No wonder that his first major hit found him portraying the life of a hungry criminal who hustles for survival. “I rob and I kill, not because I want to, ’cause I have to,” he raps over a pulsing Dame Grease beat that makes excellent use of a B.T. “ ’Cause nowadays, gettin’ by is nothing more than an occasional meal and gettin’ high.” He punctuates his words with yelping barks, and the track simmers with uneasy, menacing excitement. Complete with an assist from Sheek Louch from the Lox on the chorus, “Get at Me Dog” kicked off DMX’s 1998 - a Year of the Dog if there ever was one - with a gold-selling top 40 hit.
MR DMX, “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” (1998)Ī master class in how to ride a beat. No one has ever sounded better over Swizz Beatz’s keyboard loops - it took a rapper as charismatic as DMX to imbue those Casio presets with such physical presence.
“I wrote it in 15 minutes,” he recalled in a 2019 interview.
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