Why DMX didn’t want to be a role model
DMX never wanted to be a role model, and he made that clear long before the industry tried to shoehorn him into one. Earl Simmons knew better than most that visibility does not make virtue, and that fame can distort the reality of life.
During a July 2017 performance at Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, days after being released on bail on federal tax charges, DMX stood on the stage and demolished the notion: “I’ll be the first one to tell you, I ain’t a motherfucking role model”. It was not a provocation. It was a confession.
In the buildup to this announcement, DMX had been charged with 14 counts of tax evasion, with prosecutors accusing him of concealing millions of dollars of income. He was looking at decades of incarceration if found guilty. To most artists, this would have spelt silence, image management or even retreat. DMX did the opposite. He rose up, grabbed the microphone, and explained to people precisely why they should not be like him. “I’m not the person you want to be”, he admitted. But then he pivoted, as he always did, toward purpose. “You can count on me for the truth. I put my life on that”.
That contrast was visible in the very centre of DMX’s worldview. He rejected the idea of being imitated, because he knew all too well the cost of the life he had lived. His childhood was marked by abuse, instability and violence. He ran the streets young, was arrested before he was a teenager, and later spoke about being tricked into smoking crack by someone he trusted, an act that triggered a lifelong battle with addiction. His demons were already well established by the time fame came in the late 1990s, and only magnified as this success reached greater heights.
In contrast to the artists who typically gravitate towards aspirational self-images, DMX reveals the entire ugly truth. His music was confessional to the point of discomfort. He rapped on paranoia, relapse, rage and shame, and he sought to criticise himself more severely than anyone else.
Every album included a prayer, not as a stylistic flourish but as an act of survival. On tape and on stage, he frequently oscillated between fury and vulnerability, yelling one second and sobbing the next. It was this raw, unflinching openness that is precisely why he resisted being framed as a role model. He did not want his behaviour to be mistaken for guidance.
DMX strongly believed that every hardship brought him closer to God, even when the pain felt unbearable. Following his arrest in 2017, he said that his legal hassles were a strange form of a blessing, because it allowed him to form an even stronger connection with spirituality. But he was naive. He cautioned that the closer a person was to God, the more difficult life became. The attacks got stronger. This faith reconstrued his pain. He regarded himself as a flawed believer under constant trial, not a redeemed figure who had arrived at peace.
In his last album, Exodus, DMX rapped, “I just wanna be heard, f*** the fame, my words will live forever, f*** my name”. It was his last, great renouncement of celebrity worship. He cared about the message surviving, not the image. That line distils his entire position.
In rejecting the role model title, DMX did not diminish his impact. He sharpened it. DMX dealt in reality, offering truth without polish, faith without certainty, and wisdom forged through frequent wrong turns.