DMX & The Ruff Ryders Reminisce On Rough Road To Success – Ruff Ryders Chronicles Full Ep 1

[Music] who would ever bet on dudes from the street being able to make a huge impact in music history who would have bet on that nobody [Music] it was swizz dmx rough riders was on fire was insane we set trends trailblazed turn up [Music] x touched the nerve that the streets were starving for one of them what's real it's not going to be ignored what could turn out to be one of the most influential rap albums of the year came out today by dmx who else can make two albums in a year triple flat can't nobody do that everybody was at that height like we are the this party is weak no sleep it's women just because we got a little bit of money now we're still dealing with guys from the streets several people were stabbed some are reported in critical condition put the camera on fame is a lot i went through a depression and it all just kind of fell on me i watched my best friend gain the world and lose his soul i'm so tired a lot of things fell back and started going left we built red riders together everyone said i should have had some part of it something went wrong with the bike he was not breathing it's been a rough 24 hours for the platinum selling rapper we never thought it would end you know we would just keep rolling out hits new artists but within any family there's also dysfunction we should have been an empire [Music] before i became roughriders i was in these streets the streets was our education our harvard university but this wasn't no overnight success it came from having faith in self having spirituality understanding you're never going to let anybody stop you from making it we brought the family in the business we bought all homies in the mix and god gave an opportunity to be able to make hit records we built a movement we built a way of life but everything go up must come down you're not gonna stay up on top forever our setback was really a setup for something greater but to understand roughrider's story you need to know my journey it started in the bronx self off was rough real rough there was a shooting in the bronx today an execution really everywhere you go the same thing people getting high drugs disease violence crime you name it you can find it or buy it here south bronx in the 70s was a war zone you know lawlessness poverty burnt out buildings broken glass everywhere many parts of the south bronx look like a city under siege with entire blocks wiped out the one bright factor about all of that was the sense of community and family the family unit is all you had you know so for the deans family was everything i wasn't thinking about motherhood at 15 but fortunately it happened and i have my six children we always emphasize the ethics and principles was always the main thing that we wanted them to have d y myself bring the youngest and y and d were very very close if you saw darren you saw joaquin it's almost like they were inseparable [Music] my father was a muslim so we had discipline it's kind of like discipline preparing you for things that's going to come in life when you think about structure in a lawless environment that's what the nation of islam did it transformed a lot of men into disciples of discipline america doesn't give her a promise to anyone you have to ring it out of her we didn't go to public schools we went to the moss schools we had this headscarf and the outfits and my brothers always wore suits and their hair cut really low you know we knew all the things not to do not to smoke nothing to drink not to use drugs which stuck pretty good because i never smoked and i never drank in my life ever the black muslims are worth millions businesses include supermarkets fish markets and a few hundred other businesses i started importing fish for the nation of islam then i opened up my own business you know my father was an entrepreneur he taught me a lesson at an early age it was like eight in the morning i went to his office on 125th street i said yo dad i need some money i want to get something to eat he said why you asking me that i said cause you're my father he said go in the freezer get the shrimp get the fish and go try to sell it i go out there and i sell this shrimp and fish and before you know it i got three four hundred dollars he said now that's yours so that work ethic was instilled in us always hard work hard work hard work hard work pays off a lazy man works twice if you want it you better go get it [Music] their style of music is rapping that is spoken words over a highly rhythmic musical background all of them were raised in the south bronx and what they call the jungle we all was in the bronx so we were born in hip-hop grew up a block away from central avenue so cedric avenue was monumented with us with cool hurt that's where he lived there [Music] who her definitely is the pioneer hip-hop and started the whole thing right up under our nose my room and dee's room was right directly over cool hurts room he had speakers almost as big as his room last me right out the bed when could work have a party everybody be there me and dee was six seven years old we used to take the crates out from cool hurts house into his van to go and do these sets in the park right down the block we could hurt with dj we would go over there and break dance so we was getting music all the time when you're young you don't even realize if you're rich or you're poor yet me and why was just having fun at at a young age when my friends got divorced it threw everybody in a loop because we were so used to having that