Credit: Spotify

‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ is one of the biggest songs of DMX‘s career, but there was once a time when he disliked the record. Now the biggest track off his classic 1998 album It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot, the Yonkers rapper originally didn’t want to rap over the instrumental due to its simplicity and the lack of hip-hop in the production.

“I wrote it in 15 minutes,” DMX told GQ. “I actually didn’t want to write it. I didn’t want to do that song. The beat was simple and repetitive. So many other songs had so much substance, and this song was like, fucking ABCs, like elementary.” However, he admitted, “I’m glad I did do it.”

Speaking to Complex, producer Swizz Beatz explained that he combined elements of two major US cities in order to create something new and original. DMX had to be persuaded by Swizz and his uncles, Ruff Ryders founders Darrin ‘Dee’ Dean and Joaquin ‘Waah’ Dean, to rap over the record. Once they managed to do that, the rest was history.

“I made the ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ beat in Atlanta,” he said. “It was me just bugging out, having my New York influence and having my Atlanta influence. That track was the perfect blend which was awkward and different at the time because nobody had ever heard anything like that—including my clique.”

He continued, “DMX didn’t want to do it. He was like, ‘Man, that sounds like some rock ‘n’ roll track, I need some hip-hop shit. I’m not doing that. It’s not hood enough.’ I told him, ‘Yo, we can make it hood!’ And then my uncles said, ‘Yo, we should step out the box a little bit.’ We bugged him and bugged him to do this shit.”

Swizz Beatz also revealed that one of the iconic ad-libs in ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ was formed from everyone trying to hype up DMX in the studio. The success of the track speaks for itself, and earned Swizz his seal of approval.

“Then he came in and did it and we were just hyping him up,” he said. “The ‘What!’ ad-lib and all of that came about in the middle of us hyping him up. We left it in the track to add energy. Collectively, we came up with that vibe. It was his best shit at that time. Since then, X has trusted my judgment.”

‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ was the only song Swizz Beatz produced on It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot, but it was the start of bigger things to come. Swizz produced the majority of his next album, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, and collaborated with DMX on every album that followed.

The record originally peaked at number 38 on the Hot 100, but climbed to number 16 following DMX’s death in April 2021. It has over 248 million streams on Spotify, with the music video boasting a further 231 million views on YouTube.