(AllHipHop News)
It appears many fans of Earl “DMX” Simmons mourned the late emcee by playing a lot of his music over the last week. Following his death on April 9, listeners ran up the streams for the Yonkers native.
Billboard reports the number of streams for DMX’s songs increased 499% in the United States for the week ending on April 15. That percentage jump helped play a part in the Best of DMX jumping to #2 on the latest Billboard 200 album chart.
The 21-track compilation pulled in 77,000 equivalent album units which was an increase of 544%. Listeners totaled 88.56 million streams for the songs on the project which equates to 59,000 units. About 9,000 traditional albums were sold.
In addition, DMX’s first two #1 LPs from 1998 – It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot and Flesh of My Flesh Blood of My Blood returned to the Billboard 200 rankings this week. It’s Dark sits at #46 (14,000 units). Flesh of My Flesh hit #107 (9,000 units).
“Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” was the most-streamed DMX record over the tracking period (16.44 million streams). That single was followed by “X Gon’ Give It To Ya” (10.19 million streams), “Slippin’” (9.36 million streams), and “Party Up (Up In Here)” (8.87 million streams).
While DSP users are playing a lot of DMX’s music at the moment, Florida rapper Zoey Dollarz is telling his Twitter followers to cease with the support for content created by deceased recording artists. Zoey’s message made the rounds in the blogosphere.
“Stop running up dead black artists streams if the money ain’t going to their families, we making these vultures even more rich after these kings die off then their families don’t get s###!!!!!” tweeted Dollarz on April 17.
The “Blow A Check” performer later added, “S### be wack these artists die n make more millions but their family get nothing, their kids get nothing. WTF kinda s### is that.”
It is not clear how much of DMX’s royalties and other music-related revenue is now going to his surviving loved ones. His family recently refuted a rumor that Jay-Z and Beyonce bought X’s master recordings as gifts for his children.
Last week, the Godfather of Harlem soundtrack curators released the first posthumous DMX verse. “Been To War” also features Ruff Ryders Entertainment’s longtime in-house producer Swizz Beatz as well as fellow New York representative French Montana.