unity and we were taught structure and discipline my mother she didn't totally accept islam 100 wholeheartedly at that time my father was fully muslim he didn't take no mess so they clashed and then albert the store front corner fired with all his merchandise and he had no insurance so that also led to the breakup we had a lot of changes that went on in our life and it became a little difficult my father did what he can to support but at the same time she had six kids so we eat a lot i knew that i had to keep my strength for them i couldn't show them weakness but they're gonna be days when you're gonna eat they're gonna be days when you're not and they knew those days very well we used to eat rice with sugar butter and rice mayonnaise sandwiches you know a lot of people know about that you know unfortunately i lost my job therefore i lost my apartment and that's when it all started at some point my mother wasn't able to take care of six children independently so we had to separate the three oldest stayed with me siobhan and darren and joaquin went to philadelphia with my mother they broke up when my mother died at that point i stayed in new jersey and darren joaquin went to live with my father and yonkers you go to yonkers and then you end up in mont vernon then you end up in manhattan and when you go to each one of these areas you meet new kids and we just happen to meet a lot of kids but a lot of bad kids we was muslims but as we got older we wasn't in the muslim household so we wound up running into some bad kids and you're going to eventually take that course they'd be like oh yo listen i'm going to show you how to get this money and you say all right where are we gonna get this money gun rob take running simple i was just turning about 16. we had did a robbery and i think it was like a kentucky fried chicken went in we robbed it got the money we left i guess somebody was in there that spotted me so they want to come and get me and then i get locked up about 13 14 or whatever for a robbery then they sent me to spaff you have to grow up overnight because the kid then goes right out the door your mother's not there your brothers is not there nobody's there now you get to know who you really are i wrote a letter and told him all the things you should be looking out for because i was already in jail he would be like yo don't cry you know don't let them take your sneakers it's a sign of weakness i say give me your sneakers and you give them to me then that's you're gonna be giving me everything the whole time you're in there you might as well just fight for me get it over i learned i wasn't gonna fall for anything i wasn't gonna just be somebody else puppet i did my three four years and then i got out it was 1986 i was 17. me and d went to marvel and new york and started all over again [Music] high school here got kicked out as usual chill what up hey y'all from jail back to the streets from jail you don't have no income or no money and nothing you go back to the streets you just put right back in the same environment so you get the same results it's going nationwide a drug so pure and so strong it might just as well be called crack of doom crack the most addictive form of cocaine is now sweeping new york everybody was on it so that was the product to sell if you wanted to make money it's a product that was in demand 24 hours a day dee would probably have a new day shift i'll have a nice shift really it's just like a grocery store it's really so it's like a grocery store we get all the money we counting up later 3 000 5000 a day and then go back out and do it again tomorrow i always worried about them i wanted to rush through high school so i can get an apartment and get the minutes so they could come off the streets neighbors on their stoops got caught in the crossfire of random shootings by three suspected drug dealers five men are shot the motive drugs in that life you definitely can get into situations at any moment like anything can happen at any time you got to pay attention the shooting is killing this all type of things well you take a risk coming out the door we had an incident a couple of guys hustling on the wrong strip we regulate them a couple of days go by i'm on third avenue i'm chilling in the pool with friends one guy said hey listen what would you do with somebody shooting at you i said i don't know what you do he said well you know bully can't hit you if you zigzag i said yeah zigzag that sounds cool that's really cute so i leave and when i get up the middle of the block some guy jumps out off the steps with a mask on with a gun [Music] and so i give them a honey single say here this is what you want it's a robbery these guys say nothing so he clicks and it jams so i run well well he's quick and he's trying to kill me i started zigzagging the gun it goes off i'm here can't believe it i just got shot i run back into the pool and i say yo i just got shot and so the guy said man stop playing they said they thought i was joking so i laid on the floor i said yo call a cab and i went to the hospital they called me and said do you have a son watkins i said yes well he's down in emergency he's okay but he got shot i go to sleep and wake up you know they they say you couldn't nothing they could do with the bullet so i got a bullet launched in my heart the doctor said it would be more dangerous to operate than not and they did the right thing don't touch it if it don't bother you don't bother it so it was um it was a wake-up call [Music] after that i was still in the street hustling but i started looking for new