DMX has been hospitalised after being found unconscious on Monday night.
TMZ reports that police were called to the Ramada Inn in New York at 6pm on Monday night in response to the discovery of an unconscious male in the parking lot.
Police quickly determined that X was lifeless, not breathing and with no pulse, immediately beginning CPR.
Reports suggest that after one minute of CPR, X’s breathing and pulse returned, after which he was given an antidote to combat narcotic overdoses which made him “semi conscious” before being taken to hospital.
A family member of the rapper stated that X, who is asthmatic, had asked for his inhaler before collapsing to the ground.
Another witness on the scene also reported to the police that they had seen the rapper ingest some sort of powder before falling to the ground.
DMX has since denied taking any narcotics prior to the incident, maintaining that he believes it was an asthma attack as a result of suffering from shortness of breath after having bronchitis for the past few days.
Thankfully it appears that the rapper turned supposed FBI agent is in a stable condition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGx6K90TmCI
IMAGE: BET
Gone are the days of hip hop stars having but one job title. Wikipedia any rapper today and you can almost guarantee they’ll have some combination of rapper, songwriter, producer, entrepreneur and, a lot of the times, actor. As can be expected with most things in hip hop, there are both excellent and godawful examples of this. We’re breaking them down into best and worst, starting with the Mount Rap-More of shitty acting.
Xzibit
Oh boy, has X been in some real stinkers. Aside from appearing on Pimp My Ride and loudly giving out car makeovers that push the notion of poor taste to its absolute grotesque nadir, he has appeared as an FBI agent in the much-reviled X-Files: I Want To Believe as well as The Rock’s juvenile corrections facility team assistant football coach in Gridiron Gang.
He also appeared in xXx: State Of The Union, the more atrocious sequel to an already highly atrocious Vin Diesel-helmed original. His worst turn by far though has got to be alongside Busta Rhymes in Full Clip.
Ugh, look at that tagline, on a movie poster that my grandmother could cobble together on Photoshop given enough time. You don’t even have to see it to know that it would have taken the swiftest route to DVD possible and probably can’t be purchased outside of a $1.99 clearance bin anywhere.
Even in the one good film he’s been allowed anywhere near, 8 Mile, he enjoyed approximately two minutes of screen time as a homophobic factory worker who gets his ass lyrically beat down by Eminem. Enough already, X.
Ja Rule
Aside from making an entire career out of looking like somebody slammed a door on Tupac Shakur‘s face and bastardising his sound with none of the street cred or intelligence to back it up, Ja Rule has also enjoyed quite the acting career.
His first role in a blockbuster was as the token black street racer in the original Fast And The Furious. He also enjoyed minor but somehow terrible roles in movies for people who don’t like movies, such as Assault On Precinct 13 and Scary Movie 3. He also had a prominent role alongside our Lord and Saviour, Steven Seagal in Half Past Dead.
Steven Seagal movies, perfecting the ridiculous title/tagline combination since the 80s
This is a movie so bad that Steven Seagal’s do-rag is the second best actor in it. Ja plays the wisecracking black cop to Steve’s tough guy straight man cop. It’s… awful, but I will never forgive him for using my beloved New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets as a plot device in The Cookout. EVER.
That his character’s name was, in all sincerity, Bling Bling/Percival Assmackey is not even the dumbest thing about this aqua-dump of a movie. Christ.
Queen Latifah
Speaking of The Cookout, here was the woman in charge of producing that atrocity. Coming from an amazing background championing the seldom heard female voice in hip hop, Queen Latifah proceeded to move into the movie business, starring and producing in several films that are probably the reason aliens have made no attempt to contact us thus far.
These include the aforementioned The Cookout, the reprehensible follow-up to Barbershop, Barbershop 2: Back In Business (a colon in a movie title has to be a trigger warning that it’s awful, right?), its even worse spinoff Beauty Shop, Taxi alongside the serially un-funny Jimmy Fallon and the vomit-y Last Holiday.
