The Fatherless, Crime-Riddled Youth Of DMX
PinterestDMX (right) was tricked into a crack-cocaine addiction when he was 14.
Praised as one of the rawest and most honest rappers in hip-hop, DMX found it hard to talk about his past without a microphone. Born Earl Simmons to an impoverished single mother on Dec. 18, 1970, in Mount Vernon, New York, he was abused and abandoned before crime or drugs even entered the picture.
His father had walked out on the family and didn’t even call Simmons on his birthdays. He was six years old when his mother beat two teeth out of his mouth with a broom. He was 14 when he began drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis — and his local music mentor betrayed him into a crack addiction.
“He introduced me to the best part of my life which would be the rap, but he passed the blunt around and I hit the blunt,” Simmons said. “I later found out that he laced the blunt with crack. Why would you do that to a child? He was like 30 and he knew I looked up to him. Why would you do that to someone who looks up to you?”
The teenage Simmons began a streak of petty crimes that led to his mother’s custody being revoked. A judge ruled his mother unable to keep him out of trouble, and Simmons was sent to a children’s home for what was meant to be an 18-month stay.
KMazur/WireImage/Getty ImagesDMX performing at Woodstock in 1999 — the year he made hip-hop history.
But he was soon expelled for starting a fire with his roommate. He then spent time at another children’s home until at least 1985 in Dobbs Ferry, New York. But Simmons returned to his stomping grounds determined to impress producers. He spent years doubting if he’d ever make it before finally being signed to Def Jam Records in 1998.
With his first two albums reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Charts within one year, DMX had accomplished a historic first for hip-hop and took the genre by storm. From drug possession and carjacking to robbery and assault, he had navigated a string of criminal charges and prison bids to get there.
While he left an iconic Grammy Award-winning discography behind, DMX never overcame the addictions bestowed upon him as a child. Before dying of a heart attack on April 9, 2021, the 51-year-old admitted that rap had been the only way he was able to express himself.
“I really didn’t have anyone to talk to about it because in the ‘hood, nobody wants to hear that. Nobody even wants to help with talking,” he said. “But talking is actually one of the bravest things you can do. One of the bravest things you can do is… let it out.”