endeavors because we were playing tic-tac-toe with this situation he was putting our life on the line and that's when i seen that heavy d and puffy and c.l smooth come out of my neighborhood in mont vernon and they was kids from around the way that actually got successful doing something legitimate yo money earning mount vernon what's up out there america it's time for yo mtv raps my man is super large and the overweight lover bon diddly diddly d yeah my man's name is heavy d what's up heavy we seen them come from riding skateboards and bicycles to riding bins and bentleys and on tv i'm out here throwing bricks at the penitentiary what we doing wrong heavy d was one of the coolest dudes in the world about his business very respectful couldn't get him to curse on the record although i may drink a coke hell no i don't smoke no coke he knew how to make songs that will stand the test of time you know we keep our head in the street you know most of our crew was still you know like you know we still in the ghettos and all that [Music] crazy thing is heavy dee's brother was you know hanging out with us and we was running the streets one day in martin vernon new york on third and third heavy deep pulled up in a bins he had you know a little entourage with him and i asked him yo have like y'all in the music industry you're doing real big things with uptown records how do we get in the game we want to get out of these streets have said listen if you find an artist that you believe in bring them to me i might do a deal with you because i'm looking for artists anyway at that time i was standing there with tiny and so i said i i got that artist i know i know him he said he has to be that artist you have to be gold artist a hit-making artist i said i got him they all looked at me like i was crazy had a cassette darkman x mixtape was short somewhat stocky [Music] my first reaction was whizz yet right now i need to see him now this can get us out of the streets and one day polo said boosting's good but we're not making half as much money as we could we went around asking a few pictures a couple of people told me where it was i know it all right cool we went we went over there on locust number three goes out in the morning over here that's where they parked that this is the ghetto i'm gonna pull up stop i'm gonna take a step back dmx interview take three mark when why i pulled up friend of foe i didn't know yo you know dmx uh i don't know why but you know i did a lot of dirt he was taken aback a little bit because he never seen while before so i said that's my man boy he got comfortable then i made the introduction like yo i got my man why he want to get in this music business he wants you to work with him sell me yo i'm gonna be back 11 in the morning and they told me that for the longest yeah you listen to it whatever i said well we different people over here you know what i'm saying so we don't we we keep our word i didn't dismiss him i didn't put too much into it either so i showed him the window and then he could knock on where i stayed at the next day at 11 o'clock this was like this right on the window and it's like the voice lighters them up he was like oh nobody kept a word like this i said that's what we do we out we rollers we vibe it was done at that time he was hustling in the streets and siobhan he was with family in atlanta so it was just me and dmx but dmx was really a hard artist to deal with he had robberies he had situations people you know come looking for him x was a legend for the two r's rapping and robbery and he was good at both that was my repetition rapping and robin double r was already there before he even came up with it it was already there and sometimes i brought people with my dog it was about 40 pounds little pit bull i got them tattooed on my back how was the time we both had warrants for us i actually need no gun he had the dog who wants to get bit i'd rather get shot he would walk into projects and just have people up against the wall take that off run in people's pockets all types of craziness with a dog the gun is only as powerful as the person behind it i've taken guns out of people's hands before the dog is like i'm like it's like a bullet that'll chase you he's gonna get you really he was always a lot of trouble he had a lot of ups and downs he got in a lot of fights a lot of situations but x is who you want them to be you know if you want to be bad you can get the bad acts you want to be cool you can get the cool x you know that's why we ask are you dmx or you're earl simmons today who are you earl is the child he's a good kid means well he wants to do good it wants to please [Music] people i would describe earl's childhood as very representative of what it meant to be black and male in a really disadvantaged poor situation in in new york city this is it right here man lady good school street man school street projects was uh it was horrible i mean i sold drugs in it but it was hard the elevators smelled like urine the steps smell like urine a fight would break out cops what a call you had your tough guys downstairs selling drugs you had your stick-up guys come through every now and then literally school street was the home of the brave you had to be brave to live in saw people getting robbed in the lobby they robbed the mailman like every every first of a month mike the mailman maybe he'd be right back to work earl's childhood was really tough his mom was a teenage mom and you know she didn't know how best to discipline him dmx's mother took out a lot of frustration on him due to the fact