Whoa. Shoutout to Miss Info for posting notable parts of the interview up (which you can enjoy after the jump)…..you can also definitely check out the full interview over at VIBE.
VIBE: Damn. Have you even been able to have a conversation with Jay?
DMX: 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.
I do like Nicki Minaj—how she getting at em. Haven’t heard the album, but the couple of singles I’ve heard—“Did It On Em,†you know what I’m saying? That “Boom boom boom.†Some shit, “Bangâ€â€”whatever. I like her style. And Kiss got a new joint too that I’m feeling.
VIBE: Speaking of Nicki, how are you feeling about Lil Wayne and Drake?
Hmmm…no comment. I don’t like Drake. It’s nothing that he did to me, He actually is talented. He’s very talented.
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.
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 Jay were actually real life friends.
We were real good friends. He came down and heard the album, was like ‘Yeah, that’s wassup. The album’s hot. When you shoot the video?’ Directly after that he started doing some funny shit. You know, that night we went out and shot pool together. He could call me anytime. He called me one time in New York like ‘Yo I want you to come hear this Beans joint.’ I jumped in my truck. I’m a free spirit. I’m not running around with 10 people all the time. I drove down there. I lived in Upstate New York, Mount Kisco and shit. So I jumped in the Suburban, flew down there, ‘What’s up nigga? I’m here for you. That’s how I get down. We played pool there, we hung out in the studio. We ain’t get no work done, but we had a good time. Our birthdays are like a few days apart. So we had a lot in common. And the thing that’s crazy about us is our relationship was a real relationship. Because initially, I didn’t like him and he didn’t like me, so we began to battle. And the battle was like maybe 91 or 92. When he was with Original Flavor.
On top of the pool tables and all of that.
Exactly. In the pool hall in the Bronx. So we had history So it took years for us to get to the point where we were cordial. And we owe that to Irv Gotti. Irv was his man and Irv was my man. I had to tell Irv ‘Yo let me know when he got a show, so I can battle him again.’ Cause I wasn’t trying to kill him or nothing. It wasn’t beef. But I wanted to let him know that you can’t fuck with me, no matter how nice you think you are. And that was only for a few years. We realized what it really was. It was just some battle shit. We realized when you’re young like that you sometimes mistake when you battle somebody for beef. But we realized, there’s no beef involved. I don’t even know you to not like you. We earned each other’s friendship. And we became good friends. We wasn’t hanging out all the time—we two different type of niggas. But you know, if I see him somewhere we hang out.
Yeah I saw there was a picture of you, Foxy, and Ja altogether.
Yeah. It was like, I was sitting in the front and his wife was behind me. And I looked back and I spoke to her. And when I turned around again—actually I was getting up to leave and he was sitting there. So people were already looking at us and knew that I didn’t know he was behind me. It was quiet. So when I turned around and seen him, I could feel all the eyes on me. And I was like ‘Yo watup man’ and gave him a pound and everybody started clapping.
