RIP DMX from a White Guy in PDX: The Gospel, According to Hip-Hop, Pt. 3
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
(This is the third part of an ongoing series of finding God in the midst of hip-hop. Here is pt. 1 and here is pt. 2. Hope they are all a blessing!)
This piece was supposed to be called Substance Abuse, Mental Health & Brown Jesus, but then I heard the news. I won’t pretend to be a huge fan, or that I was deeply distraught, or that he was even in my top 10 favorite rappers. I will say that DMX, for a lot of people, took the torch after the tragic passing of 2Pac. Known for his deep voice, deep lyrics, and deep pain, DMX had a lot to say about God.
I can’t pretend to know with any certainty where he is now but if I were to bet, I think he is resting in the arms of brown Jesus.
There’s something about rap that is, intrinsically, spiritual. I already hear the comments: what about mumble rappers, what about the substances, what about the money and the chains and the hoes and the guns. Yes, historically, hip hop has, according to top 40, endorsed hedonism. Excess. Drugs. Sex. And a lot of other variations of sin.
But underneath all of that external show, we find a genre particularly built on discussing pain. This isn’t to say other genres don’t do this. Of course, any musician with any instrument and any theme can help you dive into their world of sadness and anguish to better understand your own.
Yet rapping lends itself more to this. Let me explain. By the very nature that hip hop has more words per song than another song of another genre, there is more capacity to delve more deeply into something. Traditionally a 3-4 minute song requires a lot of instrumentation to build. Rap is no different except that it is intentionally supposed to be fast. Quicker MCs traditionally demand more respect than slow ones. And depth, even if gauged with such difference, is always valued by hip hop heads.
This is why Soulja Boy, for example, or MC Hammer aren’t really remembered. Their tracks, yes, but their bars? Their style? Their message?
Nobody cares.
Yet any good MC has a message. Has a following. Has something they’re trying to say.
DMX has this. So do many others. Eminem, Kendrick, J. Cole, Chance, Kanye, Cudi, NF, Travis Scott, Macklemore, etc. And these are famous examples not counting those with less acclaim but still worthy bars.
Denzel Curry, Vince Staples, Dizzy Wright, and Kota the Friend are other examples.
Within any genre are dud artists and great ones, but in hip-hop it’s a little more intense. When you listen, you’re not just listening to their thoughts or feelings.
You’re listening to a brand. You’re listening to one man or one woman’s vulnerability (or swagger, which often is showing just a different kind of vulnerability).
Over the years the genre has evolved so much it’s hard to pinpoint the seismic shifts that have occurred. What was bumping in the 80s is hardly what is in the new 20s. While the open and rich exploration of the inner life is common place amongst even the most shallow rappers of the modern era, this was hardly the case back then.
But there were some rappers who propelled the genre forward into the place it is now; a style of music willing to explore all angles of humanity; the good, the bad, and often, the ugly.
(The following music history dive is just a brief synopsis of videos I’ve watched, books I’ve read, and documentaries I’ve seen. II’ll make note of where I found the info as I unpack)
Rap has always been socially conscious. From the Rapper’s Delight all the way to This is America, hip-hop does well at indicting a culture.
As the genre boomed in the 80s, so too did it's cultural influence. From Public Enemy to Run DMC, the style was, for starters, primarily black and also primarily reflective of their reality. Whereas rock n roll before it was, in many ways, more driven by love songs/ballads, themes of existential exploration, and sticking it to the man in a “generic” way, rap stuck it to the man in a specific way.
Police brutality. Poverty. Racism. The realities of living life on the margin.
And as the 90s hit, and more and more kids, especially white kids, began to really like the music, a lot of white parents freaked out.
Drugs, sex, gangs… what was happening to their kids? Why were they listening to this style? How do we stop it?
Right around this time, two MCs catapulted into super stardom. One from the west, 2Pac, one from the east, Biggie.
Both introspective and vain, peaceful and violent, encouraging and discouraging, there was so much these two had to say, even on their flashy top 40 hits. This isn’t to say the genre didn’t have it before; Wu-Tang comes to mind, Nas, an early Jay-Z, etc. But these two represented the complexity of humanity in compelling ways that even the most average of American could relate to and/or be interested by.
But then they both got shot. They both died. And the genre decided to tonally shift, again.
(This was derived a lot from Hip-Hop Evolution on Netflix, many 2Pac and Biggie books I’ve read, along with documentaries about both, their ongoing “beef,” and their legacy within the genre)
The violent Psalms come to mind as comparable to the violent bars of older styles of hip-hop. Strange that many in conservative culture were terrified of gang violence while they read a book with passages that, at bare minimum, describe dashing babies heads against the rocks, wishing brutal deaths on enemies, etc.
See, in a lot of ways, hip-hop and cultural Christianity have overlap. They both contradict their own core messages a lot. They say one thing, then do another. They are socially conscious… until they aren’t.
But, and here’s where hip-hop edges out that certain brand of Christianity with bonus points, hip-hop isn’t trying to maintain tonal consistency. The art style is intended to reflect the most raw of human experiences. Like the Psalms, these MCs aren’t going to rap about a world that doesn’t exist. They might, sometimes, rap about what they hope could happen. And they should.
Yet they won’t clean up their act before getting to the mic. If anything, it’s rapping their experience, their pain, their anguish, on the mic, that cleans up their act.