that my brother had left the relationship i wasn't shy by any means but i don't think i was confident you couldn't be too confident and you know in my situation confidence will get you a beating espresso will get your ass worked i started to notice dmx coming over to my house with marks on his face and stuff like that and my mother noticed it too i think i did something wrong i had to stay in my room for the whole summer i could only come out to like use the bathroom i could see the kids playing in the back what i did i did like all my school work i did it all over again then i read every single book in my room um i had a zipper the moving part of a zipper and that was a fire engine to me my imagination i just was yeah i expanded it there's always a gift in every bad situation you just got to be strong enough to be willing to look for it [Music] he asked me one day that i have a mother i said yeah he said love your mother my mother didn't love me you know my grandmother though is my mother she loved me and she saw a light in me she'll lie to me she saw the fact that i had the potential to be someone jms's grandmother is my mother her name is mary holloway dmx was hungry often so when he came over to the house it was party time because he didn't get a chance to eat as much while in the process with his mother i mean that's pretty much why he acted out a lot as a child you don't get no attention from your mother and then your father's not around of course you're gonna act out in some way i was a smart kid i don't know if i was a good student i'd get into fights in class i actually like like challenge the teachers sometimes like sit down make me i was angry about being told what to do when earl's mom couldn't take it anymore she just started sending him away to these group homes for juveniles where you know kind of half educational institutions and half penal institution and one of the schools that that earl's mom sent into was was children's village so the procedure is you go there for an interview and then take you home then you know you prepare to come back he was under the impression that he was just looking around he wasn't going to stay my mother comes back from like across the room it's like all right i'll see you in three months and i'm like and she left you know in my mind i'm like you can't leave me i mean like [Music] i we came we came here and i'm super go home [Music] and then she just left right then and there i learned to just put away conceal bury whatever whatever bothered me and story i think another side of it was born right now the side that um enabled me to protect myself don't worry about it i got you now this is crowley's cottage this is where earl lived for two years music was the lifesaver for earl he just was so passionate that would help him to express himself well i saw the big box heavy 83. i was good at it at that time hip hop was new you just had to do something the beatbox dance electric boogie or you dig a video you dj'd or you just had to do something that's what everybody was doing [Music] earl would always want to go home after he left these juvenile institutions but there really was no home for him to go back to his mom had you know more kids by the time he was getting older and becoming a young teenager but she never was able to welcome him back he would think wherever he could find a squad he would you know somebody's house somebody's couch in a car he would come over to my house but it was a few nights where dmx would just pretty much hang out on the streets beat boxing and battling people around yaakas i partnered up with this guy named ready ron and he would rap and i would just do the beatbox ready rahm was this you know one of the lsmcs and yonkers at the time he was the first male role model i ever had in my life he was the first person i seen roll a blunt he was rolled up ready lit it yeah i never hit it and as soon as i blow the smoke i was like oh hey what it was i think like what they would call a wooly which was lacing a cigarette with with crack you said it was just weird like why would you do that i was 14 years old and i looked up to you first person that was a male that i ever wanted to be like about in life why would you do that but he was also the person that suggested that i should write rhymes we're right here in the lab cooking like chicken finger looking good i'm gonna hook your fear stricken out the dm destroy emcee as soon as i see them i did a lot of you know walking through yonkers looking for people to rob yeah and if i came across a you know a rap battle hey just as good just as good we would go all over the yachts in battle we would go all the projects all the side blocks anybody that won the battle he was there dmx took that craft seriously like a chess player or a tennis player he wanted to win at all costs divine master of the unknown with the fight before i've grown to he was number one hands down and whoever said he wasn't we set up the battles and they lost no one usually the person that you battled against you know afterwards like yo you is crazy like they become a fan and that's when we started saying oh this dude is going places now cause it's just tape was circulating all around yonkers that's how i met dmx on locust hill in the morning that's where they walk around this is the beginning this is where me and my man found him at you know what i'm saying x was already in the game you know he was at it the only problem was x was under production agreement with jack mcnasty jack mcnasty was a local guy that started managing local acts throughout