Earl Simmons, better known as “DMX,” died on April 2 due to complications with a cardiac arrest after being on life support for a couple of days.
Prior to this, the legendary rapper was rushed to the hospital after collapsing at home from an apparent drug overdose. Doctors claimed that it wasn’t looking good for him after he was showing limited brain activity and remaining in a vegetative state.
Throughout his career Simmons was known for having a big personality. He was the rowdy face of rap with his consistent crime record that kept his reputation as a bad boy pretty extensive.
Simmons was sent to jail about 30 times for a plethora of reasons, such as robbery, assault and carjacking. The first time he went to prison was due to him stealing a dog from a junkyard back in 1986, for which he was sentenced to two years in the juvenile unit of the Woodfield Prison in Valhalla, N.Y. DMX escaped along with his cell mate but was returned when his mother forced him to go back and finish his sentence.
According to friend and fellow rapper, Swizz Beats, Simmons cared more about the people around him than he cared for himself. He relentlessly took on other people’s problems and made them his own, never shying away to help out his inner circle.
It would become too much for him as eventually Simmons had to escape the pain he’d been going through by committing these outlandish crimes just to separate from his issues. This may have been due to him having bipolar disorder, according to some rumors.
Aside from Simmons’ antics, he was more than a wild person and contributed many times with Swizz Beatz.
“He did more charity than probably every artist I know. The only difference with his charity was he never talked about it,” Swizz Beatz said in a TMZ article.
Simmons was a man for the people and didn’t care about the publicity he would’ve gotten had his charitable acts been talked about more.
Simmons was also found to be a devout Christian, reading the Bible everyday. This love for his religion took him down the path where he aspired to be a pastor. In 2009 Simmons was given this chance as he was accepted to receive the title, and he gave his first sermon in 2016 at a church in Phoenix.
But where Simmons made the biggest impact was his music and the messages he gave to his followers. For the most part, Simmons just wanted them to enjoy the moment and see the world for more than the struggle of growing up in the ghetto. He attempted to write music for people who wanted to have fun, party and enjoy the positives that outweigh the negatives.
In the end Simmons will always be remembered for such songs as “Where the Hood At?”, “X Gon,” and “Give it To Ya,” but most importantly his legend within the rap game.