passed on signing him to his Bad Boy label at the time, instead he took The LOX under his wings.

DMX was arguably the biggest thing in the late 90s with maybe Jay Z and Nas toppling him. I still think DMX was robbed of 2 Grammy Awards in the year 2001 because Party Up a single off his And Then There Was X album and the title album deserved the awards of best rap single and best rap album that year. His debut album Its Dark and Hell is Hot and his sophomore discography Flesh of my Flesh, Blood of my Blood were released in 1998 and they went on to about 5 million and 4 million copies respectively.

This made him the first rapper to release 2 albums in the same calender year and also debut at number one on the US Billboard 200. It could be argued that the late 2Pac was the first to do it but Pac released All Eyez on Me in February 1996 while The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory was released after his death in November of 1996 under an alias, Makavelli. So DMX remains the only rapper to do it with the same name.

Enough with the history, my 10 favourite DMX songs (could list 20) are:

1. Ain’t No Way (Flesh of my Flesh, Blood of my Blood)

2. Trina Moe (The Great Depression)

3. Shorty Was Tha Bomb (The Great Depression)

4. Ruff Ryders Anthem Remix ft The Ruff Ryders

5. How’s It Going Down ft Faith Evans (It’s Dark and Hell is Hot)

6. Party Up (And Then There Was X)

7. Untouchables ft Syleena Johnson, Cross, Infa-Red, Sheek Louch & Drag-On (Grand Champ)

8. Good Girls, Bad Guys (And Then There Was X)

9. D-X-L (Hard White) ft The Lox & Drag-On (And Then There Was X)

10. A’Yo Kato (Grand Champ)

Bonus: Dog Intro (Grand Champ)

This was pretty tough and I am sure some X fans would be like where is Ruff Ryders Anthem on the list. I prefer the remix.

We link up tomorrow. CHEERS!!!