The music world continues to mourn the loss of DMX, who died on Friday, April 8, after suffering a heart attack the previous week. Today, contributor X Swizz Beatz posted a longer memoir of the rapper as a video on Instagram, describing him as “another type of artist, a different kind of creative, a different kind of soul.”
“From the day I met him, he lived his life for everyone else,” Swizz said in the video. “You’ve never seen him next to a Lamborghini … You’ve never seen him frozen without jewelry, he didn’t care about any of that … He was the greatest because he prayed for everyone else.”
Swizz Beatz’s first placement in the music industry was his rhythm for “Ruff Ryders Anthem”, released in 1998 by DMX. “I’m in position because of DMX,” he says at one point. “My brother was one of them. No one before, none to come. She was the most loyal person I’ve ever met … You couldn’t buy DMX. His loyalty, which he loved, was never for sale. ” Watch the full video below.
Read Pitchfork’s Afterword, “Remembering DMX, Who Changed Rap Forever.”