DMX, chart-topping rapper with gruff voice and hardscrabble life, dies at 50
Source: Washington Post
DMX, the gruff-voiced, chart-topping rapper who electrified listeners with songs such as “Party Up (Up in Here)” and “X Gon’ Give It to Ya,” drawing inspiration from his hardscrabble life while also emerging as a star of action films and crime thrillers, died April 9 at a hospital in White Plains, N.Y. He was 50. His family announced the death in a statement. His lawyer, Murray Richman, told The Washington Post on Sunday that DMX had been hospitalized after a heart attack. He said he had no knowledge that DMX had suffered a drug overdose, as reported by TMZ.
DMX, whose real name was Earl Simmons, recorded with artists including LL Cool J and Onyx before releasing his debut album, “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot,” in 1998. Featuring singles such as “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” and “Get at Me Dog” — “I’m just robbin’ to eat / And there’s at least a thousand of us like me mobbin’ the street” — the album sold more than 4 million copies and established him as a leader of hardcore hip-hop.
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Hailed by some critics as an heir to slain rapper Tupac Shakur, DMX delivered rhymes in a growl, punctuated his songs with doglike barks and often rapped about his impoverished upbringing in Yonkers, N.Y., where he said he began using crack cocaine at age 14, sold mix tapes on the street, and bounced between group homes and juvenile detention centers.
“Even more than Eminem (who balances his paranoia with a mischievous sense of humor) or Tupac Shakur (who balanced his laments with smooth, swaggering boasts), DMX makes it impossible for listeners to ignore his suffering and desperation,” music critic Kelefa Sanneh wrote in a 2006 article for the New York Times. Rolling Stone declared that his voice was “the sound of gravel hitting the grave.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/rapper-dmx-dead/2021/04/09/89509a0e-9618-11eb-962b-78c1d8228819_story.html
Wow. I guess that was expected given the severity of his heart-attack.
= new reply since forum marked as read
You will be missed. 
that's their SOP and it's a patronizing way to make it look like a "feel good" story of "beating the rap sheet odds" to become successful (lots of details at 11). Contrast that with the Limbaugh obit -someone who was addicted to and peddling opioids (and worse). 
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