‘It’s Dark and Hell is Hot’: 25 Year Anniversary
DMX, It’s Dark and Hell is Hot. Def Jam Recordings (1998).
By Nick M.W.
DMX’s debut album introduced us to rap’s most complicated anti-hero.
On “A Star Is Born”, Jay-Z opens the track with,
“I seen Mase do it, I seen Ye do it
X came through, caught lighter fluid”
This is an accurate description of what happened in 1998 when DMX blazed through hip-hop after a decade of rapping. He scorched the scene at a time when hip-hop was experiencing a post-Golden Era slump the brief but pop culturally significant “Jiggy” Era. Some of that jiggy stuff was necessary, but it went too far (Big Willie Style). Hip-hop fans were still in a state of shock after losing Tupac and Biggie. Somewhere between those two tragedies, Dr. Dre left Death Row and the G-Funk era ended, so you might understand why some hip-hop fans needed this type of music to lift their spirits. The economy was in much better shape, experiencing a late-century peak, so why not spend that extra cash you have on some flash?
Puffy and Bad Boy rose to the occasion rather than slip away into grief and regret. I was onboard with what they were doing for a hot minute because it was cathartic, but as the old saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Puffy was responsible for shiny suits and the hyper-commercialization of hip-hop in the late 90s. These were his first steps to becoming a music mogul, and he made it. People loved the music he made back then, but it was a bit too saccharin for my tastes. I was a skateboarding teen halfway through high school, and I wanted something heavier than that; I wanted something darker.
Without jiggy rap music, It’s Dark and Hell is Hot might not have launched DMX immediately into the stratosphere. Because “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” exists, “Get At Me Dog” was able to counterpunch the deluge of rap songs about flamboyant living and connect with the vast majority of rap fans then (and now). Most of us back then couldn’t relate to Puffy. I couldn’t relate to what DMX put on record, literally, but I understood the themes he explored in his debut and subsequent albums.
It's Dark and Hell is Hot was an instant hit and a career-making moment, with 251,000+ copies sold in the first week. I swooped up a copy the day after it came out, so I contributed to those first-week numbers.
I remember calling the electronics department at the local Fred Meyer to make sure they had the CD in stock. When they confirmed that they did, I rolled with my mom to the store. Back in those olden days, one way to listen to music, the best option if you wanted to listen to music that you enjoyed was to buy a physical copy of the music. If you were a minor and you wanted to buy an album that was labeled “explicit,” one of your parents had to buy it for you. My mom, for some reason, was cool with it. I gave her fifteen dollars, she bought the CD, and I had a life-changing experience listening to the first six tracks in my mom’s Durango while she finished shopping.
I’m talking about “snap the passenger seat clean off its hinge from rocking in it” type of listening experience.
It's Dark and Hell is Hot was so different from what was on top of the hip-hop charts at that time. DMX was the opposite of jiggy; he was the essence of New York grit and grime. I first heard him on that LL Cool J track “4,3,2,1”, the one that sparked his beef with Cannibus, and it knew he was going to be a star in the genre. DMX ended up being a legend, experiencing a level of success in his first year of being on a major label that few artists in any genre experienced over the course of their careers. It’s Dark and Hell is Hot 5 times platinum. This debut was one of two multi-platinum albums X dropped in 1998, becoming the first rapper to release two platinum albums in the same year.
He was committed to his persona as a fierce rapper and intimidated an angry pit bull with his growls and barks on several tracks, including two of his best: “Intro” and “Get At Me Dog”.
He was a bold storyteller, as evidenced on tracks like “Crime Story” and “ATF”, or on tracks like “Damien” and “The Convo”, where he plays multiple characters and gives us a peek into the mind of a madman, the type of psycho who is both makes deals with the Devil and pleads forgiveness from God.
He was an incredible performer on record and onstage. I saw him back in the day when the “Hard Knock Life Tour” rolled into Portland’s old Memorial Coliseum. It was my first concert, and I went with a handful of my friends from high school. He gave everything he had in that performance, closing his set out with a tearful prayer to God for his blessings and forgiveness for his transgressions.
DMX was complicated because he was human. He was the realest rapper to ever do it; there will never be another like him. It’s Dark and Hell is Hot was his debut, 25 years ago, and it remains his greatest work since.
“Ruff Ryders Anthem”, “Stop Being Greedy”, “Fuckin’ Wit’ D”, “Let Me Fly”, and “Damien” are all worthy of someone else’s “Top 3” off It’s Dark and Hell is Hot, but they’re not mine.
“Intro”
“Regardless because I’m the hardest
Rap artist and I’ma start this
Shit up for real, get up and feel, my words
I make herbs spit up and squeal”
Name a harder opening track on a debut album by any rap solo artist. “Can’t Knock The Hustle” is hard, and it’s revealing of who Jay-Z ended up being on record and in real-life. But it doesn’t necessarily hit you when it drops. It doesn’t smack you off your feet. It simply lays the blueprint of this particular hustler’s game plan. On “N.Y. State of Mind”, also a hard debut opening track, Nas brings the same visceral imagery of New York City’s streets, but his delivery isn’t anywhere near as foreboding as DMX’s. Same with “Things Done Changed”. Biggie isn’t trying to sound like he’s coming for your throat, but DMX certainly is.
Your shit is hard as nails when you have the timpani cracking off in it.
“Get At Me Dog”
“Rob and I steal, not ‘cause I want to, ‘cause I have to
And don’t make me show you what the MAC do”
The first single off the album was the precursor to our journey through one man’s hell, and it was fierce, still is. After 25 years, it will crank your workout up a notch when it knocks through your itty bitty ear bud speakers.
“The Convo”
“Sonebody’s knockin’
Should I let ‘em in
Lord we’re just startin’
But where will it end”
A few other tracks on It’s Dark and Hell is Hot are more widely recognized as bangers by the majority of DMX fans, but this deep cut highlights X’s ability to perform as multiple characters on a track that doesn’t feel like a gimmick. This track is raw emotion, and the premise feels not only like something a lot of people have experienced for themselves, but also something that Earl Simmons did often.
