Dear EARL,
A few weeks before my seventh birthday you released your debut album, It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, on May 19th, 1998. Of the nineteen tracks, there weren't any for a kid like me who knew the dark, but not hell. I had to wait for the heat to rise. When it did, somewhere between the ages of 18 and 21, your music was a guide for me. You became the preacher in my burning church. The voice who sung the psalms for those days in the furnace.
I found myself back in that furnace during a writer’s block last winter. Any idea I had would start with direction, but arrive at dead-ends. I found this frustrating. The block persisted for weeks. I began to think the best sentences were locked behind doors that didn’t suit my key. Music didn’t help. Songs turn stale when no one says what you need to hear.
An itch to play “Slippin’' brought your classic song back in my ears. I’ve heard it a hundred times before, but when you yelled, “Wanna make records but I'm fuckin' it up” to end the second verse, man, it shook me. How it conveys being stuck is art at its most honest. You sound furious at yourself. A fury I know well. That’s why your third verse is one of my favorites of all time. It’s where you overcome. Citing your son as the cause for your second wind. You really poured it all out here:
“I gots to do the right thing for shorty
And that means no more gettin' high, drinkin' 40s
So I get back lookin' type slick again
Fake niggas jump back on my dick again
Nothin' but love for those that know how it feel
And much respect to all my niggas that kept it real
Kept a nigga strong, kept a nigga from doin' wrong
Niggas know who they is and this is your fuckin' song
And to my boo who stuck with a nigga through
All the bullshit, you'll get yours because it's due”
I’m writing this letter to remind myself why I believed in you more than any other rapper. It’s because you didn’t hide that life gets hard. You spoke of the inferno, then showed the world your burns. You weren’t ashamed by the tough times, survival made you strong. You would buckle, you would fall, and you would get up. You always got up. I need you to get up. I need you to overcome. It’s what you do. You’re DMX. The most resilient rapper to ever live.
Charles Bukowski may have titled a book of poetry, ‘What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire’ but it was you who showed me how to make that walk. I pray I see you take another step.
With Love,