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April 9, 2021

12:23 PM ET

ANDREW LIMBONG

DMX performing at The Source Hip Hop awards in 2001. The rapper died today at age 50.Scott Gries/Getty Images

Earl Simmons, better known as the rapper DMX, has died. According to a statement from his family, he died today at White Plains Hospital after being on life support for the past few days.

“Earl was a warrior who fought till the very end. He loved his family with all of his heart and we cherish the times we spent with him. Earl’s music inspired countless fans across the world and his iconic legacy will live on forever. We appreciate all of the love and support during this incredibly difficult time,” said the statement. He was 50 years old.

DMX had a signature rasp to his voice. He delivered his lines with a desperate aggression that propelled his debut album It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot to multi-platinum level sales. He followed that up with a string of chart-topping albums that included songs like “Party Up (Up In Here).” His rise in music also gave way to acting, in movies such as Belly, Romeo Must Die, and Cradle 2 the Grave.

DMX was born Earl Simmons in Mount Vernon, NY in 1970. He told the podcast People’s Party with Talib Kweli that as a child he suffered from asthma that would keep him awake at night. In his 2003 autobiography, E.A.R.L: The Autobiography of DMX, he wrote that he was abused and neglected by his young mother. He ended up living in a children’s home. When he was 14, he told Kweli a mentor of his tricked him into smoking crack. He struggled with drug addiction for the rest of his life.https://www.youtube.com/embed/thIVtEOtlWM?rel=0YouTube

In It’s Dark and Hell is Hot, DMX reflected on his past: the robberies he committed and violence he enacted. It also introduced the world to his love of dogs, repeatedly using dog imagery and sometimes literally barking ad-libs. Later in his autobiography he would write about being a teenager and care of stray dogs, tending to them as a way of coping with his troubled home life.