westchester new rochelle white plains yonkers mount vernon when i first heard about jack you know he's like yo get a flat top uh wear polka dots did you hear the lyrics that just kicked is he out of my mind like does this not know who to i am i couldn't really do my business with these contracts live so i had to get him out of that deal went to that house he had this big rock wall that was like his little security guard we had to get in the house with him before he get to the backyard to outlet the big rock waller in the house so he did that and then we talking about well this deal got to get taken care of somebody's going to have a problem here and it's not going to be jack mcnasty was dmx's manager we had to squeeze him out of the deal a little bit being in somebody's living room without permission that's test it's just you them in the dog locked up outside that can't help but really he knew that he had him under contract and x1 it out and so jack was cool we reached his settlement and we didn't have to break no bones anything we didn't have to hang him out no window he was good with us and then you know we started working when i got with x it was just me and x i did ask dee did he wanted to get involved he didn't really want to do it i was probably outside in the streets hustling so i wasn't thinking about music at that time my sister siobhan was down in atlanta working with uncle lenny he had a lot of music clubs so she was getting hands-on relationships that's why i went to go get her to help me out my uncle lenny was in the music industry and promoted all kinds of shows with ashford and simpson patti labelle so one day my uncle told me i'm going to teach you how to make money without having to sell your basically when i came to atlanta i saw a young man asking for help to get off the street so that's how i viewed it that's when the role started becoming more defined i'm the office person focused on doing contracts and communicating on a business level and joaquin is the go-getter i just start focusing on dmx and putting a lot of work on ground i take them everywhere to battle perform we was learning the game as we was earning the game that's how we was raised we was raised to work we just went oh this is what we're supposed to do oh hang up supplies oh make some mix tape the tapes was popping i mean like i was disrespectful i was battling zone tapes and making disrespectful songs and just just just capturing what was going on in the hood so then at that point we started thinking about names we came up with special effects and you know it wasn't popping i was living in yonkers at the time and we were watching passing and i'm mesmerized about this movie i'm just sitting there stuck they were trying to catch a train so the train's going and they're riding hard and each one jumps off their horse to get on there so i said yeah that's rough then i thought about it they're rough too i said rough yeah i said rough rider she said ride or die i said that's it [Music] getting radio play in in those days was the first step to becoming a star and getting a record deal and getting paid they both understood real quick that they needed to get that single my father and puffy's father were very close friends my pops hooked me up with meet him with puff he was working with uptown doing it real big over there i like the heavy mary jodeci you've seen your face in a couple of videos too yeah yeah yeah yeah so i went to see puff told me listen i'm real busy i can't really do much anything right now but he hooked me up with chad elliott dr seuss dr seuss was producing the jodeci album at that time make sure you don't go flat i get a call one day from puff he says you know yo chad i have these guys that i know who have an artist and they need some music and one i decided to meet under the george washington bridge at that time there was no office you know the meetings were happening under the bridge in the cars you know and i could see that why was with purpose you know he was a lot of intensity he told me about this guy dmx you know from there we decided that i'd make a couple of tracks i bought dmx to his house to work on the first himself that single the first song i made that was the first step that was the one that you know collectively they were like okay this should be a single when we got in the studio and he went in there and laid that verse down the passion i mean it just radiated i mean his energy you know his pain but because all the bad things happens to me i got kids but their mothers don't want them to know me my sisters used to like me but now they call me born loser was a great single because the the lyrics of born loser represent exactly what ex wanted to say it reflects what's going on in my life what's going on around me you know just things that i just want to say it sounds like oh he is a loser you know i used to have a family now i'm out on my own try to scrap where to pick cause he tried to take my bones but in between those stories he's telling he's saying young man went out and made a name for himself [Music] we took that song and pushed it out there and got the rough house columbia deal we have this single deal if that went well we launched the album the release date is on 16th man of what february put it out we thought that was the end-all be-all we thought that was going to really take off but unfortunately it was opposite it didn't become what we thought it would be one loser didn't do well as a matter of fact i think i'm the only one i heard play to this day i never heard anybody play born losers before we were