It’s like the formula behind every single one of her movies is just to take the sass and turn that shit up to deafening levels, by God. I mean, she was admittedly pretty damn good in Chicago and Hairspray, but it’s probably no coincidence that these were both musicals that would showcase her obvious talents much better, and neither make up for the sheer horror that is Bringing Down The House.
If you look into Steve Martin’s eyes, you can almost see him wondering how his career ended up here.
And to top it all off, she had the audacity to use my Nets AGAIN, as an EVEN BIGGER PLOT DEVICE alongside Common in the godawful romantic comedy, Just Wright.
THEY WERE ALREADY TERRIBLE ENOUGH, WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LEAVE THEM ALONE!
DMX
DMX is to crazy what Biggie is to hip hop, simply transcendent, as we’ve detailed before. It’s no surprise that people in Hollywood took one look at this chrome-domed ball of rage and thought that there was an action movie career just waiting to burst forth and complement his angry, angry work in the field of hip hop.
And sure, he shared some screen time with Jet Li in Romeo Must Die, which wasn’t outright dreadful. But the Li/DMX tag team followed up abominably in Cradle 2 The Grave and from there it was pretty much all straight downhill. Apparently Ja Rule turned down the coveted role of being Steven Seagal’s (sans do-rag) African American sidekick in Exit Wounds, so DMX stepped up to the plate… and struck the fuck out.
The best thing from that movie was the unintentional comedy of a DMX cover of the Bill Withers classic, Ain’t No Sunshine (spoiler: it’s terrible). DMX’s last eight films have all been released direct-to-DVD, a streak that’s up there with Tara Reid’s. They’re titled things like Death Toll, Last Hour, Blame It On The Hustle, The Bleeding and the surely amazing Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent.
If you only see one movie where DMX shoots a giant snake in the face with a rocket launcher this summer, let it be this one. Give the man an Oscar, immediately.
Up next, we look at the best of rappers turned actors…
That old guy up there looking shiftier than a rat with a gold tooth? That’s AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd, arrested earlier this week for attempting to procure murder. That is, he went Tony Soprano and (allegedly) sought to have two people whacked for his convenience. That charge has since been dropped due to lack of evidence, although charges of making a death threat and possessing methamphetamines are still in place.
To mark the momentous occasion of another music celebrity losing their shit, we’re taking a look at our five favourite, lesser known cases of musicians who, just like us, put their pants on one leg at a time and commit horrible crimes.
5. Johnny Cash hates himself some Mother Nature
The Man in Black was famous for his social conscience. In particular, he championed the cause of Native Americans against severe injustice in the 60s.
When it came to the beauty of the environment though, Johnny adopted the position of not giving many shits. Specifically, none. In his wildest, amphetamine-iest stage in 1965, Cash took a ‘party truck’ out to the middle of the Las Casitas National Forest in California, where it promptly overheated and caught fire, taking a whole lot of the forest with it. Cash allegedly just said ‘fuck it’ and went fishing while everything was burning, like a hillbilly Nero.
Before anyone asks, no, this is tragically not what Ring Of Fire was about.
The worst part? The endangered California condor kind of called that forest home, and the fire cooked 49 of them. To put it into perspective, there were only 53 in the entire forest. Considering the condor was declared extinct in the wild in 1987, Johnny Cash was, you know, pretty responsible. Thankfully, he showed an appropriate level of remorse when the government sued, declaring ‘I don’t care about your damn yellow buzzards’
‘Uh yeah, like to dedicate this next one to all the Condors out there, It’s called “Fuck You Right In Your Face'”
4: Ozzy Osbourne publicly urinates on America
There are people who like to say ‘If Britney Spears can make it through 2007, you can make it through today’. These people know nothing. Ozzy Osbourne navigated the whole 1980s high as a kite on every single substance known to man and he did it by himself because Black Sabbath had had enough of his shit.
Most people whisper in hushed tones the ‘he bit the head off that bat‘ story. Few recall the time Ozzy, drunk as a lemur, was wandering through the streets of San Antonio one muggy Texas afternoon in 1982 wearing one of Sharon’s dresses, when he decided it was time to break the seal. Finding no public restrooms suitable, he proceeded to drop trou and take a whiz on whatever was closest to him.
