In an alternate universe, Swizz Beatz’s “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” beat might have not end up on DMX’s 1998 debut It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot.
During a recent interview with SiriusXM’s Hip-Hop Nation, Swizz revealed that X wouldn’t have hopped on “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” had the Yonkers rapper not have lost a bet.
“X lost a bet or I wouldn’t even been on that album, you know what I’m saying?” Swizz shares in the clip above. “But he didn’t lose the bet because that song ended up changing all of our lives. So he technically won the bet for my Uncle D and you know that just changed all of our lives. So it was just enough to do what it needed to do.”
Swizz continued, “You know, like that song commercially went bigger than everything at the time. And then we came immediately, uh, with our sound next after that and Dame Grease and PK was a part of that as well. I wanna get [them] they props cuz they, people they feel that they don’t get they props. I’m in a comfortable space to give people they props. At those particular times we was definitely bumping the little heads and things like that, but we all was a part of making history at the end of the day.”
Back in 2011, Swizz spoke with Complex about how DMX was initially not sold on the “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” beat.
“DMX didn’t want to do it,” Swizz said at the time. “He was like, ‘Man, that sounds like some rock ‘n’ roll track, I need some hip-hop shit. I’m not doing that. It’s not hood enough.’ I told him, ‘Yo, we can make it hood!’ And then my uncles [Darrin “Dee” Dean and Joaquin “Waah” Dean who ran Ruff Ryders] said, ‘Yo, we should step out the box a little bit.’ We bugged him and bugged him to do this shit.”
