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On record, onstage, and in film, he displayed an almost superhuman intensity.
DMX struggled, but he persevered.
He stumbled, but he got back up.
What we saw was a man coping, a man hurting and transforming pain into usable strength.
If he seemed endlessly energetic, consider the price of the fuel.
The early chapters of 2003sE.A.R.L.
In public housing, you see the best and the worst of people.
Lounge on stoops and listen through walls, and you might hear and see too much.
DMX wasone of us, all of us,really.
On the top, he didnt dress flashily or turn into a kingpin on record.
He stayed at street level speaking on street issues.
He talked about how hard life was and still could be, not how good it got.
Its all over the music, how unlikely and unbelievable that trajectory felt.
He recast the ups and downs of hood life as Gothic horror and Shakespearean drama.
Stats arent on our side, and were keenly aware of this.
We wasnt sposed to make it past 25, Kanye Wests We Dont Care goes.
Jokes on you, we still alive.
The world is a cruel place, and it aint gonna change.
If I dont fly, Ima die anyway, Xs Let Me Fly promises.
Ima live on, but Ill be gone any day.
X mentored the younger members ofhis Ruff Ryders labellike Drag-On.
Helooked out for childrenwho, like himself, were dealt impossible hands.
This music can be coarse and offensive and also inspirational.
And its fine to feel conflicted, or even to not and just never engage.)
Maybe we put too much faith in his resilience.
Whatever the case, we didnt take his suffering seriously enough.
This flies in the face of the too-convenient messaging weve received about how people end up in the streets.
You cannot argue that he chose crack.
Too manylegends lose their homesand their lives too early.
Our elders are worth more than what theyre able to produce for us.
Each light that blinks out is areservatory of history and culture gone from us forever.
How many more will it take to break the cycle?
