Mental illness is a problem that will only get better when people remove the stigma from it. Depression, and many other mental illnesses, are a byproduct of screwed up levels of serotonin in the brain. This doesn't happen because someone is weak. Its chemical. Here's hoping DMX can find peace and contentment in his life despite the disease, and the rap community will get his back.

ain't it crazy that one of his albums is named the Great Depression????

Being a hip-hop aficionado, I am not surprised by the diagnosis -- the distance between the waves and troughs in X's albums supercede the normal scattered content distribution on a normal rap record (i.e. party jams, mourning songs, thankfulness/uplifting stuff). X goes from intimately considering the hopeless mind of a professional killer to some of the most beautiful, gospel-inspired raps on God's gift to him. Being the quintissential hip-hop roughneck/gangbanger, he will undoubtedly shrink from acknolwedging his problem. I don't know if such things have a place in the rap culture we've created, which relies on strength and only allows weakness in particular cordoned-off areas, like for one's family and remorse over the death of homies. But because mental illness doesn't have a place in hip-hop doesn't mean we should exclude it. The solution to deprivation is provision.

Yeah, but X has never really been a roughneck/gangbanger rapper....he has always been just X, different from the rest.

Myabe that is part of his gift, that he has been different...he has shown on his albums that he can go from one extreme to another. No one has ever downed on X for his more gospel inspired raps...maybe music and his lyrics are an outlet for him.

Maybe he needs to get back to music to try to help control the swings? I don't know, these days I deal with my own bouts of whatever it is (yes a few doctors visit are in my future) by listening to music...it seems to calm the beast inside a good bit.