The legality surrounding this album is questionable. Firstly, the announcement for the album came out of the blue, no singles dropped, no buzz was created at all. Then DMX's team including long time collaborator Swizz Beatz said this album was not the album they'd been working on and that it was unofficial. Next, the label releasing this disputed those claims and said that they had the rights to 52 masters from 2012 they had bought and were within their rights to release this as they did 'Undisputed'. And the latest news is that legal action is impending from DMX's team.
Whether the album gets pulled or not, at this stage, doesn't really matter, it's been released, it's in cyberspace, people have purchased it and we have DMX's eighth 'album'. The first thing fans will notice from the track listing is that this includes many tracks that have been on the internet for years. 'Spit that Shit' leaked in 2009, and sounds like leaked quality as do some others. 'Built Like a Bitch' did as well at about the same time. There's a different version of 'On and On' from many years ago [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjDbTonsC24], which has been given a new beat to fit in with the rest of the album. The next song 'Get Up and Try Again' is another from the 2009/2010 leaks from what I can tell. 'Solid' and 'I'm Gonna Win' are found on DMX's 'Mixtape'. 'How's It Goin' Down' is a new one here and isn't the song from 'It's Dark and Hell Is Hot'. 'One More Night' can be heard on the 'Year of the Dog Again' bonus DVD. I'm not sure what this song was going to be for but 'Where You Been' is from about 2008. 'Gonna Get Mine' has a video from 2007 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNj5f7FwGXw,]. Finally, 'Love That Bitch' leaked around 2009/2010 and was featured on a couple of releases. So, if you are a big fan only about four to five of these will be fresh listens.
That's the long-winded background to the album. The music itself isn't as interesting. I don't feel like a lot of these would've made a 'real' DMX album. The production at times doesn't gel with the vocals. There's a feeling I get that some of these were kind of 'drafts' and particularly these days with less people spending their hard-earned on music, why you'd bother releasing music big fans would've heard is questionable. There are too many of the same type of songs here, and while the energy is still in the vocals from DMX, the originality and emotion in lyrics and song structure isn't.
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