The DMX 'Up in Here' Experience (humor)

Enjoy, reply, share. check out my blog for more writing: preparingtheseed.com. Also looking for contributors so contact me here.

One of my lasting memories of my grandmother is a visual one. It was the year 2000, my oldest sister had just graduated High School, and we were hosting a party for her at our house. ‘We’ included me, my mother, and my three sisters. The house included a beautiful wrap-around deck equipped with tables, coolers, and outdoor speakers for the event. About fifty people were in attendance, most of which spent the Saturday afternoon outside in the comforting warmth of late June on Long Island. I was only eleven-years-old at the time, which may be why I thought it would be a good idea to grab my copy of the new DMX CD and add it to the circulation of party music, which otherwise included 90’s pop songs and some sort of Yanni mixtape my mother put together. My oldest sister had clearly influenced my taste in music, which is why I was listening to DMX’s ‘…And Then There Was X’ while other kids my age were jamming to Smash Mouth and The Offspring. My favorite song off the album was everybody’s favorite at the time: Up In Here. I knew very well my mother would object to me playing the album, so I waited for a break in the music and took it upon myself to insert DMX into the player. Soon enough, I had transformed a lovely day of celebration into a chaotic, impromptu rap concert, in which, there were no opening acts, no warnings of the impending vulgarities and sexual gestures, and absolutely no way for the host (me) to survive the show.

The song begins with an aggressive instrumental, highlighted by a screaming whistle. Nine seconds in you hear DMX for the first time on the hook: “Whooooooo…Ya’ll gone make me lose my mind, up in here, up in here/ya’ll gone make me go all out, up in here, up in here.” So far, I’m safe. My mother, grandmother, aunts, uncles, and the collection of attending mothers and fathers had no idea what was coming. Then, DMX starts rapping: “If I gotsta bring it to you cowards than it’s gonna be quick, all your mens up in the jail before, suck my dick, and all them other cats you run with, get done with, dumb quick, how the fuck you gonna cross the dog with some bum shit?” Now is when I looked out from my living room through the large windows towards the deck and saw all of the expressions change; conversations over, eating halted, heads titled in wonderment. Things were getting bad, quick. I should have lunged for the player right then and ended it all in time to claim an accident, but I was paralyzed by my grandmother’s expression. In her early 70’s at the time, my grandmother was about as peaceful, calming, and reserved in nature as anyone I’ve ever come across. Her idea of a good time was caramel candies, crossword puzzles, and daytime television. Stereotypical, yes, but there’s truth in commonality. She reacted with immediate astonishment, of which, was not only visual in her face, but in her movements. I’d never before seen an elderly person become so startled and jerk their upper body with such shock as when DMX told the whole party to “suck my dick.” She settled down, pricked her ears towards the speakers, and assumingly attempted to make sure she was hearing correctly; she was: “There go the gun click, 9-1-1 shit, all over some dumb shit, ain’t that some shit?/Y’all niggaz remind me of a strip club, cause every time you come around, it’s like (what) I just gotta get my dick sucked.”

With this line, in stormed my mother with fury in each step, anger in each eye, and steam in each nostril. That’s the moment of “fuck, oh fuck, I’m a dead person,” followed by legitimate threats of physical harm. If you’re wondering how intimidating a 5-foot-11 single mother can be when her only son has undoubtedly ruined the graduation party she worked so hard on for her first child, the answer is very, very, fucking intimidating. I saw her approaching, glanced through the window towards my grandmother one last time, hid the CD case under a couch cushion (destroy the evidence, I guess) and ran for safety. In the end, my mother didn’t kill me, my grandmother forgave me, and I even laughed about it a bit. Lesson learned: DMX belongs in the headphones, not in rural America during the afternoon of a family celebration.