DMX wrote his own obituary more than two decades ago: “Slippin’,” a single from his second album, 1998’s Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, tells the story of a boy with afflictions who transformed himself into a rap star. The song starts with a psalm about suffering, then X shares his biography in three heartbreaking verses: His mom was abusive, his dad abandoned him, and he was forced into group homes and institutions. The people who should have loved him failed to protect him, so he found himself “possessed by the darker side,” bound to a cycle of drug dependence and insufficient rehab. Fame changed his life, but not in many of the ways that mattered.