Busta Rhymes has recalled that DMX had a heavy reaction to JAY-Z’s verse on their classic cut “Why We Die.”
Appearing on Shopping For Sneakers with Kick Game, Busta detailed how X wanted to improve his verse after hearing that Hov was going to be on the track.
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“My man Eric Nicks brought back the two-inch reel with DMX’s verse on it and JAY-Z didn’t spit yet,” he said. “So when we put the record out and Dog heard JAY-Z was on it, he stepped to Eric Nicks and he called me and was like, ‘Yo, you know that verse was just a ref, right? N-ggas went and put JAY-Z… If I’d have known that shit I’d have spit my shit better!’
“I was like, ‘But Dog, your shit was crazy!’ He was like, ‘Fuck that. Y’all ain’t tell me that Jay was getting on the shit. Next time we do a song, let me hear my shit finished first!’ Dog’s passion, I can’t even compare it to nothing else in existence.”
Busta Rhymes also detailed DMX’s at times complicated creative process, saying: “Dog would tell you he coming to the studio and then he’ll tell you to meet him somewhere. You gotta go four-wheel motorcycle riding with him first, you gotta go to the hobby store and he’ll buy like a $30,000 remote control car and he builds it and then he wants to play with it in the street.
“Dog would take you on like a 15-hour excursion before he’d come studio, and then you’re lucky if he comes that day. He might make you do that shit for three days in a row before he’d pull up to the studio — but when he come, he gonna deliver.”
“Why We Die” is the classic collaboration between Busta Rhymes, DMX and JAY-Z that was included on Busta’s 2000 album Anarchy.
DMX also featured on Busta’s star-studded remix of “Touch It” in 2006, which also boasted verses from Eminem, Lloyd Banks, Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige, Papoose and Rah Digga.
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Swizz Beatz recently revealed that DMX recorded enough material before he died to release a second posthumous album following Exodus in 2021.
“We have other songs. Can we make a new X album? For sure,” the Ruff Ryders producer said in an interview with HipHopDX. “Will I make another X album? I don’t know. It has to feel good.”
Revisit “Why We Die” below.
