So goes the opening line to one of the most eagerly awaited albums of the year. All it is a quote. A simple quote. All together calm, confident and incredibly honest. It’s a line that perfectly sets off the fifth and final album of one of hip-hop’s most beloved and influential heroes. You know the name and you know the man.

DMX. Earl Simmons. One of the most memorable MCs of all time. The only artist who has spent a career inspiring followers around the world to bark and rhyme in loud bursts of manic, ghetto energy, only then to get them to read and rap and think and cry in private moments of honest thought and introspection. No one in hip-hop has ever done it better. No one has meant more. Now, in September 2003, a final book of verse: Grand Champ.

Not only does the album mark a return to form for The Darkman X, it is the perfect coda for a career that began in 1998 with It’s Dark & Hell Is Hot and Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood, continued the following year with And Then There Was X (2000), and most recently set the streets off with The Great Depression (2001). Grand Champ also represents a creative reunion with Dee and Waah Dean, the two brothers, who along with X, turned the Ruff Ryders label during this same period into the biggest in the world. Are you ready to roll? We start with the title. 

Like all of DMX’s album titles, this fifth one means what it says but then so much more. As much as It’s Dark & Hell Is Hot was a haunting self-description, and Flesh Of My Flesh represented a life-giving bond to the community from whence he came, Grand Champ is the final, absolute statement of presence and purpose. Last year, X asked the world “who we be”, now he answers the question “who he is…”

A dog term, the “Grand Champ” is the title bestowed upon the penultimate winner of a dog fight, a pit-bull fight, as you better know by now. It’s a title not easily earned, a spot not easily took, so best believe our favorite hero is bringing all the heat and the drama, the pain, suffering and joy that defines the world of DMX. Let’s be clear, there are no competitors. Scratch all day. Match all weight. 

Now what better way to jump off than with the most fundamental question…where the hood at?
“Where The Hood At?”, the album’s first single, is a ferocious ball of fire and brimstone that has already become an instant DMX classic to be put in the history books next to “Get At Me Dog”, “What’s My Name?” and “Who We Be”. Set off with a monster bass thump by Tuneheadz, the latest in a phenomenal line of double-R producers, “Where the Hood At?” is heavy enough to get a Hummer H2 bouncing like one of the many tricked-out Impalas the dog collects along his west coast travels. One listen to the joint’s triumphant horns, and you will hear the announcement. No apologies allowed, the “the dog is here.” 

You can’t be fucking serious… You’d be surprised how many MCs in the game don’t wanna ask this question. Or at least they don’t want to know the answer. Ride to X’s energy and passion and you will see why. It’s a powerful thing when the ‘hood and you are one in the same. When the ‘hood provides the creative well for your life and art. So be careful. DMX doesn’t just roll deep. This brotha rolls ‘hood deep.

“Where the ‘hood, where the ‘hood, where the ‘hood at? / I had a nigga in the cut, where the wood at? / You better bust that if you gonna pull that”

Maybe it’s because he’s spoiled us with four unforgettable albums going back to 1998 and the all-time hip-hop classic, It’s Dark & Hell Is Hot. Or maybe it was just that voice. Maybe it was because we wanted to hear more music from the brotha who turned his name into an acronym (E.A.R.L.) and with journalist Smokey D. Fontaine opened his soul to pen “the best hip-hop biography ever written,” a book Publisher’s Weekly compared to the great Manchild In The Promised Land. Or maybe we were just fiending for that growling spitfire delivery that never ever wants to leave your head. The real growl, the X growl, no imitators allowed. Either way, you have to feel good, ’cause he’s back. The wait is over. “Yo, yo, yo…the dog is here!”

Next is “Get It On The Floor”. One of the illest club tracks the young producer prodigy you know as Swizz Beatz has ever done. “Get It On The Floor” demands that its audience ride to this motherfucker, bounce to this motherfucker, freak to this motherfucker… Can you say “Party Up Part. 2”? Let’s get it on…
“Once again it’s the darker nigga, to spark a nigga…You wanna start something, it’s gonna be something…” With the kind of aggressive, ear drum bursting bass line that doesn’t let go until you’re just smacked up silly, get ready to be rocking for months.”All the other great MCs they come from Yonkers…”

You know who said it, and you know how true it is. Now, together on wax for the first time, the young’n 6X-platinum 50 Cent teams up with X for the incredible “Shot Down.” “If you don’t live that, you shouldn’t say that / because what come out your mouth will get you shot down…” Produced by G-Unit beatmaker Saleem, this dark, ghetto morality tale (with a guest verse from LOX member Styles) is a dialogue between men, artists, dogs…one generation to another:
“Ain’t nothing but a hand for them mans still standing / I remember 50 in a cipher when Onyx was slamming / Now we meet again, it’s all good my nigga / Back to the street again, it’s all ‘hood my nigga / Knock on wood my nigga, we both walked the dog…”

Can u believe we’re only four songs in? Grand Champ got hits for days. 

This is dedicated to… Produced by the great Kanye West, “Dogs Out” gives X the perfect mid-tempo 808 melody to get off his chest all that’s been troubling a master of his craft. Thoughts and brags and boasts that will always be off the chain. “I don’t think these cats see too clearly / If it ain’t that, you must be deaf ’cause y’all niggas don’t hear me / But I know I got you scared to death / how many other niggas you know when you see ’em make you hold your breath?”
While “Ruled Out” clears up the parenting issue between a certain X and a certain son. No the fuck he didn’t…, “We Go Hard” brings Harlem’s platinum boy Cam’ron to a driving No I.D. bass beat, reuniting the duo that made “Pull It” an underground classic seven years prior. Big speakers only.

