However, he had bad grades and a sparse attendance record.
Īs a freshman at Yonkers Middle High School, DMX was the second-fastest on the track and field varsity team. It later was also interpreted as "Dark Man X". Simmons chose the name "DMX", which came from an instrument he had used at the boys' home, the Oberheim DMX drum machine. When he returned home, Simmons met Ready Ron, a local rapper, who was impressed with Simmons' beatboxing skills and asked him to become his partner. After performing for his friends, they encouraged Simmons to continue writing music at the behest of his teacher. During his stay, Simmons bonded with other students from New York over their shared love of hip hop music. Shortly after he began doing this, his mother once again sent him to a group home. When he was 14, Simmons began living on the streets of Yonkers to escape his mother's abuse, sleeping in Salvation Army clothing bins and befriending stray dogs. A few months later, he was arrested for arson in an attempt to burn the school down. In what he described as a defining moment of betrayal, his mother tricked him by telling him they were just visiting the home, then she enrolled him there. At the end of the fifth grade, at age 10, Simmons was expelled from school and sent to the Julia Dyckman Andrus Children's Home for 18 months. One summer, his mother locked him in his bedroom, allowing him to only exit for trips to the bathroom. The same year, he was jailed for stealing cakes from a market. When he was seven, an aunt got him drunk on vodka. At school, he threw chairs at teachers and stabbed another child in the face with a pencil. When he was six years old, his mother knocked out two of his teeth with a broom after he innocently erased something in her notebook. When Simmons was five years old, his family settled into the School Street Projects in Due to poverty, he slept on the floor with roaches and mice crawling over him in the night. Simmons went through a disjointed childhood that included being beaten by his mother and her various boyfriends so badly that he lost teeth and sustained numerous bruises and cuts on his face. Simmons claims he was told that his family could have been awarded a settlement of $10,000 and possibly even more for the injuries he sustained but that his mother rejected the settlement as she claimed that Jehovah's Witnesses are taught to be self-sufficient although the group's official doctrine at the time did not prohibit suing or receiving settlements. A month later, an insurance representative went to his house to try and reach an agreement to prevent his family from suing.
#Vkwall dmx and then there was x driver#
He was raised as a Jehovah's Witness but became disillusioned with the faith after an incident where he was hit by a drunk driver while crossing the street. Īs a child, Simmons suffered greatly from bronchial asthma, being taken to the emergency room almost nightly due to him waking up unable to breathe. Barker moved to Philadelphia and was largely absent from his life. His father, Barker, was an artist who painted watercolor paintings of street scenes to sell at local fairs. Earl was Simmons' second child she had given birth to a daughter, Bonita, two years prior, and later gave birth to one daughter, Shayla, and two stillborn sons. He was the son of 19-year-old Arnett Simmons and 18-year-old Joe Barker. 2.6 2013–2021: Def Jam reunion and ExodusĮarl Simmons was born on December 18, 1970, with various accounts giving his birthplace as either Baltimore, Maryland, or Mount Vernon, New York.2.4 2005–2011: Year of the Dog.Again and The Definition of X.2.2 1996–2000: Signing with Def Jam and commercial success.In 2003, he published a book of his memoirs entitled E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX.
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In 2006, he starred in the reality television series DMX: Soul of a Man, which was primarily aired on the BET cable television network. ĭMX was featured in films such as Belly, Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds, Cradle 2 the Grave, and Last Hour. Overall, DMX sold over 74 million records worldwide. 1 five times in a row on the Billboard 200 charts. He was the first artist to debut an album at No. His 2003 singles " Where the Hood At?" and " X Gon' Give It to Ya" were also commercially successful.
And Then There Was X, in 1999, which included the hit single " Party Up (Up in Here)". He began rapping in the early 1990s and released his debut album It's Dark and Hell Is Hot in 1998, to both critical acclaim and commercial success, selling 251,000 copies within its first week of release. Earl Simmons (Decem– April 9, 2021), known by his stage name DMX ("Dark Man X"), was an American rapper and actor.