Long before DMX’s movie career he was well known as a battle rapper from New York to Baltimore. In his new autobiography “E.A.R.L.: The autobiography of DMX”, DMX tells of a battle early in his career against none other than Jay Hova.

In an excerpt from his book X talks about his early days as a rapper, “At the beginning we were both chilling on the side, but when things started getting nasty and Harlem Knights and Original Flavor started dissin’ each other, the crowd started eyeing the two of us. The people knew that we were the top dogs of our crews and they wanted us to go at it and after a few more rounds, I just couldn’t stand to the side anymore. It was time to hold down the fam”. X contined, “I knew it was close. Jay had as many rhymes as I did, told stories, talked shit, flipped styles. I never liked my battles to be close. When it was close because then you’d always get some clown to be like, “Fuck that. My man ate you!” when it wasn’t even like that. I liked there to be no fucking way for anybody to say anything. But that didn’t happen this time. That’s why I started worrying: some people are going to be thinking, maybe…”

DMX goes on to say he heard Damon Dash say, “Yo, your man did kinda’ get him”, speaking on X ripping into Jay-Z. The book is schedule to hit the stores later this year as well as his new album.