DMX has spoken about his drug addiction before, but a recent conversation about where it all started evidently struck a chord with the Ruff Ryders rapper. Speaking with Uproxx, the New York native recalled the moment his life changed forever after his mentor laced a blunt with crack cocaine.
“I was in Yonkers,” DMX began. “I’d just come from being in institutions from the age of 7 to 14. This guy Ready Ron, he was like an older brother to me. He would rap, and I would do the beatbox. I loved this guy like an older brother.”
He continued, “This guy, he introduced me to what would be the best part of my life, which would be rap. Everything in my life is blessed with a curse, and the curse aspect of it was — I didn’t smoke cigarettes, I didn’t smoke weed, I didn’t do anything… I’m 14 years old. Me and my mans did a robbery one night, and it was his birthday and we came back and split the money. I said, ‘Here yo, go get something nice for your birthday.’ So he came back with a blunt rolled up, and as I’m counting the money, he passed the blunt. I wasn’t pressed — I don’t really smoke n-gga, fuck outta here.”
DMX started to choke up as he recalled the specific memory of his childhood where his drug addiction started.
“He passed the blunt around and I hit the blunt and I’m like, I was no longer focused on the money. I’d never felt like this, it just fucked me up, I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’ I later found out that he laced the blunt with crack. Why would you do that to a child? He knew I looked up to him. Why would you do that to somebody who looks up to you? A monster was born. I wouldn’t do that to my worst enemy. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Especially for someone that you supposedly love. Why would you do that?”
He added, “I put that in one of my songs called ‘Pain,’” before rapping, “‘I smoked crack at 14 for the first time/Given to me by a n-gga that I idolize/My love is real, but after that what I saw in his eyes/Was a snake and who I loved was just a disguise.’ The person that I loved was a snake, and he acted like he was a good person.”
On an episode of The Ruff Ryders Chronicles on BET, DMX briefly talked about having multiple personalities.
“They’re different things,” he said. “There’s a few things, a few people in me and they get me through life.” He later added, “They’re there to get me through life. I don’t know if I made ’em or if God gave ’em to me, or maybe circumstances and situations did.”
Tekashi 6ix9ine recently revealed the former Def Jam rapper helped him during his time in prison by staying in touch via phone calls.
“Me and DMX were in full-blown conversations the whole time I was locked up,” he said. “He was in MCC. He said, ‘Baby boy, do what you gotta do.’ And I’m on a jail phone cause he’s at MCC, he was just released. One of the guys I was locked up with was celling with DMX at MCC … Manhattan Correctional Center. He got released, we stayed in communication.”