The words And Then There Was X should carry considerable weight in the hip-hop community. Not only is it the title of DMX’s third multi-platinum album, it’s a turn of phrase that depicts his indelible mark upon the rap industry and the boundaries he left in disrepair. For a spell of five albums in a row, each new record would ascend to the top of the charts upon its debut, inserting an undiluted grittiness into an increasingly commercialized marketplace. For those who didn’t experience it first-hand, it must be hard to fathom how colossal the Yonkers, NY thoroughbred became after arriving with the seminal It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot.After Biggie passed, there was a need for someone to pick up the mantle and become King Of New York. For a span of a few years, the frontrunner was not named Hov or Nas, but rather The Dark Man X himself. They say history is rewritten by the victors. In this case, it goes some way in explaining why the man who once held hip-hop on a short leash is now largely condemned to a be a parable on fame’s corrosive power. Fresh out of his latest stint in prison, X has been a free man for less than a month, but it already feels as though something has fundamentally changed within him. In this brief window, the man born Earl Simmons has outlined his plans with a clarity that has eluded him in recent years when he was still beset by substance issues and legal woes.