Earl “DMX” Simmons
1970 - 2021
Rest In Peace to my dear friend, Earl.
I met DMX like many of you did, in a cloud of smoke, music blaring, with two pits running around making everyone—except their owner of course—permanently uncomfortable.
That was 1998, and even though I knew I was there to interview the hottest artist on the planet at that moment, the man who almost single-handedly brought the street back to hip-hop, it was the man I met that day that changed my life. That was the day I met Earl.
“I don’t want sales, I want souls,” Earl told me. “F*ck a sale, a sale is a few dollars. But if you give me a soul, I’ve got that for life, and I’m going to try my best to bring it to the right place.”
Earl talked for hours about his life that night, and, in fact, over the course over the next few years shared dozens of memories with me about the moments he felt made him who he was—memories of growing up in the house with his sisters Shayla and Bonita, his Uncle Pinky, the spelling bees he used to win, the fun he had as a kid running the streets with Collie and Buzzy, Sunday dinners at his grandmother’s house, and, of course, School Street and the Neperhan Community Center, where he picked up a mic for the first time after giving up the beatbox (“because you get too much spit in your hands”).
There were also the stories about the empty rooms and the asthma attacks, the group homes and the institutions, the being cruelly judged by almost every teacher and counselor he ever had who couldn’t reconcile how bright he was with his bad behavior—or, if those teachers could’ve understood it more accurately, his cries for help.
Then there were the stories about his mom. I will never forget the night I came back to see him during the research phase of E.A.R.L. after I had convinced him to let me go to Yonkers by myself to meet his family.
He and Mrs. Simmons hadn’t spoken in a while at that point so when I walked in he immediately yelled, “So what did she say about me, dog?” When I answered, “She said she loves you,” he just broke down in tears. That was it. I’ll never forget it. “She said she loves you.” And his eyes instantly welled up. I have never seen such raw emotion released more vulnerably by anyone than in that moment.
Behind the barks, Earl was incredibly sensitive that way. He couldn’t hide it. And wouldn’t apologize for it. “I just feel too much,” he said all the time.
There was a fearlessness with which he looked inside, an introspection that pushed him to probe his feelings for the meaning behind who he was, who we all are. “Sometimes I wonder what life’s about…”
It was that sensitivity, that raw connection not just to his own pain, but to the pain of others, that gave him his power. His power to talk to, relate to, and, in later years, to preach, even heal...
Are there any prayers that can be said for Earl, that would be any better than the prayers Earl said for himself? Said for all of us? I know I’m not going to try.
You didn’t have to roll with X for more than a few hours before someone would come up to him to tell him how his music had changed their life, how a lyric from “Slippin’” or “Let Me Fly,” “Coming From,” “I Can Feel It,” or “The Convo” touched their heart or spoke to their pain so deeply that they made a change for the better, or helped them for the first time finally feel heard.
“Pain is so much easier to deal with when it’s ours, not just yours” he’d often tell that fan with a pound or a hug.
“I may not always have the hottest songs.” Although of course he did with hit after hit for so many years thanks to Swizz and Grease, D and Waah, and Irv. “But I will always have the realest.”
The realest. Yep. He sure was. (And the funniest... oh man, you could laugh for hours with X, that brother could crack you up.) And, yes, it’s true, that real could get him in trouble. That real could be selfish, disrespectful, even hurtful...
And that real could definitely be dangerous at times, like when racing down the highway at 95 MPH—especially when you were the writer cat in the passenger seat not allowed to put my seatbelt on!
But that real is what made him the most powerful hip-hop artist our music has ever seen.
Not just for who he was, but, more, for what he meant. Yes, of course it’s right to say, he’s a hip-hop legend, another artist gone way too soon. And you can call out all his records, the history he made, the #1s, the platinum plaques. But I doubt there will ever be another artist who can better represent the power of the word, the power of the art form, the immense spiritual power of the truth in music form.
That’s what I’m going to remember most about Earl Simmons. That anything is possible, dog. When the phrase “ride or die” is not just a battle cry for a bike ride, but a statement of courage and commitment and acceptance that the higher power up there has a plan for all of us.
“I think if we had met each other when we were kids, we probably would’ve become best friends,” he said to me once. When I tell that to folks, they look at me surprised like, you? Smokey and Earl? But we did connect, probably for a lot of the pain, the loneliness, the looking for something, that search for acceptance and purpose and love.
And over his 50 years of life, Earl did find those things. He found his purpose. His purpose as Marcus Garvey said back in 1922, to “lift this yearning race of mine in lofty tale and song.” The purpose behind everything he had been through, all of that suffering. Earl Simmons understood it was all for a reason. “You got to walk through to talk to. And I have no regrets, dog.”
And he definitely found that love...
To all the family members and kids. To all the producers and music execs and fellow artists. To Uncle Ray Copeland who could always be relied on to show up for Earl time after time after time, no matter the situation, no matter the drama. And to Tashera Simmons, my heart goes out to you, Xavier, and your family so much. You will forever define for me what it means to love someone, to love someone unconditionally...
In the last conversation Earl and I ever had he said, “God has got me further Smokey than a lot of people I grew up with. So I’m good. I got a smile in my heart. And I love me...”
Well, we love you too, dog. Millions and millions of people around the world love you because of the words and the spirit and the prayers you left us. So there’s no tragedy here. Just gratitude, respect, peace.
