It’s been less than a week since the Hip Hop community suffered a crushing blow with the loss of DMX. The Ruff Ryders vet passed away at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, New York on April 9 after suffering a catastrophic heart attack. As his streaming numbers explode by 928 percent, his 2003 autobiography E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX is also feeling the love from his grieving fans.
According to Rolling Stone, the book skyrocketed back into the Top 50 on Amazon’s bestsellers list for biographies on Tuesday (April 13) but has now landed in the No. 57 spot as of Wednesday (April 14). For a book that’s 18 years old, the increase in sales should be commended and further prove just how revered DMX was or, frankly, still is.
Written by DMX “as told to” former music editor at The Source Smokey D. Fontaine, the book chronicles DMX’s tumultuous childhood, rise to rap infamy and time at Def Jam Recordings. The title of what is considered his official memoir is a play on both X’s real name, Earl Simmons, and an acronym for “Ever Always Real Life.”
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As explained in the description, “Raised in the ghetto, abandoned as a child, addicted to drugs and women all his life but still able to produce four consecutive #1 Hip Hop albums in a row…this is the life and times of the darkest and most dangerously introspective hip-hop artist ever—at the height of his career and completely uncensored.”
DMX was just 50 years old at the time of his death. He leaves behind 15 children and an impenetrable legacy that will live on through his music and family. Cop the book here.
Surprising how much the life of child can be altered by the decisions of his parents. DMX was barely 2 years old when his father left him cause he didn’t want anything to do with him. And his mother who already had two daughters with another man before she had DMX didn’t know what to do with a newborn baby who was obviously the result of a one night stand. This lack of love and attention from the womb would feed X’s demons and lead him to something more destructible. Even though X managed to turn all this negative shit into some inner driven force that would take him to be one of the greatest hip hop artist ever, I believe his life would have been more peaceful if his parents didn’t make him pay their lack of maturity and their stupidity from the moment he was brought into this world. The worst part is too many kids grow up in the same broken household and have to carry the weight of the wrong decisions made by the adults who were responsible of them. RIP X.
I agree for the most part except DMX would’ve never been DMX if he hadn’t gone through those traumatizing moments.
Heart breaking read at times but better to understand X as the man inside the artist
This book is a hip-hop treasure bought it almost 15 years ago.
Read it over 10 years ago. Lot of insight in there.
I bought that when I was 13 in 03 went back to again today