According to AllHipHop, DMX had completed a full album for Def Jam Recordings and Ruff Ryders that was scheduled to arrive this summer. The plan is reportedly to move forward with the release, but it’s unclear if the projected timeline will stay in place in the wake of his passing. A HBO documentary about his life was reportedly also finished.
It was no secret DMX had been working on the album. During a February interview with the REVOLT series Drink Champs, the 50-year-old MC enthusiastically talked about the project and revealed a few details in the process. In addition to the late Pop Smoke, Griselda’s Westside Gunn, Conway The Machine and Benny The Butcher, he had a sizable roster of artists locked and loaded for his first post-prison project.
“I got Lil Wayne, I got Snoop [Dogg],” he said. “I got The LOX. I got Bono — the U2 n-gga.”
DMX’s longtime producer and Verzuz co-mastermind Swizz Beatz, who he called a “magician” at the time, was also able to manifest features from his wife Alicia Keys and Usher.
As for the Usher collaboration, he explained, “It’s called ‘Letter To My Son. When I first did it, the only issue was the piano. Then my man, Ryan King Joseph, he play the violin. It was just piano on the song, and I never did a song with one instrument before. It came out crazy, it hits you. And then I heard [Joseph’s] work, and put him on the joint.”
He added, “The Bono joint is ‘Skyscrapers.’ Shit’s crazy. It got a Miami feel to it. I feel like I want to shoot the video here! All muthafuckas need to do is listen to it, and we good.”
Much like Pop Smoke, whose posthumous Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon album became one of the biggest rap albums of 2020, there’s a strong possibility DMX’s final album will be a Billboard blockbuster upon its arrival, further cementing DMX’s already impenetrable legacy.