The life of DMX is a triumph of the human spirit. A living representation of the beauty and benefit that can be born out of struggle. It proves the struggle is worth it, the fight can pay off. “To live is to suffer, but to survive…that’s to find meaning in the suffering.”
Earl has helped us all find our meaning. And, because of that, there is no death here.
DMX’s was a Black life that mattered as much as any we’ve ever had, a life that will forever prove that no matter who you are, or what hand you’ve been dealt, no matter the demons that live inside of you, the Damiens that may be pulling you down right now at this very moment... the life of Earl Simmons proves you can find a purpose in that battle, and touch someone else.
I’ll miss you, dog.
Even though you started as a self-professed born loser, from a place where it was dark and hell is hot, now you get to fly...fly in heaven where the sun is as bright as can be.
E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX | Harper Entertainment
This book was the greatest achievement of my hip-hop writing career. Hoping to create a piece that was as much a document of a glorious moment in hip-hop history, as it was the story of a mother and a son and the struggles of growing up in the crack-drenched '80s in NYC, the book has been appreciated by both critics and fans, teachers and readers alike. Maybe one day we will make the movie?!
E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX as told to Smokey D. Fontaine
PROLOGUE
To live is to suffer, but to survive, well, that’s to find the meaning in the suffering
If I don’t know where I’m coming from, where would I go?
All you see is dust, a thick cloud of reddish brown dust that follows him everywhere he goes. There is a trail out there in the brush, a path through this jagged Arizona landscape that was cut just for this purpose, but he chooses not to take it, preferring instead to use his four-wheel all-terrain vehicle to forge a more entertaining course up and over whatever rocks or giant cactus plants that may stand in his way. The bike is supposed to be capable of off-roading at over sixty miles an hour, but Earl Simmons is capable of anything.
“I’m having the time of my life right now,” he says.
The whine of his engine almost drowns out his words, but the smile says it all. Here’s a man who’s enjoying his life.
“Hi Boo Boo!” he yells down the end of a miniature black cell phone. “Boo Boo, I just wish you could see how beautiful the sky is today.”
The love of his life and wife of four years, is home in New York expecting their third child.
“But you know your man Patrick is out here looking like TJ again,” he says, playfully changing the subject to his security guard’s habit of wearing tight jeans. “And he has his boots tied all the way up…”
Earl will continue to ride well into the evening, until he’s reminded that a home-cooked dinner should be ready for him at the house that he’s rented and soon the local bars will be filling up with new people he can win money from playing pool, but whatever time he chooses to finish, odds are that his other most loyal companion will be waiting for him.
“Phoenix!” he calls out to the black and white pit bull jumping around hysterically in the back of the security truck. “What’s up, girl?
Did you miss me?” The three-month old puppy can’t contain any of her enthusiasm for her new owner.
He play-fights with the dog for a minute and then puts her into the passenger seat of his convertible 2001 Mercedes-Benz. Earl’s red Timberland boots, which were brand new before this ride, are covered in dust and sand, as are his matching sweatpants and white tank top, but he doesn’t care. He re-clasps the silver dog chain that he wears around his neck and without waiting for his bodyguards to pack up the equipment, jumps in his car, punches the accelerator and quickly pulls onto the highway.
For Earl Simmons, the artist known to the world as DMX, this is a good day.
Or is it?
Seven miles up the highway I see Earl’s car pulled off to the side of the road. The engine is still running and the door is flung open but Earl has gone somewhere else. The flashing hazard lights do little to warn anyone of the trouble on his mind. There is nothing in the direction that he’s walking, just a desert sky filled with the red and orange colors of sunset, and when I catch up to him, I realize that’s all he’s looking at.
“Do you ever have nightmares?” he asks. “I mean I have nightmares every night, dog. Every fucking night I have people rocking me to sleep in my dream whispering ‘we love you DMX!’ then they pull out burners and pop pop!”
The gunshots hang heavy in the air.
“This shit is crazy. When am I ever going to be able to just relax and be me?”
It’s a question I’ve heard him ask before. A question he has yet to find an answer to, but a thirty-one year ride can often kick up many troublesome thoughts, especially when under the questions, hiding there in the dark, there is the lingering idea that there’s a price has to be paid.
“There are just so many thoughts inside my head all the time.”
A few weeks earlier, Earl Simmons agreed to tell the story of his life. It was a bold decision based on two ideas that have framed much of his music. First, that the only way to survive a lifetime of suffering was to uncover the meaning behind that suffering, and then, simply, if you don’t know where you’re coming from, where would you go? It’s easier said than done.
Places that I have been, things that I have seen
What you call a nightmare, are what I have as dreams
“Now that I have to replay everything, it gets hard to talk because the feelings come back and it’s like I go through it again. Sometimes it makes me not want to say anything at all because I could fuck around and remember too much…”
The thought makes him pause, but then, slowly, purposefully, he keeps going.
“But I also know the more you think, the more you want to know, and I’m always going to ask questions. Who are you? What are you here for?
It means something to ask yourself those things because it forces you to look inside the deepest, darkest corners of your life. There is a lockbox there, but if you ever allow yourself to open it, you will realize so much.”
The sky has now turned purple, gray.
“So where should we start?” I ask, feeling for the recorder in my pocket.
“I don’t know, dog. You’re just going to have to catch it without catching it.”
Let me go my way, but walk with me
See what I see, watch me, then talk with me
This is the oral history of DMX.
E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX as told to Smokey D. Fontaine