Swizz says “Rough Ryders Anthem” was a turning point for both him and X
Swizz Beatz considers DMX’s 1998 smash hit “Rough Ryders Anthem” his breakthrough and also his best work yet. During a recent interview on Mike Tyson’s Hotboxin podcast, Swizz was asked about his best beat to date and named the record from X’s debut album, It’s Dark, Hell is Hot.
“For me I’ma always say Stop, drop, ‘Rough Ryders Anthem.’ That was the beginning of knowing that I actually had something. I knew I was having fun with what I was doing. I never did music for the highlight,” Swizz explained. “I did for them to play it on the block, play it in the club, play it at the skating rings, play it on the radios, play it at your cars. I didn’t know that you can like, make real money from it.
“Right, so I was like ‘yo, let’s go,’ we got the whole crew and so I remember I was coming out sitting on the 125th street in front of the [*] and every car was playing the song and nobody knew that I did the song at this time. And I was just sitting back for hours like ‘damn, this is different and I remember people congratulating me.”
