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Rap doesnt have a retirement plan.
In a field notorious for tall tales and expenditures, that fall can be subtle.
These awkward dealings often scan as funny, but they never bode well.
When your audience loses interest, your bargaining power diminishes.
What happens next is rarely pretty.
Swizz was paying it forward for the man who helped put him on.
Promising cuts on off-peak releases, likeRedemption of the BeastsFreeway collab Where You Been?
(Swizz toldComplexthat his only bit of interference after the fact was trimming records.)
The guests are people X wanted to work with.
These are songs he had every intention of our hearing.
It draws notable figures into the late Yonkers stars orbit.
Exodusis the sound of sparks rekindling, of friends reuniting.
X is scrubbing off the rust.
The loudest songs recall the Ruff Ryders heyday.
(Yes, the sample cost a chunk of the publishing.)
Retracing his steps seems to reinvigorate DMX, and that makesExodussting.
Not knowing where DMX might have taken his craft next is painful.
Check in on your heroes, especially in lean times.
The gift never goes away, but it does at times require nurturing.
And nurturing doesnt happen if were sending our greatest poets out to pasture in middle age.
This is something DMX seemed to see clearly.
I aint 50 years old for nothing, he says in Hood Blues.
He knew he was here to lead.
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