I can’t even remember what year it was, maybe 2004 or 2005, but I ended up sitting next to DMX at a small lunch at a fancy hotel in Philly.

I was in town filming a documentary, and I have no idea why DMX was there, but he showed up at this table I was sitting at and joined us.

I’d never met DMX before, but for whatever reason he decided to tell me his whole life story during this lunch. From his childhood in Yonkers to the group home he was sent to as a teenager to the dogs he’d hang out with at night to becoming a rap megastar, he told me everything.

He told me how all his albums had debuted at number one on billboard - first rapper to ever do that. He was proud of his career.

Side note (years later): DMX would become the only other act, aside form Beyonce, to debut at No. 1 with their first five studio albums.

After 2-3 hours of storytelling by DMX, he says to me...”you want to have a smoke?”

I don’t smoke, but I was like, “of course.”

We get up from the table and he turns to me and says, “grab your video camera.”

I get the camera and me and DMX walk out of the hotel.

X pulls out a cigarette and lights it up and hands me the pack. Before I could even pretend to pull out a smoke, he starts rapping.

“This is life...this is what I know...so to me this is life...”

And I’m like oh snap, this is “one more road to cross.”

I pick up the camera...

I start rolling...not a joint, but the tape in my camera. He’s doing the whole song straight at me. And as he goes on he gets more + more into it.

He starts to entertain. I think I’m filming a music video at this point.

What I don’t realize is he’s about to do the whole album.

For the next 60 minutes, DMX literally performs EVERY song from ...And Then There Was X.

Cigarette hanging out of his mouth, every lyric, every single lyric.

When we get to “Party Up” I’m thinking I’m Hype Williams. I am filming all of it and loving it. And he’s loving it.

DMX gets to the end of the album and my man is exhausted. He just rapped the whole damn album from track 1 to 18 while smoking a pack of cigs. It was fucking incredible.

People walking out the fancy hotel were looking at us very confused, but he didn’t care, he didn’t stop.

When it was all said and done, DMX turns to me and says, “you wanna hear ‘It’s Dark and Hell Is Not’?”

We both just start laughing, cause he knew I wanted to hear it and he wanted to rap it, but we were both beat. Mercy rule.

We gave me a pound, got in his truck, and drove off.

I never saw X again. It was just one of those magical, unexplainable moments that happened between the both of us.

I’m pretty sure the tapes are somewhere in my mother’s garage in storage. I think I need to go dig those out one of these days...

Love to DMX.