Swizz Beatz has revealed that DMX lost a bet in order to get on “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem.”
Beatz spoke about the late New York legend while a guest on SiriusXM’s Hip-Hop Nation and confirmed X wasn’t a big fan of the “Ruff Ryders Anthem” beat to begin with. The majority of the album’s production was handled by Dame Grease and PK.
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“So I was in Atlanta in school and then, um, they got the project to where it was at and then I came in last minute with ‘Stop Drop,'” Swizz told host Gray Rizzy. “X lost a bet or I wouldn’t even been on that album, you know what I’m saying? But he didn’t lose the bet because that song ended up changing all of our lives. So he technically won the bet for my Uncle D and you know that just changed all of our lives. So it was just enough to do what it needed to do.”
He continued, “You know, like that song commercially went bigger than everything at the time. And then we came immediately, uh, with our sound next after that and Dame Grease and PK was a part of that as well. I wanna get [them] they props cuz they, people they feel that they don’t get they props. I’m in a comfortable space to give people they props. At those particular times we was definitely bumping the little heads and things like that, but we all was a part of making history at the end of the day.
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“It was all musical stuff. Wasn’t no street vibes like that, you know what I’m saying? And so I was young and hungry. They was young and hungry. They had to get it. I had to get it. So that’s like when you look at the whole thing, it was just really based on that, you know what I’m saying?”
“Ruff Ryders Anthem” served as the third single to appear off DMX’s seminal debut It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot. Upon release, the song peaked at number 93 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and then peaked at No. 16 following DMX’s death in April 2021.
During a separate interview with The Breakfast Club in April, Swizz spoke about the late rap legend coming to him in a vivid dream one night and said he could “feel” X’s spirit.
“Man, honestly, it don’t even feel like he’s gone,” Swizz said. “It just feels like he’s away, somewhere chillin’. And then the anniversary will come around or I’ll speak to his fiancée or I’ll speak to his son and I’m like, ‘Whoa.’ Or I’ll see a video or I’ll scroll through my phone and see pictures and it’ll hit me. But the thing that make me feel easy about it is he came to me.”
He continued: “I seen him in my dream. He came to me. And this was, like, super quick too. And he let me know he was good. I’m the person that be like, ‘He ain’t come to see you, what you talkin’ about?’ I seen him. I felt him, I can smell like — I just couldn’t hear him talk… he got up, grabbed both of my arms and he just looked at me and was like, ‘I’m good.’ And once I seen that, my energy started changing.”
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On the music front, Swizz Beatz just dropped off Hip Hop 50: Vol. 2 EP, which was a star-studded affair thanks to appearances from from Lil Durk, Jadakiss, Fivio Foreign, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and more.
The six-track project came courtesy of Mass Appeal’s Hip Hop 50: The Soundtrack series and followed DJ Premier’s similarly stacked Hip Hop 50: Vol. 1 EP which dropped last year.
