DMX
“What’s My Name?” asks DMX, a curious question since the only thing he raps about is his bloody name. Can it really be that he doesn’t know? A trend of some concern in rap music, this use of songs as 3-minute business cards: Dr. Dre, for example, complains that motherfuckers act like they forgot about Dre. Now generally I’d be right on the side of these motherfuckers, but in this case they must indeed be pretty stupid, since Dre’s previous single had no purpose other than to inform us that he was “Still DRE”, and had not changed his name, to, say, “Dr. Twat”. Having rammed home (well, punily repeated) his monicker, who was he rapping about in “Forgot About DRE”? His pet goldfish?
Though even a five-second memory wouldn’t be enough time to ignore the fact that DMX is, indeed, called DMX. Why he feels the need to repeat this is beyond me, since it’s one of the worst names in hip-hop. But Tanya, all hip-hop names are silly, what makes DMX’s worse? Well, the point of repeating your name in rap tracks is this: it’s a peasy way to get a rhyme. When NWA ‘reclaimed’ that naughty N-word from the racists (who, uh, actually still use it quite a lot), they were not in fact doing so as a powerful blow for black identity, they were doing it because they were tough gangster types but were a teensy bit stuck for a word that rhymed with “trigger”. For similar reasons, Jay-Z refers to himself endlessly as “Jigga” – it makes him sound like a Pokemon but when the rhyming crisis strikes such considerations are swiftly forgotten.
So to DMX. But nothing rhymes with DMX, a child could see that it’s all consonants. That’s why it’s a bad name, and why DMX is forced to just spend all his songs yelling it. But wait! Maybe there is hope, because something does rhyme with DMX….“What’s my name? It’s DMX / I’ve got a ten-speed BMX” Phew! Saved!