Credit: Spotify

The late DMX was an unstoppable force in his prime who seemed able to make anthems with ease. From ‘What’s My Name?’ to ‘Where the Hood At?’, the Yonkers rapper was an unparalleled hit-maker. Still, some of his songs are undoubtedly better than others, and, in the eyes of many, one track truly epitomises X, and that is his 1998 hit ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’.

This single doesn’t just mark hip-hop’s first real introduction to DMX; it actually represents a lot more. The rise of Ruff Ryders in hip-hop was something to behold, and their grip on the mainstream was unprecedented. With exciting and fresh instrumentals from Swizz Beatz, the collective turned heads almost immediately, and ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ was the start.

Not only is the track one of DMX’s most well-known songs, but it was so impactful that it’s played in clubs to this day. With ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem,’ DMX took a completely different approach from his hip-hop counterparts.

Unlike Jay-Z, Fat Joe and other New York acts, X didn’t present himself as a smooth, cigar-smoking mafia mob boss who had made it out of the hood. Instead, with his top off, sweating, he aggressively stared down the barrel of the camera, surrounded by rowdy gangs of people and brought the streets to the screen in the most literal way possible.

The beauty of ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ is in its simplicity. With a simple drum pattern, sparse bass melody and basic guitar loop, it allowed DMX to take front and centre and the song’s energy is solely down to him. It’s rare for a rapper to produce such a weighty track with so little instrumentation. However, it’s the aggression and attack of X himself that makes the song hit as hard as it does.

Only Noreaga had previously tried to release a single to this effect with ‘Superthug’, yet that 1998 song is a relic, while ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ lives on as an iconic and legendary track. Many would argue that DMX has had bigger hits, which might be true just by the numbers. However, ‘Ruff Ryders Anthems’ has cultural value and is the late emcee’s most culturally impactful track and the greatest.

Strangely, DMX didn’t even put that much time into the track that helped him break the mainstream. In an interview with GQ, the late lyricist disclosed that he wrote the lyrics in about 15 minutes after getting the instrumental from Swizz Beats but, after writing it, wasn’t feeling it, claiming “The beat was simple and repetitive”, telling the interviewer, “I had so many other songs with more substance. The song is like ABCs, like elementary.”

Still, Swizz Beatz knew, much like the Neptunes did in the early 2000s, that even the simplest instrumentals can be hypnotising and highly satisfying to listen to, more so when the artist rapping on it is a captivating emcee.

Although the producer knew this, DMX wasn’t keen on anything about the track. Detailing how it was recorded, Swizz Beatz once revealed, “He didn’t wanna do the song. He lost a bet to my uncle Darrin in a card game, and my uncle Darrin [had] said, ‘[If] you lose the bet, you do the song.'”

However, it made him a phenomenon, and Swizz Beatz highlighted this, adding, “So if you listen to the song, he’s kind of irritated on the song, but he didn’t lose the bet because it became ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’, and that crossed him over into a whole other world to where he was doing Woodstock!”

The love of ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ was only boosted when X dropped the video. With DMX being an avid rider, he sought to capture New York’s underground biker culture with the track’s video, so for ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’, he wanted to take it to the street. The video was shot outside with Ruff Ryders members and their associates and featured them riding quads and dirtbikes, which captivated audiences.

To this day, the track is considered a classic, and the wave that followed featuring Swizz Beatz, Eve and The LOX was extraordinary.