New details have been shared online about DMX’s unreleased gospel album that the late rapper recorded in 2008.
While living in Arizona in the late 2000s, the star worked on a double album called ‘Walk With Me Now And You’ll Fly With Me Later’.
Though the record was never released, it was intended to have one half be hip-hop tracks and the other made up of gospel songs. According to new information from Rolling Stone, the bulk of the latter tracks were recorded in one night.
Pat Gallo – aka producer Divine Bars – told the publication that he struggled to get the rapper to come to the studio that night but when he did, he went to a bathroom upstairs to smoke crack. When he was done, he told Gallo to play a beat and wrote a song to it, then recorded it in one take, before repeating the process.
Gallo reflected on X’s drug use and said he felt like he “sometimes felt like [he] enabled” the rapper. “He knew I would always be there,” he said.
The producer added that he and DMX were under constant police surveillance at the time, saying they “couldn’t leave the house without getting pulled over”.
A local singer called Janyce also worked on the project with DMX and Gallo. When she was recording one song called ‘Let Me Be Your Angel’, the rapper was waiting outside the vocal booth and recorded two verses as soon as she finished. “When he got out of the booth, he was in tears,” Janyce said. “He was crying out to the lord.”
Meanwhile, earlier this month DMX’s final guest verse was released as part of Chris Webby’s track ‘We Up’. “X, it’s pretty disrespectful, n***a/ You ain’t gotta cross the line for me to check you, n***a/ My scratch game official, match game official/ That aim will hit you, sound the same as a whistle,” he rapped in the cameo.
DMX died on April 9, 2021 at the age of 50. An autopsy later revealed his cause of death to have been a cocaine-induced heart attack.