More than four years after the death of rapper and actor DMX, his uncle and longtime manager Ray Copeland called out Dark Man X's label team for the lack of financial support while arranging his funeral.
In an interview with AllHipHop, Copeland did not hold back when discussing the late rapper's final send-off, saying:
“When it was time to bury X, I was on the phone with everybody, Ruff Ryders, Swizz Beatz, Steve Rifkind, Def Jam. I told them what it was going to cost. Everybody said, ‘I ain’t got it.’ So I hung up the phone and said, ‘Forget it. I’ll put this together myself.’”
Copeland told the outlet he ended up raising $150,000 for the funeral service himself, tasking himself with organizing what ended up being quite the memorial at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

From Copeland's perspective, the impact his nephew's success played in people's lives should have afforded him the assistance of his former inner circle.
“This man made us all millionaires. And I had to fight to put this together with my family. Thank God for people that loved him and good relationships.”
One of those people was the ever-controversial Kanye West, who "took care of everything at the Barclays Center," according to Copeland.
Def Jam Records also eventually donated, but Copeland said they embellished the gesture by publicly claiming it covered the funeral's full expense.
“Def Jam [later] gave me $35,000, that’s it,” Copeland shared. “They later told the media they paid for the funeral. That’s not true.”
Copeland, who reconnected with his nephew while working as a correctional officer when the rapper was locked up during the ’90s, was an early advocate for X's future music career and remained in his inner circle up until his death. Looking back on the late "Party Up" rapper's wariness of the industry, Copeland admits X knew what was up from the jump.
“He always said, ‘I ain’t got no friends in the industry,’” Copeland recalled. “And he was right. When he passed, it showed.”
Read the full interview here.
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