DMX, ...And Then There Was X Full Album Zip
Gro Bert
"I have many memories of listening to DMX prior to youth sports competitions. However, my favorite memory was in high school. The seniors always got out two periods ahead of everyone else. We pranked a teacher who always nagged us to help him carry stuff into the school. We waited till he went back into the school, put the album in, turned his volume all the way up. We quickly shut the car off and hid the volume nob. When he came out to leave a half hour later 'Party Up (Up in Here)' was blasting and he couldn't figure out how to turn it down without the knob."
"'The Professional.' The track was made with pure imagery. X's lyrics seem to perfectly hover over the haunting production courtesy of P. Killer Trackz. That lyric of "I could be the UPS delivery boy (uh-huh) or the man workin at Toys 'R' Us handing yo kid a brand new toy (true)" still gives me chills somewhat. I may or may not have borrowed a few lines for a few after school battles."
"'What's My Name' that beat was so crazy. Much of the production on this album matched DMX's style and lyrics. However, his tone and vocals coupled with the instrumental, made this one of my top hip-hop songs, period. I use to love watching the waveform of this track, it looked like a straight lie detector test going off the charts."
"I would put this album right at number two behind 'Dark and Hell Is Hot' and in front of 'Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood.' The former is just X's best body of work, nothing he has done or will do will top it. That was X coming straight out of the gate and his presence was felt immediately upon arrival.
An argument for the latter to be No. 2 could be made, but I always felt like it was cannibalized and always in the shadow of his first release, which made him the first artist since 'Pac to release two albums within a year and debut at No. 1. However, '...And Then There Was X' had a ton of commercial success, which only solidified X's presence in music, while foreshadowing his charismatic career in Hollywood."
"I cant really pinpoint a specific event but this was around the time me and my crew were running through the streets battling dudes from other hoods and I was in the process of moving down south. This album made the trip with me and help keep a piece of NY with me while living in the south."
"Definitely 'D-X-L.' Reason being you have the cream of the crop Ruff Ryder artist on this joint and this is the kind of competition any MC would love to test their metal against. I might be the biggest LOX fan in the world as well."
"I would say it has its ups and downs. I don't love everything on this album, but the songs I do like are good enough to make up for what I didn't like. Not X's best album but definitely had his biggest songs on a commercial scale. God bless X. One of the greatest."
"I was a senior in high school at the time, and I remember how hyped my friend Jesse was about the new X album, although I was more excited about [Jay Z's] 'Vol. 3' dropping a week later.
"This came out during my internship at MTV, so this was probably one of the first free CDs that started my 15-year freebie run [laughs]. I was a huge fan of X in college and expectations where extremely high for this one."
"'What These N----s Want.' I think I was equally shocked and impressed upon reading the liner notes to discover that Nokio [of Dru Hill] cooked up this heat. It was definitely a far cry from any Dru Hill tunes at the time. The drums and synths on that were so perfect to create a dark yet palatable mainstream DMX classic."
"What I remember most about this record was that it was a big drop-off, quality-wise, compared to his first two albums. In fact, I don't even remember buying it, although I definitely did. You have to remember that at this point in hip-hop, things starting getting very synthetic-sounding, so if you were very serious about rap, a song like 'Party Up' would be more grating than enjoyable.
"As much as I hated 'Party Up' when it came out, in hindsight it's probably my favorite beat on the album now. Which is odd because I still think, musically-speaking at least, that it's an awful track. It's two syncopated notes that really don't go anywhere. That said, I think in many ways the beat for 'Party Up' showed that you could make great records that make people move and dance and be aggressive in a crowd without the song being needlessly complicated."
"It's tough to say where it ranks because after DMX's first two albums, which are really just these landmark releases that he'll never top, it's all this big grey area. Plus, he really does have a large catalog, with even some of the newer material being remarkably enjoyable. In fact, I don't think it's even possible to really rank DMX's albums. He's such a strong, iconic character -- kinda like the Wu-Tang Clan -- that no matter what he releases, it speaks to this very specific, core audience of DMX fans. In an industry where every artist is trying to be some other artist who's trying to be another artist, I've always thought DMX's unique sense of self was admirable and very cool."
