In his soon-to-be released autobiography, E.A.R.L.: The autobiography of DMX, DMX claims that Dame Dash admitted X defeated Jay-Z in a battle of the then unsigned emcees, which took place in The Bronx. X says the Roc C.E.O. was talking with Darrin Dean, C.E.O. of Ruff Ryders, after the cipher and told him, “Yo, your man did kinda’ get him.”
The battle is also chronicled in the rap documentary, “The Show.”
The chapter that details the incident is, “The Battle for New York” and the rapper describes his battle history in Baltimore and New York, and how he has never suffered a defeat. X said he never really had a challenge in Baltimore, with the exception of an emcee named Nardo. After describing a two-hour battle with Nardo, X details the events that lead to his battle with Jay-Z.
“I’m glad I had enough ammunition for that Nardo battle, if I never lost a battle in New York, I wasn’t trying to lose one out here, but my rhyme skills would be tested even more the night Darrin called me from Yonkers.
“The night Darrin called, he said that he needed me to come back to New York right away. Harlem Knights was going to battle a group called Original Flavor in a pool hall in The Bronx that night and he thought they might need a little help. Original Flavor had a lead MC named Jay-Z.”
The narrative continues with X describing how the intentions of the battle were just to pit the Harlem Knights versus Original Flavor; he said Jigga and himself were just there as insurance if one of the groups started gettin’ at the other group too bad.
“At the beginning we were both chilling on the side, but when things started getting nasty and Harlem Knights and Original Flavor started dissin’ each other, the crowd started eyeing the two of us. The people knew that we were the top dogs of our crews and they wanted us to go at it and after a few more rounds, I just couldn’t stand to the side anymore. It was time to hold down the fam.
According to X, he and Jay-Z climbed on top of a pool table and started battling for over an hour, kickin’ rhymes right in each other’s grill. X said usually he dominates battles to the point where there is no debate about who was the victor, but this time he said fear crept into him.
“I knew it was close. Jay had as many rhymes as I did, told stories, talked s###, flipped styles. I never liked my battles to be close. When it was close because then you’d always get some clown to be like, “F### that. My man ate you!” when it wasn’t even like that. I liked there to be no f###### way for anybody to say anything. But that didn’t happen this time. That’s why I started worrying: some people are going to be thinking, maybe…
That is when X said he brought the heat and spit’: You bad n####? / I’ll be back to see if you’ll still be here/You know my style will put your f###### man in a wheelchair / He’ll never walk again, on the strength of me / That’s how I left him, G, scared to death of me.
After the battle was over, X overheard Dame and Dee talking and at first he didn’t think he heard Dash right, but then he says Dash repeated to Dee, “Yo, your man did kinda’ get him.”
The book is scheduled to arrive in stores November of this year and is titled E.A.R.L.: The autobiography of DMX. The text was composed with the assistance of music journalist Smokey Fontaine. Fontaine has also contributed to “What’s Your Hi-Fi Q?”—A book about black music trivia.
