March 20, 2008 6:30 AM PDT

Rapper DMX blows off ringtones, online music biz

Posted by Anne Broache

Never mind that artists like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor are releasing albums online. And forget that ringtones have helped lift rappers like Flo Rida to stardom and earned them some serious money.

These digital experiments apparently don't interest hip-hop icon DMX.

Hip-hop icon DMX on music distribution moving online: 'People want the actual CDs.'

(Credit: Bodog Music)

"I don't even think about it," the multiplatinum-selling rapper told a writer for hip-hop magazine XXL in a recent interview. The response came when the journalist was trying to ask how DMX feels about music increasingly being distributed through the Internet.

Here's a snippet of the interview:

XXL: How do you feel about the digital--like, everything going through the Internet as far as...
DMX: I don't even think about it. I don't even think about it.
XXL: The music business is pretty much going in that direction.
DMX: I don't know. That's just...that's probably not...People want the actual CDs not no s--- that's disposable.
XXL: It's like the ringtone rappers are the guys that are selling right now.
DMX: Good for them, good for them. I'm glad they eating right now.
XXL: You don't feel a certain way about that.
DMX: Nah, I don't even think about it, for real. I mean, it's a waste of energy to think about what somebody else is doing and how they doing it. I'ma just do what I do. All that s--- is a headache.

That's the front he's showing at least, because his music is definitely available online.

DMX, who's preparing to release two albums later this year, shares some tracks on his official MySpace.com page, just as so many signed and aspiring artists do.

And I have to wonder, has DMX bothered to log onto Apple's iTunes store recently? I just did and found not only an ample catalog of his works, but an exclusive 15-track "Essential DMX" compilation featuring anthems like Party (Up in Here") and What's my Name?

Online music, by the way, isn't the only thing that's not on DMX's mind. He apparently wasn't familiar with Barack Obama at the time of the interview in late January.