Swizz Beatz paid his respects to DMX in a video posted to his Instagram account on Saturday (April 10), a day after the rapper died at age 50. He had suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized a week earlier.
“Long live the KING!!!! DMX,” the Verzuz co-creator captioned the nearly 9 minute video. “Words of truth & Pain.”
In his tribute, Swizz remembered how DMX put everyone else before himself. “Since the day that I met him, he lived his life for everyone else. I never seen him live his life for hisself. You ain’t never seen DMX next to a Lamborghini; you ain’t never seen my brother with a Rolls Royce. You ain’t never seen him iced out in jewelry. He did not care about any of that,” the producer said. “DMX was the biggest. And let me tell you why he was the biggest. He was the biggest because he prayed for everybody else, more than he did for himself. He’d get on that stage and pray with 15,000 people, knowing that he needed more prayers than everybody that he was praying for. … My brother would take care of everybody before he would take care of himself.”
Beatz, who credits the late Ruff Ryder for his own success, went on to talk about DMX’s loyalty. “He’s the most loyal person I’ve never known. He’s been a Ruff Ryder since day one,” shared the artist. “Everybody threw millions of dollars. You could not buy DMX! You couldn’t buy him. He was never for sale. His loyalty for who he loved was never for sale. His family was never for sale. His integrity was never for sale.”
The producer also recalled how DMX appeared in his dream after news of his death broke. “He was watching South Park. I came up from behind him and I hugged him. I seen him smiling, but I couldn’t hear him talk. We wrestled, we was play fighting like we always do. And he got up and he grabbed me very tight, and he looked at me and he gave me a smile. Which I knew he was OK, I knew he was in a better space. Then he walked into the room and I woke up,” Beatz shared of his emotional dream. “Mind you, before that dream, my stomach hurted, I had the shivers, migraines, you name it. When I woke up, I felt different because I knew my brother was happy. I got a cigar, I got me something to drink, I went swimming and I played his music.”
Later on, Beatz circled back to the good deeds that the three-time Grammy nominee did that few knew about. “This man had $30 million, writing his music in abandoned buildings. He would give his clothes away. He would sit down with homeless people and eat with them, with $30m in the bank! He didn’t care about no money,” the producer told viewers. “He cared about humanity. He was a humanitarian. He did more charity than probably every artist I know. The only difference with his charity is he never talked about it. He just did it, on a daily basis.”
He ended his tribute with a simple message to his late friend: “Love you, King. Long live DMX the Great.”
Watch Swizz Beatz’ full video remembering DMX on Instagram.
