20 years ago, Earl Simmons looked death in the eye. To be honest, I’m not sure who won, or whether it matters. The staring contest itself is the point; it’s entertaining and harrowing and bizarrely motivating. It’s instructive of how trauma works, how it perpetuates itself, how it affects its victims. The fear, anger, and cold-eyed self-analysis that permeate DMX’s It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot didn’t change the way hip-hop is viewed as art — it smashed the lens then burned the canvas, removing the constraints of the form.
We - and our partners - use cookies to deliver our services and to show you ads based on your interests. By using our website, you agree to the use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.
It cracked open X’s head and provided a sometimes demented tour of his inner struggles with faith and survival, but it also shifted hip-hop’s prevalent paradigm all the way to the left, creating a new set of rules for the next generation of the culture’s adherents to follow — and, at times, break themselves. Released on May 12, 1998, this album is still impacting the world of hip-hop two decaded later.
When It’s Dark was released, nobody thought anything so harsh, so blunt, so raw could sell — true story. While Puff Daddy and Bad Boy Records opted to sign the significantly smoother and broader-appealing Lox, Def Jam, Roc-a-Fella Records, and Irv Gotti’s Murder, Inc. all passed on DMX’s guttural snap, as Gotti has reminisced in interviews. DMX, who barked, growled, and menaced like a literal unleashed pitbull in adlibs and attacked his flow with visceral aggression that masked the dispassionate delivery of serial-killer-scary lines about murder, robbery, and drug sales, among other unsavory activities, seemed a man out of step with his time and place. Rap in 1998 seemed to demand stiletto slickness. DMX was a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire — blunt, brash, prickly, and raw.
If the prevailing narrative of rap’s forking methodologies is one of a bifurcated system wherein mainstream went glitzy, glossy, jiggy, and bright while underground became conscious, cerebral, and down-to-earth, DMX’s sudden, surprising success on the back of downright evil, gully material like “Get At Me Dog,” “Crime Story,” and “N—-az Done Started Something” provided a third, jagged path. With a voice full of gravel, a heart full of regrets, and a veteran soldier’s dissociative observation, DMX detailed horrors and confronted demons, and didn’t often get the best of them.
Yet, It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot improbably reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200, turning DMX into a sensation. It was impossible to go anywhere in 1998 without hearing the strident call of Swizz Beats’ strangled synths and X’s emphatic exhortation to “Stop! Drop! Shut ’em down, open up shop!” That It’s Dark was paired with the more introspective, but no less murky Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood less than six months later and that it too went No. 1, turned DMX into a legend, an unstoppable dynamo that owned 1998, solidifying his grip on hip-hop’s conscious.
A new version of Last.fm is available, to keep everything running smoothly, please reload the site.
It's Dark and Hell Is Hot is the debut album of rapper DMX, released May 19, 1998 on Def Jam subsidiary Ruff Ryders Records. The album featured four singles with music videos, 'Get at Me Dog', 'Stop Being Greedy', 'How's It Goin' Down' and the 'Ruff Ryders Anthem'. The album is widely considered a hip hop classic by numerous hip hop fans and critics, mainly due to its revitalization of the hardcore rap mainstream scene, after Puff Daddy and Bad… read more
Tracklist
Track number | Play | Loved | Track name | Buy | Options | Duration | Listeners |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Intro | 1:33 | 40,869 listeners | ||||
2 | Ruff Ryders' Anthem | 3:34 | 211,120 listeners | ||||
3 | Fuckin' Wit' D | 2:18 | 24,099 listeners | ||||
4 | The storm | 1:00 | 3,020 listeners | ||||
5 | Look Thru My Eyes | 3:50 | 64,908 listeners | ||||
6 | Get At Me Dog | 4:03 | 42,708 listeners | ||||
7 | Let Me Fly | 4:13 | 53,205 listeners | ||||
8 | X-Is Coming | 4:19 | 25,938 listeners | ||||
9 | Damien | 3:42 | 120,727 listeners | ||||
10 | How's It Goin' Down | 4:43 | 46,576 listeners | ||||
11 | Mickey | 0:25 | 68 listeners | ||||
12 | Crime Story | 3:48 | 33,112 listeners | ||||
13 | Stop Being Greedy | 3:37 | 103,563 listeners | ||||
14 | ATF | 1:56 | 46,592 listeners | ||||
15 | For My Dogs | 4:11 | 21,131 listeners | ||||
16 | I Can Feel It | 4:13 | 35,797 listeners | ||||
17 | Prayer | 1:42 | 7,950 listeners | ||||
18 | The Convo | 3:34 | 29,059 listeners | ||||
19 | Niggaz Done Started Something — The Lox | 5:09 | 3 listeners |
Don't want to see ads? Subscribe now