DMX - Grand Champ [UK Bonus Track]

It's often said that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and that maxim certainly holds true for the self-professed Grand Champ of canines, Dmx, on his album of the same name. For his fifth album in six years, the veteran rapper reprises many of the same themes and motifs that had made his previous efforts so popular among hardcore rap fans and influential among his East Coast peers. As usual, he barks at his unnamed adversaries over hard-hitting Ruff Ryder beats, flexes his rhetorical muscle with his ever-confrontational rhyme style, advocates valor and faith while disdaining materialism, and frames his world within a polarized context, drawing a bold line between "dogs" and "cats." By this point, the scenario should be familiar to those who've followed Dmx this far into his career; in many ways, his albums are mirror images of each other, in terms of drama, production, ideology, sequencing, and thankfully, to an extent, quality. Read More