taking him around different places but dmx was gritty so labels were apprehensive about putting out his music or you know being associated with him a large part of me not getting signed was word on the street like oh no but he runs around and he does this he robs people he gets high and it does drugs right but my thing is i'm the best crack cocaine was his deen it wasn't hidden like everybody knew he had a drug problem like that's what put him on that wrong path [Music] after x was released from roughhouse he didn't give him the appearance of feeling down hurt sad or worried about anything i believed in myself i believed in myself i knew what i was capable of it's just it's like faces like during this phase you're gonna have to overcome something incredible we come from grind so we understand what it is to not have and to build something from nothing to something so even though born loser wasn't a hit record we got to advance for 50 to 75 000 then that deal set us up to start our recording studio my father hooked me up with an office in his building they came in they bought the dogs and the whole works and the neighbors were complaining i was a rapper and a producer while i was like yo i need somebody like you at the studio we're building i want you to run it i want you to be the foundation i was a young producer harlem while i came to the block and actually was playing as born loser and i didn't like it my tracks was coming from homeless it was like real aggressive and gritty and he was like i need that dirty music these dirty artists i had like five six different producers i have pk dame grease chad elliott and we have them working eight hour shifts so we bought the 24 street hustle into the music industry i had to step away and hit the road with jodeci and while i wasn't too happy about that and it was at that point where i introduced him on earth chad's like listen this guy er if you got a lot of spunk you want to you know you want to get into this music thing i was in new york dj and chad elliot who's my roommate and he was like yo you should meet this guy dmx he's with these guys rough riders he sat and kicked it and i was like yo you produce and i was like you know i'm just starting and i was like i need a drum machine so that's how i started with irv gotti i got him his first drum machine and he did dmx next single or make a move i got to make sure i got to make the move and make it soon got to take the block and make it boom we coming through so one was hot i thought that would go you know what i'm saying i thought that would go at that time we was doing everything independent so we had to go door-to-doors you know to go to the djs and go through all the different radio stations and underground stations to get it happened we brought it to wendy williams one time thanks everybody for listening to kids and making us number one across the country she took the record got in her car and when she drove a little she tossed it out the window willie williams man dropped my on the floor x would get frustrated a lot the streets love me he would tell everyone you don't want to play my record i don't give a the streets love me they're going to hear me [Music] after born loser didn't blow up after making moves didn't blow up he didn't have money and didn't have a way of really feeding himself sometimes i would sell my tapes i made cassette tapes i'm saying mixtapes you know i sell those you only get so much money on that his girlfriend tashira had a baby he has to feed his baby you know the streets are still there because you still have to eat me and earl had our first child when i was 21 and he was 22. we were broke i mean i worked but you know you know i robbed a lot of people there was no money in sight so arrived a lot of people we wanted to keep an eye on dmx because you know you all know in the streets you eventually wanted one or two places dead on jail he got locked up he got locked up you'll be in here for 90 days and being there for six months it'll be in there for we call those skid bits so he was in and out i just got arrested i'm in jail new charge it was like the lowest of the low but it reminded me of being in my room i just took a step back and just said let me let me just look at where i'm going how i'm getting there and what i'm saying on the way there x take the good with the bad but he get locked up we don't want that for him but he's gonna come home with a lot of material x is our first artist then x turned us on to the lots we was young kids and we was making music we had mary j blige behind us she took our music to puff said welcome to bad boy i said it the first day i want to sign dmx he started rhyming you just felt his rage it was about the time we took the streets over we took the airwaves over this is gonna change the game everyone's gonna be a rough ride in the [Music] hood you

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Views: 2,660,969

Rating: 4.8701496 out of 5

Keywords: BET, BET Networks, BET Music, Black Entertainment Television, Ruff Ryders Chronicles, Ruff Ryders Chronicles Episode 1, DMX, Ruff Ryders Entertainment Artists, Ruff Ryders Entertainment, History of Ruff Ryders, ruff ryders house, Irv gotti, eve rapper, ruff ryders origin story, ruff riders chronicles full episode 1, how dmx got famous, how dmx became a rapper, the rise of ruff ryders, Joaquin Waah Dean, Darrin Dee Dean, Chivon Dean

Id: ZRorPmK5xkM

Length: 40min 48sec (2448 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/thathaitianguy]

I could never find the other complete episodes 2-8 on Youtube or Bet.com