The music world continues to mourn the loss of DMX, who died on Friday, April 8 after suffering a heart attack the previous week. Today, X collaborator Swizz Beatz posted a longer memoir of the rapper as a video on Instagram, describing him as a “different kind of artist, different kind of creative, different kind of soul.”
“From the day I met him, he lived his life for the rest,” Swizz says in the video. “You’ve never seen him next to a Lamborghini … You’ve never seen him ice cream without jewelry, he didn’t care about that … He was the biggest because he prayed for everyone else.”
Swizz Beatz’s first placement in the music industry was his rhythm for DMX’s “Ruff Ryders Anthem,” released in 1998. “I’m in position because of DMX,” he says at one point. “My brother was one of them. No sooner, no more to come. He was the most loyal person I have ever met … You couldn’t buy DMX. His loyalty, whom he loved, was never sold. Watch the full clip below.
Read Pitchfork’s postscript, “Remembering DMX, Who Changed Rap Forever.”