You can’t do just about anything today without coming across a memory of DMX. The beloved emcee, father, son, partner, and friend passed away earlier today and since the moment the news of his death was shared, millions of posts have been created, reposted, tweeted, “liked,” and given attention. DMX was an artist unlike any other in the studio and in the streets, and people have taken to social media to reflect on standout moments from his career.
Rap legend Roxanne Shante spoke on the passing of her friend in a tearful video she posted online. In it, she talked about the physical and emotional abuse that DMX endured as a child after his mother abandoned him and how it affected the man he grew up to become. “This is one of the most serious things that I’ve ever said, maybe even one of the most emotional and personal things that I’ve ever said,” she began.
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“It has to do with DMX and what he had went through,” she continued. “This is not what somebody told me, this is what he said to me. When he was younger, his mom had took him to a children’s home and said that they was just going to visit and she left him there. She took him there and she left him there.”
Shante added that as a child, DMX was “too little to defend himself” and “too little to take care of himself,” but he did it anyway. “I know what it’s like to run the streets, sleep on the train, sleep in the hallways, tried to sleep at friend’s houses. Have people say you can come stay at they house and they brothers would come try and mess with you or even they fathers and uncles and sh*t.”
“As soon as me and DMX came in contact with each other, as soon as me and Earl came in contact with each other, we already knew what was done to that spirit,” Roxane Shante said through tears. “It makes you overly aggressive. It makes you seem angry to people. It makes you seem mad at people. So, people try to find whatever they can in order to overcome that.”
Watch her video below.
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