Twenty-two years ago, DMX delivered back-to-back classics and rode with the Ruff Ryders on "No Love For Me."

 Given that yesterday marked the twenty-first anniversary of his third studio album ...And Then There Was X, it feels safe to say that DMX has a fondness for those late December releases. Case in point, one year prior to the album that housed "The Professional" came Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood, the second of two DMX albums released in 1998. Having already written about the project at length right here, it feels appropriate to double down and highlight one of the album's classic tunes.

This time, we're looking at "No Love For Me," a Ruff Ryders anthem with Drag-On and Swizzy on the beat. Luring listeners into a false sense of security with a deliberately sluggish tempo, the track soon kicks into gear with the album's most immediately infectious chorus. There's a raw accessibility to the production, which invites a quicker flow from the adaptive Yonkers emcee. "If I'm gonna rob, I'ma rob all night, if I'm lookin' for somethin' it's probably a fight," he warns, sliding onto the plucked guitar-strings. "If I'm gon' fuck bitches then they better be tight / If that's dead, then the head better be right."

While far from DMX's most thought-provoking track, "No Love For Me" remains a standout cut if only for capturing the spirit of the Ruff Ryders movement in its purest form. Now, twenty-two years later, these windows into the past are more important than ever. Happy anniversary to another DMX classic.

QUOTABLE LYRICS

Fuck what you heard, I will die for my dogs

Ain't scared of shit, will ride in the fog

Same thing but a bigger size than yours

I fuck with Drag-On, cause he spits the flame

Drag-On motherfucker, don't forget the name