Given DMX's influence on me, it's no coincidence that I came to faith through the Pentecostal tradition. On repeat on my Sony Discman, meanwhile, DMX was telling the story of a prodigal come home: 'My child, I'm here as I've always been / it is you who went away and are back again,' he said on 'Ready to Meet Him.' I tagged my first Bible with a sketch of myself drenched in blood like the cover of that album. After I was baptized, I encountered a new version of myself. It called me like the voice of God in DMX's music. But to survive, well, that's to find meaning in the suffering.'ДЄbout this time, my childhood friend Nate invited me to his baptism at a Pentecostal church. When the criminal community to which I'd fled for safety began to unravel and my own choices landed me in one too many potentially deadly situations, the lyrics of 'Slippin' ' hit me like prophecy: 'See, to live is to suffer. Later that year, DMX dropped 'Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood,' which, like 'Hell Is Hot,' topped the charts. 'Somebody's knocking / should I let him in? / Lord, we're just starting / but where will it end?' If he could loft his questions about the problem of evil directly at God and rebuke the devil who tempted him to sin, maybe I could too. For a teenager wrestling with his own inner demons, DMX opened up a way out of the game through faith. The only child of a schizophrenic single mother, I'd experienced more than my fair share of abuse and neglect. 'You give me the Word / and only ask that I interpret / and give me the eyes / that I may recognize the Serpent.' 'The Snake, the Rat, the Cat, the Dog / how you gonna see him if you livin' in a fog?'ДMX wrote hauntingly about death, summoning the anguish of Jesus praying passionately in the Garden of Gethsemane. DMX spoke directly with God in 'The Convo,' in a lament worthy of Job ('Why you chose the hood for me?') and wrestled with satanic temptation in 'Damien' as Jesus did in the wilderness. It wasn't as if God was a stranger to hip-hop lyrics: Tupac Shakur, whose posthumous 1996 album, 'The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory,' depicted the rapper on a cross on its cover, had often invoked God and heaven, to say nothing of the 'Five Percent' theology that pervaded so much of East Coast rap.Д«ut what 'It's Dark and Hell Is Hot' had that no other could claim was a distinct and overt Christian - maybe even charismatic - spirituality. In the wilderness of my gang-involved teens, DMX was a voice unlike any other, piercing my defenses and opening me up to the work of God that would eventually convert me into a devoted follower of Jesus.ДMX burst onto the hip-hop scene in 1998 with an utterly unique debut album, 'It's Dark and Hell Is Hot.' It was at once a raw testament to DMX's story of suffering and survival while also sounding a faith-filled and hopeful note. John's fearlessness and bold announcement of the coming of the Messiah tilled the soil of hardened hearts and planted the seeds Jesus would cultivate into his world-changing kingdom of God movement.Д®arl Simmons, better known as DMX, was my John the Forerunner. Hence, his other, lesser-known title: John the Forerunner. Despite his larger-than-life presence on wax, the session felt more like two friends having fun and enjoying each otherвЂ™s music than a competition.The Gospel of John tells the story of the prophetic ministry of John the Baptist, describing him as 'the voice crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way for the Lord,' ' paving the way for Jesus the Nazarene. That following year, he released his third and best-selling album вЂ¦And Then There Was XВ - his third album in a row to debut at number one on the Billboard albums chart.ДMXвЂ™s legacy in New York hip-hop - and East Coast rap in general - was celebrated in a 2020 Verzuz battle with California rapper Snoop Dogg. He collaborated with the likes of Jay-Z, Ja Rule, LL Cool J, Mase, and The LOX, and his 1998 debut albumВ ItвЂ™s Dark and Hell is Hot put the music industry on notice.В TheВ LP included the hit singles вЂњGet At Me Dog,вЂќ вЂњRuff Ryders Anthem,вЂќ вЂњStop Being Greedy,вЂќ and вЂњHowвЂ™s It GoinвЂ™ Down.вЂќД«y the end of 1998, he had already recorded and released his second album, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood. DMX performs at the DGK Agenda Party at Cafe Sevilla on Januin Long Beach, California | Jerod Harris/WireImage/Getty Images DMX was a legendary rapperДMX put in a decade of work as an underground rapper in New York before his breakout in the late 1990s.

Dmx albums 2011