DMX Talks Irv Gotti, Issues With Jay-Z, Def Jam & More [PG.2]
Did you guys have any more words?
Yeah we spoke briefly right there, but later on at the hotel we took a couple of flicks together. We cool, but he’s just not the type of nigga that I would hang with. He never was the type of nigga I would hang with. But we was cool. I’d work with you, and yeah we can go to the studio, but we just two different people.
I got you. How about Irv? Have you had any recent contact with him? I know he’s still doing music.
Yeah he expressed interest. He wanted to work with me. I got to hear what he got. But—me and Irv will always be friends. Our wives are friends, our kids play together, his parents love me—it’s deeper than our relationship
Is there one label you would sign to immediately after you came home?
I would love to go to Def Jam. But you gotta understand the way Def Jam was.
The old Def Jam?
Exactly. Where when you went to the office, you could hear music coming out of every office. When they were hungry looking for music and listening to music and actually paid attention to what people wanted and what people had to offer. When I left there I was like wow, this is strange. A bunch of interns in the offices. It was so quiet that it was eerie. So I walk around the office to see what they’re doing, and one person was doing their laundry online. This doesn’t feel like a record label. This feels like a fucking law office or something.
So what really went wrong there?
I have a few inside people who confirmed my suspicions that they were trying to make me leave. Like ‘Yeah they just wanna get you out of there. ‘ That way they can do what they wanna do and this , that, and the other. If you remember, Jay quit. He retired from rapping. But he became president of Def Jam. He gave me the call, he called me personally. So I’m like ‘yeah that’s wassup! My mans is in a position now, he’s the president of the label I’m on, we good! Next thing you know, he’s out of retirement and I’m off the label. What a coincidence.
Damn. Have you even been able to have a conversation with Jay after that? I remember when it happened.
I’ve not talked to him yet, since. But I had a show November 18th, before I got locked up--No November 12th I had the show. And somebody in the crowd was like ‘What’s up with Jay-Z’ and I was like ‘Fuck Jay-Z’. And it ended up all over the place. So he called Swizz, Swizz called me, and he tells Swizz ‘Yoo, why your man dissin me? I was gonna do a song with him’—Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Fucking bullshit. I don’t wanna hear that shit. And like ‘Yo, can you just get him to say he ain’t mean it’—NO! I’m not saying that. What I did say is if he wanna talk to me, I’m man enough to let him know why it’s ‘Fuck You’, but it’s still ‘Fuck You’! That’s what it is. I’ll let you know why, I can do that. It ain’t like you gotta worry about me running up on you shooting you. It ain’t that serious. You don’t owe me nothing. But if you want an explanation as to why it’s ‘Fuck You’, I’ll be more than happy to tell you why.
So the riff between you and Jay is actually a personal matter? I know a lot fans over the years were really curious to know if you and Hov were actually real life friends.