Background
The album originally contained a song entitled "Ruled Out", a hard-hitting diss track aimed towards former collaborator and friend Ja Rule, however, Def Jam Recordings (who coincidentally owned the distributor rights to Rule's The Inc. Records at the time) were highly displeased by the track and urged for its removal . A previous version of "Fuck Y'all" was also considered to be the lead-off single for 'The Great Depression', but due to the obvious explicit content of the title alone, the song would have substantial problems gaining radio airplay (changing the title of the song was out of the question).
On the UK edition of the album, the hit single X Gon' Give It to Ya from the 2003 film Cradle 2 the Grave is included as a bonus track.
"Grand Champ" was also released in an "edited" version that replaces some violence, most drug content, and all profanity with sound effects and in some instances, blanks them out completely leaving only the music. The explicit version censors out the words "reloaded" and "slugs" on the track "Where The Hood At?", while the single version of the song is completely uncensored.
The title "Grand Champ" is an explicit reference to American "street" dog fighting. The term "grand champion" refers to a fighting dog that has won at least five bouts with no losses, tying into the album being DMX's fifth official album released.
This was DMX's final album release on Def Jam Recordings.
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