Tuesday, December 30, 2008

My Mom and DMX


A few weeks ago I was turning past a few of the English channels and I came across a fight scene from Exit Wounds with DMX and one of my brother's favorite fighters, Steven Seagal. Tim and I decided to check out the rest of the film. Two days later, I get a call from my sister at the crack of dawn. All I heard was something about DMX rapping for my Mom. I was tired so I told her I'd call her back. Evidently, my sister was trying to tell me that my Mom had met DMX. Once I woke up I remembered that I had read earlier that week that DMX had been extradited back to Phoenix to face charges, so I called my Mom because I figured it would be an interesting story. Sunday morning I got the full scoop. My mother who is a nurse by vocation, works currently in correctional health. During her shift on Thursday a few of her co-workers were making some buzz about an Earl Simmons. After hearing the name be repeated a number of times, she asked who is Earl Simmons?
"In response a grisly voice responded back," I am.

Now the reason this interaction has any significance to me is not simply because my Mom met someone famous. I have met a number of people who I either admire or would categorized as famous, but their are a few people that you click with, and somehow think that beyond their public persona you know them and actual feel what it is they are talking about. This was certainly, the case for me with DMX. The chasm that existed between our two world expressed the same paradox of a white kid in the burbs' channeling the frustration of a Black man living in the hood'.Yet, in High School I had a serious bout with depression and I remember connecting specifically with rap music that expressed real emotion, and aggression. I listened to Dark Man X, and after coming out of my season of depression I still enjoyed listening to his music until I basically stopped listening to secular music altogether.

Anyways, in addition to buying tickets to the Hard Knock Life Tour, watching his movies and reading his biography and interviews I also had a burden to pray for him for a number of years. So when my Mom told me she met him it was meant something to me. Apparently, my Mom said she couldn't really remember who he was, so when he said he was a rapper she told him,"Okay then bust me out one. Let's hear it.....But it can't be no craziness, give me something I can feel." Moments later a few guards and physicians came into the room and he performed a few bars from "Lord Give Me a SIgn." My mom said she really enjoyed the song and afterwords he explained to her all the tatts on his arm. The ones on the right being after his conversion and the ones on the left attached to his former life. He also expressed to her that he is currently studying to become a pastor; which of course is nothing new, X has always had this dynamically complex and contradictory personality. Perhaps, that is where I relate to him because we all have two leanings.


She said that he seemed very respectful, polite and charming. She said his eyes had a glow about them, but beneath that you could see a piece of his troubled soul and for this cause he avoided prolonged eye contact. There is more that could be said but I just wanted to share a piece of it. I still hope to meet him someday and perhaps work him on a project, but for now I pray he recovers from the cycle that he has been on the last couple of years.

Random things:

1. My housemate ScholarLee once saw DMX in Metro Mall in Phoenix, and told me that he wanted to punch X in the face. I asked why and he told me, "Just to say that I punched DMX, I did'nt care if I got a beatdown for it." Of course this was a fleeting thought because he is still alive to recount the story, lol.

2. I do impressions of DMX when asked, and I did something on Youtube called Year of the Horse. My impression is kinda spotty, but I've never heard anyone do a better impression of DMX besides Arie Spears. Hmm, I wonder why Frank Calliendo hasn't tried. :)

3. I also dressed up as DMX for one of our high school spirit days. I had a puppy dog doll with me and I talked like him for the whole day. The next day my voice was gone!

4. I used to have the movie Belly memorized. That movie was the ish back in the day.

That's all....I'd love to hear your thoughts.

2 comments:

Emmanuel said...

You know, you and I have a lot in common in terms of this DMX character. I started on his stuff during the first albunm. I actually did a poem by him in a High School acting class. Also, I did go to the hard knock life tour, and liked him, red and meth, but not Jay Z. It is good to hear that your mom had the chance to meet with him and speak to him.

Jered "jrock" Lyons said...

Thats crazy man...It truly is a small world. Even more importantly the stars we see on tv and listen to at the end of the day when it all boils down still have problems dispite all the money they recieve...It seems like your Mom was a light to him that day for him to open up...Small world man