I wonder if David was the same way. That as soon as he wrote a Psalm after raping Bathsheba, or killing her husband, or destroying entire villages, or even after praising God by playing the harp or dancing for Him, I wonder if David felt better after releasing his subconscious, even and especially the unholy parts, out on the page.
I wonder if we can learn from the Psalms, from the rawest hip-hop, from the tears and laughs and everything in between from anyone out there willing to share of themselves, how to be human by being honest about all the ways we are human, even when they are ugly.
“Beautiful” is one of my favorite Eminem songs, even though it is from a “bad” cd. And is a “bad” track according to most of his most devout fans.
Some people say Eminem is the Elvis of rap. Stealing from a black genre and making a killing off of a white audience for being white. But I think that’s unfair, and a lot of black MCs agree.
Emerging in the late 90s in the wake of Pac and Biggie’s death, Marshall Mathers took the hip-hop formula, applied it to his broke, Detroit experience, and dialed it to 11.
Open honesty about wanting to beat his girlfriend, a fascinating top 40 track about a crazed, obsessed fan modeling his life after him, and a dozen scandals and controversies in between, he is now considered by many as the rap God.
I don’t know about that, not because I find him a bad MC (he is top 5 bare minimum for most people), but because his “brand” is not necessarily my favorite.
But even then, I appreciate his “brand.” Because it’s real.
He was born into poverty, born into abuse, born into a system to keep him down as white trash in many (if far from all) of the same ways a lot of his black MC peers were.
I love “Beautiful” because I appreciate the core loop and message. One of the hardest guys to ever do it is showing us all how and why to be empathetic. He immediately opens describing his depression, his pain, his confusion of whether he even wants to be a rapper anymore.
But the chorus is all about “trading shoes” to understand another person. And that we shouldn’t listen to outside opinion about ourselves which would compel us to think we aren’t beautiful (those haters should, in fact, get &#%*’d). Especially if one works hard to stay true to themselves.
Stop,
Drop,
Shut em down,
Open up shop,
Even to this day, this is such an iconic opening for a rap song (Ruff Ryder’s Anthem). One core and subdued beat in the background, because DMX’s voice itself is pretty much a beat.
The comparisons to Pac were obvious. Both short (ish), both had low voices, and both had hard, hard lives.
Domestic abuse, drugs, group homes, and a penchant to rap as if his life depended on it.
Because it did.
See the desperation on hand in DMX’s songs are apparent even if you never knew about his father beating him, about his involvement with drug use and selling, about his time spent in institutions. There’s a tenacity one hears and then knows is coming from a place of deep pain. DMX, like all great MCs before and after him, wrote DMX songs. Shared DMX stories. Tried to ascribe meaning to DMX pain.
And see, I don’t have that kind of pain. Not only do I not have to deal with that kind of institutional and implicit prejudice, but I had loving if imperfect parents. Hardly exposed to drugs. Never spent any time in a group home.
But the biggest thing we share is something we deeply have in common.
Our deep, deep love for God.
Gospel influences within hip-hop has continued to rise, especially in the 10s and now 20s. Bringing it to the main focus started with Kanye (in the mainstream) and was perfected with Chance. Discussions of God are assumed while atheism is pretty unfounded. Nods to justice are bolstered with proclamations about a God who brings that very justice with remarkable fervor and glorious force.
But the biggest place where hip-hop preaches “good news” is how it always points to God when all the other news is bad. From “Only God Can Judge Me,” to “GOD,” to “Blessings,” to “Lord I Know,” to “Jesus Walks,” to “STOP TRYING TO BE GOD,” to “Dear God,” rappers are conscious, at some level, that God is meeting them somewhere. Even if that “somewhere” is bad (doubt, despair, suicide) or good (hope, praise, love). While they aren’t quite role models of spiritual superstardom, they are a Hell of a start for a person confused, battered, and anxious about life and where God is supposed to meet them in the midst of it.
See, I’m in a very “post” God context myself. Many others will say “post Christian,” but frankly, I think Christianity needs a rebranding so I’m not concerned that people are post Christian. But I will say that with post Christian comes post a “needing God for saving” kind of thinking. With enough self-help podcasts, yoga, spiritual insight from a plethora of sources without a core anchor alongside many other posh attempts at worshiping self, we can figure out our own issues and problems. This is a very progressive, very white, very privileged, very liberal brand of thinking and living.
And it is very mistaken.
Yet sometimes, even amongst my white brothers and sisters, pastors and artists alike, they just don’t speak about meeting God at the very bottom in the way an honest MC can. If anything, if I am in need of a lament, if I am wrestling with doubt, if I am wondering if God can meet me in the depths of sin which so often make me feel unworthy to listen to a sermon on a podcast let alone go to a church on Sunday, I can put on a MC on Spotify to know that if this foul mouthed poet can commune with God, so can I, scars and all.
RIP DMX from a white guy in PDX. Your soul is now fully at rest with God in the heavens. Before I said I was pretty sure He was with Jesus but really I know 100%. This is the God I love and the God I follow. The one who meets a man in his trauma, in his poverty, in the face of discrimination that came to him by the very way God created Him to look. Black is beautiful, this I know because the Bible tells me so.
This is the good news. This is the hill I want to die on. This is the gospel, according to hip-hop.