When the industry stayed silent, DMX’s uncle-manager picked up the check, pulled the strings, and grabbed the mic
In a revealing AllHipHop sit down, Ray Copeland aka Uncle Ray, former manager and blood relative to DMX, finally gave his side of the funeral fight. He says when X died in 2021, the people closest to his legacy looked away and he was left with a burden he didn’t ask for.
Uncle Ray claims he managed to organize DMX’s funeral almost entirely on his own. He put together a group willing to chip in $150,000 to cover services, a Brooklyn memorial, and everything in between. He says attempts to get help from Ruff Ryders, Def Jam, and other industry names were met with a chorus of “I ain’t got it.”
The narrative often floated in media was that the labels funded the service. Ray insists that’s not the truth. He says Def Jam later gave $35,000 (a fraction) and that Kanye West handled the Barclays Center cost. He also credits Germaine Miller for fronting the bulk of that first $150K.
He pushes back against viral images of a red monster truck hauling X’s casket through Brooklyn. He says X was not riding on that truck. The body, he says, stayed safely in a hearse behind the scenes until the service day.
Ray says he had contemplated a private funeral in Bronxville, New York, but relented when family insisted the public needed closure. He wanted to do right by X and by the fans.
Perhaps his most bitter takeaway: despite X’s success, many of those who claimed love dropped off when it came to real sacrifice. “This man made us all millionaires,” he said. “And I had to fight to put this together with my family.”
This is Uncle Ray’s first full telling. His version reframes the funeral as more than ceremony as fight, loyalty, and love in the face of abandonment. The industry might prefer stories of tribute and honor. But Ray’s telling casts a sharper light: prestige means nothing when nobody shows up with a check.
