DMX Net Worth

How much was DMX worth?

Net Worth:-$1 Million
Profession:Professional Rapper
Date of Birth:December 18, 1970 (aged 50)
Country:United States of America
Height:
5 ft 11 in (1.8 m)

About DMX

DMX, born Earl Simmons, was an American rapper who became best known in the late 90s and held critical acclaim for his gangsta rap albums. He was known for his fast and sharp delivery and lyrical storytelling that rivaled Tupac. The rapper had a great relationship with Jay-Z and was one of Def Jam’s best selling artists through the 1990s and briefly into the 2000s.

Near the end of his life, DMX’s run-ins with the law and the mounting list of crimes began to overshadow his rap legacy. The truth is about DMX is that he had legal trouble dating back to the 1980s and by 2019 he was hit with 14 counts of federal tax fraud for failing to file income tax returns from 2010 to 2015. The court ordered DMX to pay $2.29 million in restitution. The rapped died in debt.

Some of DMX’s most popular tracks include “Party Up (Up In Here)”, “What’s My Name?”, and “X Gon Give It To Ya”.

American rapper and songwriter DMX had an estimated net worth of -$1 million dollars at the time of his death, in 2021. He is best known for his debut album Dark and Hell Is Hot which sold 251k copies in its first week. DMX’s peak net worth is estimated to be about $15 million in the early 2000s.

Though DMX had a rough childhood, many cite this being a core reason that made him rich, famous and successful. Not only did it develop grit and build his wits through adversity it also gave him a plethora of events from which to build his lyrical content.

DMX was in and out of children’s homes but fortunately got to play on a Oberheim DMX drum machine, which ended up being the reason for his stage name.

Though the meaning of the pseudonym was retroactively changed to become an acronym for Dark Man X, we are actually quite sure that it was the drum machine from the children’s home that he played with as a child that was the source of the name.

The rapper’s debut album was released in 1998, titled It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot, which was a massive success both critically and commercially. The album sold 251,000 copies in its first weeks. It sold 123,0000 copies in its second weeks. By 2000, the album was certified four times platinum.

The following year, the rapper’s sophomore effort, …And Then There Was X, was an even bigger success as it went straight to number one on the Billboard 200 album chart, and it was helped significantly by the huge lead single, “Party Up (Up In Here)”. At this point in his career, DMX has released eight full albums, with five of which topping the Billboard 200 chart.

In the late 90s, DMX’s profile grew due to his feud with Ja Rule and Jay-Z. Though the three had all grown close to one another through collaborating and featuring on each others’ tracks and had even formed a rap group called Murder Inc., the friendship went sour. DMX began calling Ja Rule a “copycat” and that the rapper stole his flows.

Though Ja Rule never got involved or responded, DMX released the diss track “They Want War”, which coincided with what many would claim to be the start of DMX’s downfall. However, in 2009, DMX and Ja Rule put their feud to bed at that year’s VH1’s Hip Hop Honors.

The rapper is perhaps best known to many for his many stints in jail and and his growing list of felonies. His first sentence was way back in 1986 when he allegedly stole a dog from a junkyard, but the crimes he was accused of steadily got more and more serious. A couple of years after that, he was convicted for a carjacking, and then moved to a higher security prison for trying to extort another inmate for drugs.

Even after his rise to stardom, he was still accused of crimes including animal cruelty, drug possession, and speeding. Before his death, he was charged for 14 federal counts of tax fraud in 2017, and he spent a year in jail.

DMX had eight albums in total five of which peaked at the top of the Billboard 200. His second album, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, went multi-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

His debut album, It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot, has sold more than five million copies to date, and his best selling record is his third effort, …and Then There Was X, which went 5x platinum in much quicker succession than his debut.

Although times were tough in his last years, DMX continued to make money through streaming services such as Spotify. He had more than six million monthly listeners on the platform and his track “X Gon Give It To Ya” has more than 380 million plays. Up to now, DMX has sold more than 70 million records worldwide and they still sell paying off some of his debt to the government even today.

Though DMX made millions of dollars through record sales, he also lost millions through what must have been poor financial planning. He declared bankruptcy in 2013 despite earned $2.3 million from his songs between 2010 and 2015. At that time he revealed just $50,000 in assets and (allegedly) between $1 million and $10 million worth of liabilities.

After being found guilty of 14 counts of tax fraud for the years between 2010 and 2015, he was ordered to pay back $2.29 million. Not only this, but DMX was father to 17 children, all of which he had to pay child support to, that’s a lot of kids. I like to think that was the primary reason he ended up filing for bankruptcy. And not chicks, drinks and sports cars.

Though DMX had his problems, if he was anything it was authentic. His persona as a gangster rap artist was the reason why he accomplished five consecutive albums to number one on the Billboard 200 chart. DMX never sacrificed his personality or sold out. Even in the movies he starred in, such as Cradle 2 The Grave and Exit Wounds, he was always the tough guy and he never traded that in to star in family movies like many of the famous rappers of the 90s.

The rapper’s dual-minded like narrative was a major impact on audiences, switching between warning listeners of the dangers of greed and violence, and then rapping about holding up a liquor store, sometimes even within the same song.

The narratives he built whether real or made up caught people’s attention and his popularity soared as a result.

He is the only rapper to have two multi-platinum albums released in the same year, and it’s not only thanks to his delivery but the producers he chose to work with, too.

DMX was smart enough to work with some of the best producers working today, but who were relatively unknown at the time. Some of the producers that worked on DMX’s music were Swizz Beats, P. Killer, and Irv Gotti. They all featured on his second album, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood. Likely a major contributing factor for it going triple platinum.

DMX’s production choices coupled with his rap flow and lyrical genius is the reason why he was perhaps Def Jam’s biggest artist in the late 90s. Maybe not by total revenue, close though, but most of all DMX was a big winner by popularity at the time. He was the rapper people were talking about coming up hard and fast and with sick lyrics that stick even today.

Summing-Up

DMX earned his critically acclaimed and chart topping album success thanks to his fly on the wall approach to lyrical storytelling and his ferocious rap delivery. But his persistent legal troubles and considerable tax evasion in the end left him with a net worth estimated to be negative -$1 million dollars. For a moment there we thought that could all change because DMX had reunited with Def Jam in 2019. They were supposed to be in the process of recording a new album. That all suddenly ended however when DMX suffered a heart attack and died at just 50 years old.

‘Perish Is Not Always Dying’ — DMX

In life we are going in and out of things continually. We are going into and out of rooms. Getting in and out of cars. Going into and exiting out of relationships. There is an idea that this seemingly fundamental pattern may continue. Like sleep we go into it and then again we are awake.

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