A song that’s actually featured on the album I’m reviewing today. They grouped what would end up being two of his most popular anthems, Party Up & X Gon Give It To Ya, with one of his most popular album cuts. It was on this game that I had my first furthering into X’s vast musical catalog. Although I will say that in light of his passing, the video where he giddily describes his desired finisher to the devs will never leave me. Then, of course, came Def Jam Vendetta, which I've already raved about ad nauseum on here. However, said exposure still remained limited after that given the fact that rap music wasn't really made available in music stores round my way in Saudi Arabia, so Exit Wounds & Cradle 2 The Grave it was for me. Add that to the Come Back In One Piece duet with his co-star, the late legendary Aaliyah, which was pretty prevalent in the film, and you’ve got my pretty thorough first impression of X. Because Silk appears in the club scene immediately after the opening, X's vocal tones made it unmistakably easy for me to connect the face of Silk with the then-unidentified rapper's voice that I heard prior. In any case, I had no idea that the rapper I was listening to was DMX until I checked the end credits for who played the character Silk in the film. Instead, they made the incredibly genius decision to cave in to the fuckfaces at Def Jam to include the song on their Nutty Professor 2 OST. I loved it so much that I went looking for the Romeo Must Die OST, only to be shocked at the fact that the fuckfaces at Virgin never included the song "I'm Gonna Crawl" with the damn thing. I remember going ham whenever I popped that VHS tape in and that intro came on. That was my introduction to the late great Earl Simmons, whom the world will forever remember as DMX. "Jet Li is a one-man Matrix." Hey, I'm totally embracing the ludicrousness of it all and you should, too. I even remember the tagline on the back of the box.
DMX AND THEN THERE WAS X RAR MOVIE
So when I tell you that the level of excitement I had for having my very first movie purchase in life be Romeo Must Die, Jet Li's first Western lead vehicle, was otherworldly, you know I'm not bullshitting. And that's when I became a Jet Li fan for life.
Naturally, the movie blew us away with its brilliant fight choreography by Yuen Woo-Ping as well as the surprisingly-balanced narrative. Little did our prepubescent minds know what was in store for us. I still get goosebumps whenever I remember how me & my cousins gathered around in my aunt's house in the summer of 1996 to watch a certain Chinese action movie called Fist Of Legend, a remake of Bruce Lee's classic vehicle Fist Of Fury. Now let's talk about the sheer brilliance that is Jet Li.
During that time, the only exposure to hip hop that I had was the Space Jam OST and Lightning Strikes by Cypress Hill which I enjoyed hearing as I blew up the streets of the Road Rage battleground in Twisted Metal 4. We've only spent 2 years since me and my family moved into my father's house after he finished his postgraduate studies. Been a hot minute, my fellow lonely soul.
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