A Year of Blind Spots: It's Dark and Hell Is Hot

It's Dark and Hell Is Hot

DMX

1998

 

This has more to do with me and my own journey than DMX and his, but I wanted to note here that this is the final hip hop album that this column will be covering in 2023. Let's mark the occasion. On January 1, 2023, I felt like I didn't know anything about rap. Throughout the year, I tried to do the work. Here at the end of the year, I'm confident that I can listen to an album like It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, and be able to confidently describe what I like and what I don't like about it, which is really all I wanted to do. I'm not a "hip hop head" by any means, but I am finally at the place where I can say that I listen to rap. In exploring many of what I've been told are the "classics" of the genre, I ended up listening to more great rap than bad rap. I know that the latter is out there, but the important part is that I'm able to tell the difference. That's all.

This was also the first week that coincidentally lined up a hip hop album in both Record Club and A Year of Blind Spots during the same week (usually I don't publish the aYoBS album write-up until the week after I listen to it). So listening to DMX and billy woods at the same time was able to give me some further clarity in terms of what I like about this genre. billy woods brought the poetry, and DMX brought the heat. These albums don't sound anything alike, but I like them both for different reasons.

Maps would probably win in a head-to-head, only because I think the craft is denser and I appreciate the wordplay more. It's Dark and Hell Is Hot more so lives off the charisma of its artist. The harsh bark of the voice, made literal in the dog imagery. The prevalence of violence throughout, including threats of murder and the acceptance of the possibility of being murdered. The sheer passion in the line: "So, if it takes for me to suffer for my brother to see the light / Give me pain till I die! / But please, Lord, treat him right." I'm hit or miss on the production, which is in the East Coast tradition of heavy strings to make it seem cinematic (RYM gives it a genre tag of "horrorcore," which kinda makes sense the more you think about it), but I cannot deny that DMX is passionate, and makes you believe what he's saying.

And so that requires you to buy into the fiction, basically. This isn't unique to DMX and it's not unique to hip hop. Music can tell a story, and, like any good story, the truth is bent toward the will of the storytelling. I don't doubt that DMX felt the pain of this lifestyle. I also tried to visit Triumph Brewing Company in New Hope, PA in 2013, and wasn't allowed in because DMX was performing. Triumph Brewing Company!!! Come on.

But there is a way to handle this with grace. It's not that it's weird that he was playing a concert there. Instead: he contained multitudes. It doesn't ruin the story the fact that he died of a cocaine overdose in 2021. Instead: even in death, he is larger than life. I am not impressed with the beats, and I don't think DMX could get near billy woods in terms of wordplay, but I also believe wholeheartedly that DMX has the energy and the razzle-dazzle and the raw magnetism to be considered one of the all-time greats.

That's just me taking the wide lens again, though. I'm backing up and considering how much I've changed in the past year, and what a joy that has been, to work that change. Joey on December 11, 2022 would have easily dismissed this album. Joey on December 11, 2023 finds it to be a worthy addition to the canon. No, hip hop does not all sound the same. Comb through what I've listened to this year, and see how different it can be.