Yesterday, Wake-Up Video was devoted to DMX's ...And Then There Was X, the chart-topping, five million-selling album that debuted in 1999. Today we turn the clock back one year to December 22, 1998, when X's second album Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood hit the market. It dropped only seven months after X's hot debut It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, making him only the second rapper ever to have two different albums hit the top of the Billboard album chart in the same year. (Tupac did it first in 1996 with All Eyez on Me and The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory.)
Even though Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood was recorded in the wake of It's Dark and Hell is Hot, there was quite a difference in the sound of the two albums. Flesh drilled down deep into X's sound, delivering more claustrophobic beats and even more ultra-violent rhymes. In fact, much of Flesh seems to lean towards horrorcore, especially considering X is covered in blood on the front cover and the album features a guest vocal appearance by Marilyn Manson (he sings the hook on "The Omen"). Even for DMX, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood is particularly dark. Still, the quality of the production kept the rapper on the radio, which is a testament to how hot a producer Swizz Beatz had become by the end of '98. (A few months later, the Ruff Ryders crew dropped the chart-topping Ryde or Die Vol. 1, which was essentially a forum for Swizz to flex his synth muscles.)
Because of its dark tone, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood is pretty light on singles, though the one song that did break through — the introspective "Slippin'" — was a massive hit with a video that perfectly matched the track's intensity.