# VIDEO: Hip Hop Ruff Ryders Final.mov

## REWRITTEN: 2026-05-12 17:58:34

## SCRIPT 517 OF 686

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Yo what's good evil streets family, y'all know the deal we back at it again with another banger, mad love to all my day-one members and subscribers for pulling up on the regular, y'all the whole reason this channel's blowing up and thriving. Anybody tryna push their music, brand or hustle hit me at evil streets media at gmail.com, we can work something out. Big respect for all the cash app love too, and anybody looking to throw support can catch me at evil streets TV on cash app, everything goes right back into feeding the channel. Aight y'all let's dive into this gangster chronicle, from block boys to rap kingpins, rough riders entertainment and Darren D Dean.

Yonkers, New York, 1520 Cedric Avenue over in the Bronx, that's where everything popped, that's the same building where DJ Cool Herk threw that first iconic jam that birthed hip hop, right upstairs from herk lived a black Muslim family going by the deans, the Dean brothers Joaquin also known as Waw and Darren also known as D used to straight up climb down from the third floor to herks spot below just to catch the energy. Being that close to the godfather of hip hop lit something inside them, fast forward 25 years and they linked up with their sister Shivon to create the rough riders movement. Rough riders kicked off as a multi-state bike crew and lifestyle brand but it ain't stop there, they evolved into music, film, clothing, everything, the label dropped beasts like DMX, the Lox, Eve and Drag-On, and they helped put on their young nephew Kassim Swiss Beats Dean who went on to dominate with beats and business sense.

But before all the platinum awards, Waw and D were entrenched in the streets pushing work out in Harlem, the Bronx and Mount Vernon. Back when they stayed above Cool Herk, they used to carry his crates, front row seats to the birth of hip hop, they watched the culture develop, DJing, emceeing, breaking and tagging. But when their parents separated they relocated with their father to Mount Vernon just across the border from the Bronx. Bouncing between different neighborhoods they connected with a lot of kids already in the life. Even though they were raised in the Nation of Islam with structure, the streets started calling them.

We was just living life, these said we knew a little something about the religion but we was kids, we ain't really know the difference. Then circumstances shifted, D ended up boxed in after robbing a KFC and Waw wasn't far behind getting nabbed for a burglary charge. Once they touched down they dove head first into the crack game stacking about three bands a day moving product hand-to-hand. Crack had the streets in a stranglehold back then and it flipped hustlers into millionaires overnight, but most never escaped, it was a trap and the hood was the battleground.

Waw discovered that the hard way when somebody ran up on him with a burner, the gun jammed, Waw took off but not before catching one, the bullet stayed lodged in him as a daily reminder this street life ain't sweet. While he was laid up healing he started thinking different, the fast money came with too much pressure, he needed a new lane, he had homies who switched the script, left the game and entered the music biz, same money, same lifestyle, just legal, no funerals or court dates, at least that's what they figured. Hustling cats like Waw started peeping how the money in hip hop was piling up, while folks in the streets was dying over crumbs. DMX wrote in his book Earl it didn't make sense, so one day Waw said effort I'm moving on music, it was a hustle that didn't come with a casket or a cell.

There were spitters out there with bars but no direction, Waw saw that gap and slid right in, he already had a taste of the music world from Herk and he was starving for more. His grind started young, his pops ran a fish business and taught him hustle basics, one day Waw asked for some bread and his pops told him go sell some of that fish and shrimp, he came back with $300 and his pops told him to keep it, that lesson stuck, hustle smart and stay hungry. So Waw treated the music game just like the block, product changes, fish, crack, music, but the grind stays the same, and this time he was gonna go even harder.

Back in Mount Vernon he was watching cats like CL Smooth, Pete Rock and Heavy D rise up from the hood to the limelight, one minute they were pushing BMX bikes, next their whipping foreign cars. Heavy D was the OG from around the way and one day while Waw was out moving weight, Heavy slid up in the bends and dropped a jewel, find an artist you really believe in and go all in, it'll pay off. That advice stuck, Waw was gonna need every gem he could get, music isn't like drugs, no quick flips, you got to invest, grind and pray it all works out, it was a slower hustle but if you played it right the reward was worth it. Still like anything in the game nothing was promised.

As far as setting up the movement Waw wanted to roll with his brother D, but homie was knee deep in the game slinging heavy, so Waw brought sis Shivon into the mix and together they started sharpening their business chops, building something real out of the fam. Waw always believed in keeping the paper and power in the bloodline, but finding that new wave of talent wasn't overnight. Waw was a street cat so he needed a rapper who was cut from that same cloth, someone who had the streets vouching for him, he stayed grounded always moving like it was just a matter of time.

