DMX Will Perform at House Nightclub With a Real Housewife This Art Walk — Seriously

From the street, Wynwood's next Art Walk will be much like every other. An array of art enthusiasts will once again descend upon the area like well-dressed mosquitoes. Galleries will open their doors and lure pedestrians inside with the soft roar of air-conditioning. And artists and dealers will push their wares to whomever will listen.

"Where the Hood At?" contains one of hip-hop's most infamous anti-gay diatribes.

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Down the road, though, a few blocks east of bustling NW Second Avenue, through a tremendous set of reflective doors, within the district's first true nightclub, there may be one of the most daring performance art projects to pass through Wynwood in recent years.

Rapper-slash-actor DMX is billed to be live onstage at, of all places, House Nightclub this Saturday. Details are scarce, but House confirmed the rapper's presence. Requests to DMX for an interview went unanswered.

What makes this an especially strange gig, though, isn't that DMX is coming to art walk (at this point in his life, DMX isn't exactly in a spot to refuse a paycheck), but that he will perform at House, a venue that — though not explicitly a gay club — is well known to cater heavily to an LGBT clientele.

DMX, meanwhile, is best known for his raspy voice, gruff style, canine mannerisms, and crude and controversial lyrics. His 2003 song "Where the Hood At?" contains one of hip-hop's most infamous anti-gay diatribes. A small sample: "I show no love, to homo thugs/Empty out, reloaded, and throw more slugs/How you gonna explain fuckin' a man?/Even if we squashed the beef, I ain't touchin ya hand." Back then, the track was a radio hit, one in a string of ruthless singles from DMX that ushered in a new era of no-holds-barred gangster rap.

But the rapper also has a talent for lyrical flexibility. Even later in "Where the Hood At?" DMX shifts to slightly more homo-erotic lyrics like, "Since we all right here, you hold my dick while he suckin it," and "I beat my dick and bust off in ya eye so you can see me comin'."

Colorful content aside, it's hard to argue DMX's relevancy in the hip-hop timeline. His career, though important from a musical perspective, has been marred in controversy and run-ins with the law. He was famously arrested for a videogame-caliber crime in 2004 when, after impersonating an FBI agent, he attempted to steal a car at New York's Kennedy Airport. In his songs, he's a narrative shape-shifter who takes the character of an upright citizen in one line and transforms into Lucifer by the next. It's never safe or easy to take him at his word.

But there's more to this news. Yes, one of hard-core hip-hop's most intimidating figures will perform at a club whose owner, Mark Lowe, says has been called "dark, evil, sinful, immoral, and gay." But DMX won't be alone. After he steps offstage, dancer and reality TV star Erika Jayne will perform. If you haven't heard of Jayne or haven't seen her on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, it suffices to know that Cosmopolitan has labeled her "the baddest bitch in the game," a title that Trina won't likely concede quietly.

Though the two performances are separate events, requiring different tickets to get in the door, it's still an odd pairing. In the early 2000s, during his heyday, who would have thought DMX would one day go back-to-back with a Real Housewife.

But times have changed. Perhaps DMX's disagreement with homosexuality reflected the veiled intolerance of the early '00s, when national same-sex marriage was still more than a decade away. And let's hope his willingness to appear at House alongside Erika Jayne is another sign of more tolerant times.

DMX 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, May 14, at House Nightclub, 1915 NW Miami Ct., Miami; 855-694-6893; housenightclub.com. Tickets cost $13 to $1,070 via wantickets.com.