Hip-hop mogul DJ Funkmaster Flex had a few words for industry friends of hospitalized rapper DMX, saying they should have done more to help him.

“The music business is a gorilla. It’s a bottomless pit of happiness or depression,” the Hot 97 DJ said, according to Page Six. “I don’t wanna say people don’t help you but I do want to say there are people who actually know [when a star is struggling, but don’t help sometimes].”

As Blavity previously reported, DMX was hospitalized in New York on Friday following a heart attack from an overdose. Sources close to the rapper told TMZ that he was in a "vegetative state,” and his family held a vigil for the 50-year-old music artist this week outside the hospital.

“You don’t always get the best help when money is being made,” Flex said, “It’s rough for someone like a DMX who may be in a mental and emotional state of childhood trauma that has happened to him and then being thrown into the money and fame.”

He added that he’s frustrated with the practice of people posting pictures on social media with people that they don’t check in on.

“People can find the picture… that they had with the person that’s going through a tragedy in 30 seconds,” Flex said. “But you haven’t called that person in 10 years. Let me see the picture of you when you went afterwards to his house because you was so concerned.”

In November 2020, the rapper revealed on Talib Kweli's People's Party podcast that he was introduced to drugs by a trusted mentor who helped him push him onto the path as a music artist.

“This guy Ready Ron was like an older brother to me. He would rap and I would do the beatbox. I looked up to him like an older brother. I loved him like an older brother. I didn't have any brothers," DMX said as he began to cry. "This guy, he introduced me to what would be the best part of my life, which would be the rap, but I was also blessed with a curse. The curse aspect of it was, I didn't smoke cigarettes, I didn't smoke weed, I didn't do anything. I was 14 years old.”

The “Where The Hood At” rapper tearfully went on to say that he was tricked into smoking crack by Ron and said he hasn’t been the same since.

"Me and my mans did a robbery one night and it was his birthday and we came back and were splitting the money. He came back with a blunt rolled up and he passed it around. I hit the blunt and I was no longer focused on the money. It f**ked me up. I never felt like that before. I later found out he laced the blunt with crack," DMX said.

In a 2019 interview with GQ, the “How's It Goin' Down” rapper shared a number of experiences from his childhood including the abuse he suffered from his mom. One night, while experiencing hunger pangs, DMX said he went into the kitchen looking for something to eat and ended up being beat with a broom.

“I saw something in her notebook that was open on the kitchen table. And it was wrong, so I erased it. I thought I was helping. I don’t know what she thought I was doing, but don’t know if she thought I was trying to sabotage her or whatever,” DMX began. “But she beat two teeth out of my f**king mouth with a broom. And I think about this today, I’m like, ‘OK, you saw me erase something in your notebook. What did you think I was trying to do?”

Following his longtime friend’s heart attack, DJ Funkmaster Flex told Page Six that he hopes DMX’s story can help inform the next generation.

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