The Immersion: An Early Favorite, DMX’ “X Is Coming” Posted by Dharmic X on 06/21/12 | Filed under Features, Opinion, The Immersion

(A Note From Nathan S.: We all have our story about how we fell in love with hip-hop, I've invited the homie DJ Dharmic X to tell his story through a new series we're calling "The Immersion". Enjoy.)

Up until I became a teenager, I had almost no exposure to American music. The only radio our family owned was the one that came in-built in our car, and that was usually turned to the news channel. I didn’t have cable growing up, and so I’ve never watched MTV, BET, or VH1 ever in my life (not exactly a bad thing). The only music in my household were the Bollywood hits of the 90s and early 2000s. With that said, I never felt deprived by the absence of American music; I was just oblivious to its existence.

I didn’t even recognize that the first hip-hop song I ever listened to was a hip-hop song. It was called “My Band,” by D-12 and it was a very popular song amongst my sixth grade classmates in the mostly white Catholic school I attended for elementary school. I absolutely hated the song. The hook was terrible, I couldn’t understand the words to the verses, and the song seemed to play on our classroom boombox five times too many. Essentially, even though I didn’t know what “underground hip-hop” meant, at that point I was already opposed to following the trends of my peers around me.

The next rap song I heard came in the following year. A kid in my music classroom was listening to his iPod, and I asked to listen to it. The song was loud and energetic, and I liked it. It was “X Gonna Give it to Ya,” by DMX, and from that point on, DMX was my earliest favorite MC. By this point, however, DMX had reached the pinnacle of his career and was beginning the rapid downward cycle that eventually led to his repeated incarceration in Arizona. He was one year away from releasing his most recent album, Year of the Dog... Again, but it was his older works that had me enthralled.

DMX’s music was dark yet simultaneously energetic, high tempo and yet gritty. His lyrics were profane and violent, but at the same time, they were not masked in gimmick or posturing. He wasn’t encouraging people to follow in his footsteps; if anything, his songs serve as a warning for the tragic mishaps of the last few years, and furthermore as a warning of what life NOT to lead.

The most perfect example of that also doubles as my favorite DMX song, a song off of his first album, It’s Dark and Hell is Hot.



It all starts with that cryptic and yet disarming intro from the little girls on the playground, singing “1, 2 X is coming for you... 3, 4 You better lock your doors.” This then leads into an ominous, sinister beat, enhanced by the sound of sparks in the backdrop, and it is over this soundscape that the horrific fantasies in X’s mind get unleashed in lyric form. What makes this song stand out is the vivid detail that he is willing to go to--this is not some childish “chopper in my car” braggadocio. In the first verse, DMX says, “Plucked you like a chicken with your head cut off,” and as silly as that looks, it certainly sounded legitimate and alarming coming out of his mouth.

As gruesome as the imagery is, “X is Coming’s” simplicity isn’t a glorification of violence. The whole song is delivered in a matter-of-fact, conversational tone. DMX leaves it up to the listener to be repulsed or awed by lines like “Where I catch you is where I catch you: that’s what killing means.” There’s no prize or bounty for the main character of this song... there’s just the sadistic pleasure of securing revenge by any means necessary. The way I saw it, you could interpret this song either one of two ways: 1) A song that required one to suspend their sense of reality and just appreciate it as a fictional narrative, or 2) A piece of reality that nobody in their right mind would want to replicate.

And as much as I have wanted to believe in option 1, there’s something bone-chilling in the second verse that always leaves a little doubt in my mind. The second verse is all one scene: somebody rubs X the wrong way, and so he decides to get revenge in the most holistic way possible, by tying up the perpetrator, killing his wife, and raping his daughter in front of him. “Take her on the living room floor, right there in front of you, then ask you seriously, ‘What’re you gonna do?’” As if the scene wasn’t disturbing enough, it arguably gets worse. “Frustrating isn’t it? Wanna kill me but I’mma kill you, now watch me fuck just a little while longer, please will you?” The verse says it all to jaw-dropping effect. But perhaps the best part of that verse is the honesty and conviction in DMX to utter the last bar, “see your ass in hell mothafucka... see your ass in hell.” It sums up X’s life these last few years quite well: he knows just how wrong his actions have been, but that doesn’t stop him from going down the deep-end.

Even though he no longer holds a spot amongst my top five favorite MCs, I will always have a soft spot for DMX in my heart. As he gets ready to release his comeback album and tour the country through the Rock the Bells festival, I’m rooting for him to not only bring back the gritty essence that made him such an iconic figure for millions, but more importantly, to find personal redemption that he’s been searching for since his debut album.

But DMX was only an introduction into how hip-hop could provide guidance in life. Later, there would be songs that would personally guide me away from the temptations that were leading me down a dangerous path...


(DJ Dharmic X is the host of This Culture Never Dies, 11PM-1AM Saturday on wnyu.org. Fans and haters, can follow him on Twitter and check him out on Facebook.)

See Also: The Immersion: The Birth of a True Hip-Hop Head