Undisputed

"X GONE GIVE IT TO YA X GONE GIVE IT-"

DMX gave us an album, "Undisputed" on this day, the anniversary of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks.  I'm wondering if that was on purpose, but I'm not sure of what that purpose might have been.

Anyway, I listened to it and, well, it's just not what I was looking for.  When I first started hearing of X starting a comeback I'll admit that I was a little more excited than the typical rap fan.  X was the epitome of real gangster rap for me growing up, before gangster rap became soiled by "pretty boys" and the word "swag."

The first thing I thought as I skimmed through the selection titles was Mary J Blige circa 2002(or so), and up.  Almost every song title on the list sounds as if it could be the title of a diary entry(as if people title their diary entries).  You have titles such as, "Cold World," "I get Scared,"  "Slippin Again," and "Prayer."  They sound more like his poetry than a song.

Don't get me wrong, some of the songs did give me a gleam of hope reminiscent of the styles and flows of vintage DMX but the ratio of diary entries to songs was like 3:1 and that's just a little too much venting on one album for me.  Not to mention, in this day and age, half your plays come from who you have featured on your songs as well.  The only people X has featured are Andreena Mills, Machine Gun Kelly, Dani Stevenson, and somebody named Kashmere; not exactly a five star lineup.  I think his die hard fanatics will probably love the album.  They'll be able to get a real indebted idea of the struggles he's been going through  since his last album.

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So here's what I'm hoping.  This is his warm-up album and he's shaking all the cob webs off and getting all of the hurt and struggle out of his system and he's going to come back after this with a slamming mixtape for us and show us the X I saw back in Baltimore this summer who was on the verge of a breakdown because the crowd was loving him so much but they cut his mic and forced him off the stage as he shut the house down with his classics.

Hip hop needs the real DMX back.

Check out my footage from his performance at Dubai night club back in May.