By and large, the world of rap is a world that glamorises guns and misogyny, but even rappers have their limits – as DMX is discovering, you can shoot all the bitches you want, but don't you dare treat your household pets badly.
DMX has has his property raided by the local sheriff's department after claims were made that he was keeping his dogs in awful conditions – several of his pit bulls were subsequently seized, with officers also discovering the bodies of other burnt and decomposing dogs. Although no arrests were made, it's thought that the conditions in which DMX kept his dogs were completely inhumane, with pooches being found without any food or water. To make matters worse, the dogs were apparently played DMX's last album on a loop, and if it sounds as awful to super-delicate canine ears as it does to us humans, then we're all for DMX being sent to the chair.
Busta Rhymes may have more arrests to his name and Foxy Brown may be way more angry, but DMX is easily our favourite rapper in the whole wide world. Although that's not got much to do with DMX's musical output – if we wanted to listen to a crazed man shouting "I smell pussy!" over and over again we'd go and visit our brother in prison – but because DMX very clearly puts thought into the trouble he gets into, whether he's being arrested for not wearing a seatbelt on an aeroplane or crashing his car and then saying he meant to because he's an FBI agent or playing with a gun in front of the police.
But no matter what trouble he ever got in, DMX always had his dogs. DMX loves dogs, you see. Not only does he have the catchphrase "Arf arf arf arf arf" which is a bit like the sound a dog makes, but he's recorded songs like Get At Me Dog, For My Dogs, Dogs For Life, Next Out The Kennel, Dog Out, Dog Intro, Dog Love, Walk These Dogs and The Enchanted Castle Of Woofy Woof The Wizardy Schnauzer. So dogs are clearly DMX's life, so you'd think he'd occasionally feed them or water them or not burn their corpses to hide their cause of death from authorities.
DMX's home was raided by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Friday after claims that his pit bulls were being mistreated. And, as the Washington Post reports, they sort of were:
Sheriff's deputies raided the home of rapper DMX on Friday, seizing several pit bulls and finding the remains of three other dogs but making no arrests. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office received a tip more than a week ago about dogs being kept in inhumane conditions at the Phoenix-area home, said Sheriff Joe Arpaio… Arpaio said the deputies who served a search warrant at the home Friday seized 12 pit bulls tied up on the property and took them to an old jail that has been converted into an animal shelter. Deputies found the buried dogs when they dug up the back yard. One had apparently been burned and the cause of death on the others was unknown because the bodies were decomposing.
Now, even though his pets were found to be kept in inhumane conditions, DMX was apparently away when the detectives visited – as he had been for two months – and is reportedly upset that the caretaker he'd hired to look after his dogs mistreated them so badly. But that doesn't matter because, by having his animals seized by the authorities, DMX has raised the hip-hop badass bar once again, possibly setting off a violent east coast/west coast animal mistreatment war. Who knows where the violence will end – Snoop Dogg leaving a puppy in a car on a hot day? Ja Rule drowning a kitten in a bin bag? 50 Cent chasing a swan around with a hammer? God we're scared.
Read more:
MichelleH says
What a bright idea! Burn your dog when he dies; now why didn’t I think of that instead of having my poor dog cremated at the vet & buried in the backyard.? Let’s see…next time maybe I can knock it all out at the same time with a family backyard barbecue & discount animal disposal via the outside grill.
And yet another cultural contribution from our hip hop world…