"I'd say it has to be 'What's My Name?.' While I never liked how X flowed on that ("WHATS... MY... NAME"), I love the way they dropped those piano stabs and kicks in time. Very 1999, smoking an L in the whip with your high school friends cutting class and trying to scheme on girls."
"Moving from New York to North Carolina when this album was bumbling reminded me how much I missed the Northeast. It was a culture shock for me when it came to music and radio but DMX was one of those artists you couldn't deny no matter what the market. Being in a black college town though, I saw 'Party Up' start many a fight in the club [laughs]. But you could always throw on X's 'Prayer' after to calm the crowd."
"This is hard but I have to go with 'Here We Go Again' solely because he was vulnerable without coming off angry. We were so used to him yelling at us to get his point across but I feel you felt him more on this record then any other.
If he had named-dropped Ebony in 'What These Bitches Want' then I might have went with that though. I was mad as hell when that joint dropped. You named like 50 bitches, including three Kim's and Ebony couldn't get no love? Crazy!"
"'What These Bitches Want' is my favorite. I'm a huge Sisqo fan. A sucker for a good Rap/R&B collaboration. It also showed DMX's commercial appeal. The record was huge. Also, has anybody successfully rhymed a verse full of women's names quite like the Darkman? I don't think so. It stands as a timeless record today. If I could've talked to them both in this era, I would've urged a best of both worlds type album."
"There were so many notable beats on the album. Going through the album again, 'One More Road to Cross' stands out a lot. A great catchy hook can strengthen the actual production in my eyes, so it was one of the album's best beats. DMX had a talent for doing that. Being so animated as a rapper made the beats that much better. Thank you, Swizzy!"
"DMX has had a lot of hot singles after this album. As far as a better body of work, it's debatable. Is it safe to rank '...And Then There Was X' as his third best album? I'm doing it. It's not better than his first two albums, but it certainly outranks anything he did after."
The thing I recall most about this record is that my father enjoyed it more than I. He's a child of Parliament-Funkadelic, he's always been a fan of as he says, "a good beat," so when 'Party Up' came out, he was all on it. In fact, I'm not sure if I even was the one to buy this album. I had followed X since 'Get At Me Dog' and believe I purchased 'Flesh Of My Flesh.' But, if you remember, around [1999 and 2000] everyone was going one of two ways, the jiggy, pop, Tone and Poke, Swizz and Timbo route, or the underground, heard on Rap City only and Mix Radio route. So I had dropped X a bit when I saw that he had a cut with Sisqo of all people."
"Again, 'What's My Name' has to be the one, Irv Gotti produced it, and sonically it just came correct, this was when folks started shifting from samples to more beats straight off the MPC, so when you start making your own drums, they don't bang as tough as when you take one from old work."
"Again, to me this started to show the decline of X. This was his entry into pop culture, this was the album that had songs in commercials, on sports channels, on top 40. While it was probably his biggest check earner (I'm sure they'll do the stats), to me, it was the beginning of the end."
\"I have many memories of listening to DMX prior to youth sports competitions. However, my favorite memory was in high school. The seniors always got out two periods ahead of everyone else. We pranked a teacher who always nagged us to help him carry stuff into the school. We waited till he went back into the school, put the album in, turned his volume all the way up. We quickly shut the car off and hid the volume nob. When he came out to leave a half hour later 'Party Up (Up in Here)' was blasting and he couldn't figure out how to turn it down without the knob.\"
\"'The Professional.' The track was made with pure imagery. X's lyrics seem to perfectly hover over the haunting production courtesy of P. Killer Trackz. That lyric of \"I could be the UPS delivery boy (uh-huh) or the man workin at Toys 'R' Us handing yo kid a brand new toy (true)\" still gives me chills somewhat. I may or may not have borrowed a few lines for a few after school battles.\"
\"'What's My Name' that beat was so crazy. Much of the production on this album matched DMX's style and lyrics. However, his tone and vocals coupled with the instrumental, made this one of my top hip-hop songs, period. I use to love watching the waveform of this track, it looked like a straight lie detector test going off the charts.\"
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