In movies or music, X has his whys down

After dining on gnocchi on La Brea, DMX is doing 80 down Highland in a Jaguar XLK convertible. And for the moment, the Yonkers, N.Y., native has had enough of L.A.

“What’s wrong with the drivers out here?” growls the rapper born Earl Simmons. “They’re taking their time, talking on the phone -- I’ve seen ‘em eat Chinese food at the wheel! I drive New York style. I’m trying to get somewhere. Quickly.” Tonight he’s getting to Burbank (quickly), for a rehearsal at a studio at the Jay Leno show. He’ll be promoting his new film, “Cradle 2 the Grave,” co-starring Jet Li, and performing songs from the soundtrack of the film, which opens today.

As we make our way toward the 101, DMX speaks as he drives -- with manic energy -- about his burgeoning film career and about transcending the ubiquitous “rapper-turned-actor” moniker.

“I’m trying to create some real, serious drama,” X (as he calls himself) says, describing the mission of his new company, Bloodline Films, and sounding very much the Hollywood veteran. “None of those watermelon-and-chicken-eating, everyone’s-a-comedian, dancing-around-and-rapping-all-day movies. I’m not necessarily looking toward rappers, either. Because I don’t want people to say, ‘Hey -- let’s go see Busta Rhymes’ or Eminem’s or DMX’s new movie.’ It should be about the story.”

We screech to a halt on Sunset, and X blames the momentary jam on a green Jetta several cars ahead. “Look at that guy down there!” he moans. “Slowing down! For what?”

Slowing down, after all, is a foreign concept to DMX. In a single year, 1998, he exploded on Billboard charts with “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot” and “Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood,” two albums that debuted at No. 1. On fierce rap anthems like “Get at Me, Dog,” he showcased his signature throaty growl and cultivated alter egos: He is X the Dog Man, a pit bull fanatic with dogs tattooed across his back, and Dark Man X, an artist whose tracks about gloom and doom packed a punch instead of a wail. Four albums and more than 18 million in sales later, he remains a rapper who may have titled his last release “The Great Depression” but is still likely to hear his rousing hits at sports arenas.

The year of his debut was also the year DMX charged onto the big screen, playing the lead role, with rapper Nas, in Hype Williams’ glossy film “Belly.” He was never much of a moviegoer -- “I’m too active for them. I fall asleep,” he explains -- but after a cameo in the 2000 Jet Li flick “Romeo Must Die” and a co-starring role alongside Steven Seagal in “Exit Wounds” a year later, he found himself in theaters more often.

In “Cradle 2 the Grave,” DMX plays a high-class jewel thief who teams with Li. The role, which required him to tone down his signature DMX bark, signals his growth as an actor. Making “Belly” was his big-screen initiation, one that took, he says solemnly, “a bottle of Hennessy a day.” “Exit Wounds” was not only boot camp in fight choreography, but X’s chance to boost Seagal’s waning popularity. The rapper’s intense performance -- with a single glare he’s both ruthless and remorseful -- worked well, and the film grossed $52 million domestically. Now, with “Cradle” a Warner Bros. release, and with his own Bloodline Film Co. set to release its first feature early next year, X is poised to become a Hollywood mainstay. That doesn’t mean, of course, that he’ll actually stay here.

“I could never live out here,” he declares. “I need to stay grounded, be around my people.... I haven’t changed at all, man. Whether it’s someone pushing gas or pushing a Bent-ley, I still treat everyone equally.”

Casual conversation is anathema to him. He has the aura of a hyperactive child, one whose mind works at twice the speed of those around him. Arriving at the studio lot, he remarks that a hobby shop on Pico is his favorite spot in L.A., and he is suddenly moved to take his latest acquisition, a remote-controlled mini Mercedes, for a test drive.

Maneuvering the little car, he reminisces about his childhood in Yonkers, where -- before record mogul Irv Gotti helped him become one of Def Jam’s Ruff Ryders -- X earned his reputation as a rapper, served jail time for robbery and managed to get an education in and out of group homes.

“God had to put me away in order for me to learn,” he explains. “I was the second smartest kid in the whole facility, and you know what I loved? Math. Because you never have to rely on opinions in math -- you’re either right or you’re wrong. In jail, though, that’s where I learned to focus my mind. Only your body’s in jail; your thoughts -- they go places.”

X has a constant supply of such inspirational mantras. He prays almost every morning and has already written his own epitaph, a poignant poem about his hands that’s more Rilke than rap. He’s currently at work on a new album, but after that he’ll “take time off and read my Bible. And if I do another album, it’ll be gospel. I want to speak the word of the Lord.”

Inside the Burbank studio, X isn’t reciting gospel, but it looks as if he is. He’s rehearsing “X Gon’ Give It to Ya,” his high-powered single off the “Cradle 2 the Grave” soundtrack. The album, featuring tracks by Eminem and 50 Cent, is the first release from his new label, Bloodline Records (named, like his film company, after the lineage-tracking process for pit bulls).

Performing with a live band takes X’s energy level to new heights, and soon he’s free-styling to the famous riff of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” As X spits lyrics -- eyes closed, fists clenched -- it’s clear why Williams, after directing DMX’s first video, jump-started the rapper’s film career by handing him the lead in “Belly.”

He is what he raps

“I become what I’m rapping about,” he explains. “I take the energy from up here” -- he holds his hands at ear height -- “to down here” -- he drops them to his waist. He recites one of his rhymes, a dialogue in which he plays both parts, then reflects. “I’m the kind of person who thinks so hard that I’ll actually experience physical symptoms of what I’m thinking about. When I used to do robberies, my palms would get sweaty. I’d start panting, like this.” The rapper exhales deeply, then shakes his head, jolting himself back to the here and now.

With “Cradle,” X says, “I applied myself more than ever before.” It’s easy to look like an amateur beside Li, and DMX -- a man who says the only concerts he attends are his own -- isn’t about to be upstaged.

“When the camera rolls, he just transforms. It’s amazing, especially for an untrained actor,” says Andrzej Bartkowiak, director of “Romeo Must Die,” “Exit Wounds” and now “Cradle.” “This is an intense guy we’re talking about. Everyone else goes to bed after shooting, but X -- he goes to the studio. And still he’s committed.”

With his current project produced by his own Bloodline Films, DMX is more invested in acting than ever. “Never Die Alone,” based on a Donald Goines crime novel and co-produced by Ed Pressman’s Content Films, has the rapper playing a heroin dealer who ages over the course of the film. “I had to do a slower, hunched-over walk,” he says, bending over and demonstrating. “I had to learn how to be cold without being DMX.”

Capping off his night with a game of pool, a few more cigarettes and yet another glass of Remy, the rapper smiles for photos with fans: two white boys from Boston, locals from Inglewood, a gaggle of girls from Texas. If his film audience remains as broad as his musical one, Bloodline will find its niche.

That, of course, isn’t about to give DMX pause. “Anything I’m gonna do, I’m gonna do 100%,” he says, articulating what just one evening with him confirms.

“Bloodline is all about me. And can’t nobody make me look bad but me.”