DMX Focused On More Music, Less Trouble With New EP

Rapper talks to MTV News about his Weigh In EP, which dropped as a free download on Tuesday (May 15).
By Rob Markman

DMX
Photo: Tim Mosenfelder/ Getty Images

The Grand Champ is back. On Tuesday (May 15), DMX returned to rap's arena with his free The Weigh In EP as an online download. It's been six years since the Dog dropped his last album, Year of the Dog ... Again, and today the Yonkers, New York, rap great is happy that the focus is back on his music and not the legal drama that has plagued his career.

"It's a good thing. I wish it was always like that but you can't really worry about what people think, what they say. I just gotta do me," DMX told MTV News over the phone on Tuesday. "The focus is on taking the music seriously, as a job, and less trouble."

When DMX first emerged in 1998, he took the rap game by storm with a pair of groundbreaking and multi-platinum albums, It's Dark and Hell Is Hot and Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood. Through the years, however, X has been making headlines for his mounting legal trouble and jail stints. It's actually an issue he addresses on "Last Hope," one of the EP's stand-out tracks. "Damn I'm goin' through it again/ After tellin' everybody I wouldn't do it again," he spits with his unmistakable gruff.

Just as its title suggests, The Weigh In is merely a set-up for the main event. X will drop his new studio album, Undisputed, this fall. "Everywhere I go people are like, 'When's the album droppin? When's the album droppin'?' So I was just like, lemme hit 'em with something, let them know, give them a little appetizer of what it's gonna be like," he said of The Weigh In. "Not the same songs, because I'm sitting on like three albums right now, but ya know, just what it's gonna be like."

As if X wasn't enough incentive for fans to download, the Dog also called in a few favors from Snoop Dogg and Tyrese, who both appear on the EP. "It was incredible. I just happened to call Snoop, while I was in the studio, he answered the phone, I sent him the joint, the next day I had it back," he recalled. "I appreciate the fact that the love is still there. I look forward to working with more artists. I normally don't work with too many artists, but these have always been friends of mines."

What do you think of DMX's The Weigh In EP? Let us know in the comments.

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