For an unprepared public, this game started in 1997 when a deep-throated, bandana-wearing brotha started spittin’ hot shit on cuts like LL Cool J’s “4,3,2,1” and Mic Geronimo’s “Usual Suspects.” Then came two unforgettable verses: the first on Mase’s “24 Hrs. To Live;” the second on The Lox’s anthem “Money, Power, Respect,” a sixteen bar ball of fire that DMX then said he wrote “a couple of years ago.” It was the perfect artistic set-up for a game that was coming out of Puff Daddy’s self-proclaimed “Hammer era” into a harder, more broken-bottle, strife laden world where heart, credibility, strength, and attitude meant just as much as brightest suit or hottest girl. Heads were ready for tales of real life, stories of struggle and survival, pain and the ability to get by, the kind of urban tales DMX had always thrived at. “I think society is finally ready to deal with reality,” DMX said a few days before his first album was to drop, “so for that reason I ain’t got no choice but to blow!”

Anyone that has followed X’s life and music knows that behind every curse and growl there is a plea for forgiveness, behind every rage-filled tale of pain or deceit or vengeance there is a strong moral center. It’s this kind of introspective soul-searching that has made this man a hero among his peers, turned this artist into an icon. See, after close to 17 million records sold, DMX is still trying to open his heart to the worlds around him, still trying to expose his innermost feelings about life and struggle to his fans.

“The greatest gift the Lord has given me is the gift of the word, the ability to communicate with,” he admitted in his best-selling autobiography E.A.R.L (Ever Always Real Life), “and I know now that I’m here to share everything that I have learned. That’s why I’ve always said I don’t want sales, I want souls.” And more souls he will save with two of the most moving songs he has ever written. The first is called “My Life”: “I go through what I go through so you don’t have to, you should be glad to have the worst TKTKTK you.” A spiritually-centered call and response new testament, built over a darkly moving live drum and piano, our most realest street prophet does it again. Bless us all. Then comes “The Rain.” “It doesn’t have to be the way it is, you say it is, just because the past twenty years every day it is…” Now I know only I can stop the rain…Reminiscent of the great confessionals “Coming From” or “Let Me Fly”, if “The Rain” is the last verse on wax we hear from the artist who has moved so many, so be it. He’s said what there is to say. “Every day of my life, it’s a constant fight between wrong and right.” Now I know only I can stop the rain… Let us pray. Oh, you know it’s there. “Prayer V”. Could there be another way? Five albums, five prayers. It will not be written here. Just listen. X’s energy is in his delivery, in the unforgiving way he climbs on top of a rhyme, bites its head off and dives down its throat. X’s passion is in his meaning, in the painfully honest way he penetrates his own soul to protect and repair the souls of his people. So while one could discuss “Thank You” his Grease-produced duet with Patti Labelle that samples the classic “I Want To Thank You” record, or the “Rob All Night” joint X spits over a sick Rocwilder track, right here, right now, it’s all about “We’re Back.” One of the most musically powerful songs DMX has ever recorded, “We’re Back” marks the perfect final chapter to a storied and unforgettable career. Horns, drums, baby cries. You have to feel it to believe. 

So this is what you’re telling me? It all comes down to this, huh? This is what you fucking telling me? Okay. 

Twenty years into a music career. Seven years into superstardom. Grand Champ is the fifth and final album from an incredible artist. How lucky we are to have been witness.
“Yeah I like animals better than people sometimes, especially dogs…”
DMX. It doesn’t get any better. 

– Smokey D. Fontaine

ALBUM HISTORY

It’s Dark and Hell is Hot – 1998 – 4.9 million worldwide – 4x Platinum in US
Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood – 1998 – 3.6 million worldwide – 3x Platinum in US
And Then There Was X – 1999 – 5.2 million worldwide – 4x Platinum in US
The Great Depression – 2001 – 2.2 million worldwide – Platinum in US
Grand Champ – 2003 -TBD 

GRAMMY AWARDS
2001
Nominated:
Best Rap Solo Performance: Party Up (Up In Here)
Best Rap Album: And Then There Was X

AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS
2000
Recipient:
Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Artist.
2001
Nominated:
Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Artist

MTV AWARDS
2000
Nominated:
Best Rap Video: “Party Up (Up In Here)
1999
Recipient:
Best Rap Video: “Ruff Ryders Anthem”

BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS
1999
Recipient:
Rap Album of the Year: “And Then There Was X”

SOUL TRAIN
2000
Recipient:
Best Rap Album: Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood

BLOCKBUSTER AWARDS
1999
Recipient:
Favorite New Male Artist

SOURCE AWARDS
1999
Recipient:
Artist of the Year,
Solo Performer of the Year 
Live Performer of the Year

PRESS
1998
The Source – cover
1999
The Source – cover
2000
Rolling Stone – cover
2001
The Source – cover
Rolling Stone – cover

BOOKS 
2002
E.A.R.L: The Autobiography of D.M.X

TOUR
1999
Hard Knock Life Tour 

MOVIES 
1998
Belly – Leading Role
2000
Romeo Must Die – Supporting Role
2001
Exit Wounds – Leading Role
2003
Cradle 2 The Grave – Leading Role

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