My 125 Favourite ’90s Hip-Hop Albums
#112 DMX - It’s Dark and Hell is Hot
“What makes you think you wasn’t able to stand / I got shit that’ll disable a man with the wave of a hand / The days are longer and it seems like I’m wasting time / I’ve got a lot of dreams but I’m not really chasing mine”
This guy is all about diminishing returns. This is a great album - dark, gritty, unrelentingly brutalistic. Unfortunately, every following album was exactly the same, to significantly lesser effect. In a way, I guess DMX’s shitty, shitty career (not to mention the dogfighting, a fairly unforgivable act of cruelty in my opinion) has kind of tainted this album. But it really is very good, and it’s hard to overstate how much of an influence (for better or worse) this was on the hip-hop that has come since.
If the grim title and wonderfully grimey cover art didn’t tip you off already, this is gangsta rap at its most ridiculous. There is nothing ‘real’ about this album. Nor is there any humour. But DMX pulls it off, thanks primarily to his gruff, aggressive delivery. He sounds like he means it, always. You finish listening to this album feeling like DMX probably wouldn’t have any qualms about killing you with his bare hands.
Most of the album’s tracks are produced by Dame Grease, whose gritty, intermittently soulful production suits the oppressive atmosphere perfectly. Unfortunately, on future albums, more and more of the production would be handled by longtime mediocrity merchant (and, inexplicably, Alicia Keys’ husband) Swizz Beatz (even his name is fucking terrible). He delivers a couple of tracks on this, including the well-known ‘Ruff Ryders’ Anthem’, and unfortunately, they encompass all of his trademarks: irritating, one finger melodies; awful, cheap-sounding synth presets; and stodgy, uninteresting drums. I really can’t stand this guy - he made pretty much all future Ruff Ryders releases unlistenable. And I know lots of people like ‘Money, Cash, Hoes’, but I really don’t.
Anyway, great album. It goes on too long, but which ’90s hip-hop albums don’t?