Fuck you, America.
More specifically the cenotaph at the Alamo dedicated to the 189 brave Texans who died there. But still, have you ever stood in the Alamo? I have. Chills were felt, it is that historically important. Read about it if you haven’t had enough badass in your day.
He was promptly arrested, miraculously avoiding a beating and was banned from San Antonio for 10 years.
3: Chuck Berry is a rock and roll God, also an uncontrollable creep
Without Chuck Berry, rock and roll as we know it wouldn’t exist. It was Berry who took elements of rhythm and blues and damn near invented rock and roll, slapping his distinct showmanship all over it. Richards, Lennon and Orbison all claimed him as a huge influence.
He also happens to be remorselessly, slitheringly creepy.
Subsequently ruining pencil-thin mustaches for everybody
After opening a restaurant in Missouri in the late 80s, he was busted by one of his own chefs making videos of her changing and using the toilet. After that domino dropped, tapes were found at his home and several more women came forward to complain about being filmed by Berry, who admitted to his crimes and went away quietly. And by that we mean he ‘confessed’ that, sure, he had known there were cameras in that bathroom, but damned if he knew who put them there.
Not one person had been lobotomised enough to find that explanation even the slightest bit reasonable and he was forced to pay millions in settlements.
2: DMX is not an FBI agent but says he is anyway so he can threaten people
Hip hop and criminal activity have often been bedfellows so it seems like kind of a cop out to have a rapper on this list. This one is especially amazing though because it’s not just any rapper. It’s DMX, who enjoys taking one hell of a spiteful dump on the mere notion of ‘sanity’
In 2004 he took being crazier than a shithouse rat to a higher astral plane. He and a friend, both coked to the gills, broke into a parking lot at Kennedy Airport in New York, pretending to be a government agent.
“Smith is off today, Agent X reporting for duty up in here”.
Once inside (yes, someone in gainful employment actually bought his nonsensical story), he pulled a car over and ordered the driver out, again claiming to be an FBI agent. DMX was not there to fuck spiders, so when the driver said no he just straight up grabbed him and tossed him out of the vehicle. Oh, and the driver’s 12 year old daughter was sitting in the car the whole time.
We’re assuming she now requires therapy every time someone gets the aux cord at a party and puts this on.
Why? Why did you do this DMX? Surely you were well off enough in 2004 to avoid having to steal cars in an airport post-9/11? Well, the police arrived and found 15-20 rocks of crack cocaine (oh, that’s why), lots of prescription medication and a billy club in his car. Then they did only what was right and placed DMX in a federal institution for a long time.
No, they totally didn’t. He pretty much got off scot free and fucking DANCED OUT OF COURT.
DMX is still out there, a free man. Just waiting to ruin your day.
1: Rick James
God rest Rick James and his eternal, batshit insane soul. Rick James made DMX look like a choirboy. His list of fuck shit he did while on this mortal coil could have taken up this entire article (and many more), but taking the cake is the time he absolutely kidnapped another person and tortured them.
Pictured: Insanity. All of the insanity.
James and his girlfriend met a 17-year-old girl at a party in the Hollywood hills, took her home, tied her up for six days and burnt her with a crack pipe while sexually assaulting her.
Sweet crap on a crust. WHAT?
Yep, this actually happened. Rick James and his girlfriend were a fatality away from being 80s funk Fred and Rosemary. They had also reportedly snorted enough snow to make ‘final ten minutes of Scarface’ Tony Montana look rational. Good gravy, Rick, I know you testified to the kind of drug cocaine is-
SPOILER: It’s uh… it’s a hell of a drug.
-but this was lunacy of the highest order. Two years in Folsom prison and I’m pretty sure Rick learned his lesson. Or, you know, completely didn’t because he FUCKING KIDNAPPED AND BEAT SOMEONE WHILE ON PAROLE FOR THE FIRST KIDNAPPING AND BEATING!
Goodnight, sweet prince.