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Toronto’s own Adam Jackson (a former contributor to Vice and Noisey) strikes a victory for Reply Guys everywhere by talking himself onto the podcast as a guest to discuss the late DMX as a screen actor.

We discuss 5 of his performances: his debut, the influential hip hop classic Belly (1998), his trilogy of dumb studio action films by the overqualified cinematographer turned director Andrzej Bartkowiak - Romeo Must Die (2000), Exit Wounds (2001) and Cradle 2 The Grave (2003), and his most ambitious film, Ernest Dickerson’s misunderstood crime drama Never Die Alone (2004). DMX discovered the source material by the Black pulp fiction novelist Donald Goines when he was in prison and used his clout in Hollywood to get it made as a movie: a disturbing and often grimly effective potboiler about how a sociopath’s mind operates.

We also discuss our shared neighbourhood of Bloordale: a magical land of bodegas, ice cream shops and numerous weed dispensaries.

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Trailer for Belly (Hype Williams, 1998)

Trailer for Never Die Alone (Ernest Dickerson, 2004)

DMX meeting Rakim for the first time backstage - a touching clip, RIP king