Even though the team didn't have a name yet Waw was already out there in them trenches, putting together a roster of spitters and groups brick by brick. By '88 D finally jumped on board to help build the brand, the name rough riders came one day when Waw was watching that Western flick Posse with his moms, she pointed out how the bandits on their way to hit a train were riding rough and that was it, Waw felt it in his soul, that was them, rough riders, the name hit different. Symbolized their love for bikes, for moving fast and taking risks, same way they played the streets, flashy, fearless and raw. Waw indeed felt like they were forged by the Bronx pavement, rough, uncut but solid, riders for real. Rough riders, Waw said ride or die, moms echoed, that would end up being more than a slogan, it was their whole energy and the artists would carry that torch.

Waw already knew from chilling with DJ Cool Herk that the DJ was the backbone of hip hop, so he started linking with DJs all over the city, one of them was this hungry young cat out of Queens, DJ Irv. Waw saw the spark in him and laced him with his first drum machine to help level up. Meanwhile whispers started floating through the underground about a savage on the mic from Yonkers, Dark Man X aka DMX. DMX was out of School Street Projects and the homie Tiny Jacob slid Waw and D a tape with X spitting, as soon as they heard it they knew that was him, the voice, the energy, the pain in his bars, all of it was real. Dude wasn't just rapping he was preaching the gospel of the gutter, his name alone told you he wasn't playing.

DMX had that presence, that bark, literally, always had his pit with him just in case anybody forgot what time it was. But catching up with X wasn't no easy task, he moved at night, stayed out of sight, not because he was hiding but because too many folks was looking for him on some other type of time, he was out there, just hard to lock down. And when Waw finally did link with him it wasn't even done yet, X had already been sold dreams by other folks that never came through, plus he was stuck in a janky management deal that had him locked up on paper. Waw told him straight, if they could get him out the contract he'd ride with rough riders, but the dude who had X signed, Jack McNasty, wasn't letting go that easy.

McNasty knew he had a gem but didn't know how to polish it, he was throwing corny ideas out like X rocking a flat top in polka dots like this was a kid in a play video. Waw wasn't with none of that, he saw McNasty as a straight clown and when talking didn't work, he leaned back on them street tactics to get what he needed, rough riders was coming regardless. One night Waw ran up on McNasty at a club in the Bronx, security wasn't even a factor when the streets made a move like that. Waw laid down the law, either you let X go or things was about to get real ugly, real quick. McNasty felt the pressure, felt the seriousness in Waw's eyes and realized he was dealing with a man who wasn't bluffing. Papers got signed, X got released, and DMX rolled over to Rough Riders where he belonged.

Once X came on board the whole movement shifted, they had the voice, they had the vision, now they needed to execute. Waw started grooming X like a coach grooming a champion, teaching him the business side, the politics, how to move in rooms with moguls and suit-and-tie cats who controlled the purse strings. DMX was hungry, he soaked it all up, and his debut album "It's Dark and Hell Is Hot" in '98 went triple platinum, shifted the entire landscape of hip hop. That album was pure aggression, pure authenticity, it resonated with every block in America because X wasn't performing, he was confessing.

The roster kept growing, the Lox came through with that Yonkers flavor, Eve brought feminine power and lyrical ability, Drag-On added another dimension, and Swiss Beats, the nephew, he was producing heat that changed the game entirely. "Ruff Ryders Anthem" became an anthem that transcended hip hop, it was a movement soundtrack, it was a lifestyle. Kids in the suburbs who never seen the streets wanted to ride with Ruff Ryders. That's the power Waw and D had created, they took street energy, packaged it with talent, and sold it to the world on their own terms.

But success came with its own set of problems, the streets didn't just let you level up without consequence, enemies multiplied with every platinum plaque. Relationships fractured, beef bubbled up, and the culture that gave birth to Ruff Ryders started consuming itself. DMX battled his own demons, addiction and incarceration caught up with him multiple times, the very streets that created him nearly destroyed him. Even with all the money and fame, some of your demons you can't buy your way out of. That's the tragedy of this story.

D and Waw kept pushing though, kept building, kept expanding, but nothing lasts forever in this game. Industry shifts happened, streaming changed everything, the old guard got old, and the next generation had different rules and different references. Ruff Ryders became legendary, became a period piece in hip hop history that changed everything it touched.

The legacy of Ruff Ryders Entertainment cannot be overstated—they didn't just sign artists, they created a culture, a whole movement that influenced everything from fashion to attitude to how the entire industry operates. Waw and D took a lesson they learned living above DJ Cool Herk and transformed it into a multi-million dollar empire that kept the money and power in the family just like they promised. They proved that street hustlers could become titans, that authenticity was more valuable than any gimmick, and that if you stayed true to your vision and your people, the world would eventually have no choice but to respect it. Ruff Riders didn't just survive the '90s and 2000s—they defined it, and that blueprint, that energy, that ride-or-die mentality, it still echoes through hip hop to this day. From the Bronx pavement to the top of the charts, they showed the world that rough, uncut, and real would always reign supreme.