DMX Estate Fighting Legal Dispute With Late Rapper’s Friend Over Songs on Decades-Old Tapes

Six years after DMX ’s death, his estate is quietly battling with a longtime friend and collaborator — over both unreleased recordings and his claim to be a co-writer of DMX’s breakout hit.

DJ Superior (Michael Murray), DMX’s friend from his early days in Yonkers, says he owns many items tied to the star, including VHS videos, handwritten lyric sheets and cassette tapes of never-released tracks. He tried to auction some of them last year, and now he wants to release music he says he co-owns.

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But in a series of cease-and-desist letters over the past year, obtained by Billboard , attorneys for the DMX estate’s executors have said that’s very much a no-go. They say the physical items actually belong to the estate, and that a streaming release of the music would be grounds for a copyright lawsuit.

“The estate will seek all available relief against Mr. Murray and all others acting in concert with him in connection with this release and any and all other releases of DMX’s work that the estate has not authorized,” lawyers for the DMX estate wrote in a June letter.

In a statement to Billboard , estate manager Ashley Austin reiterated those warnings, saying they had made “substantial good faith efforts” to find a resolution to the dispute but that Superior has been “unreasonable” and that the estate is tasked with “protecting DMX’s legacy.”

“Let us be crystal clear: any unreleased DMX material cannot be commercially distributed, published, released or licensed without the estate’s consent,” Austin said. “Mr. Murray and any other party attempting to exploit such material risks legal action.”

Superior’s manager, Jonah Levine , tells Billboard they’re still eager to reach a deal with the estate to release the music, calling it “a piece of history” that ought to be heard by fans: “Our ultimate goal is not to make money, is not peddling our wares. Our goal is to allow Superior’s work to be put out in public.”

DMX (Earl Simmons) soared to stardom in the 1990s with Billboard Hot 100 hits “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem,” “Party Up (Up In Here)” and “What These Bitches Want.” Known for his unusual flow and aggressive delivery, he’s one of the most influential MCs in hip-hop history. He placed 16 different tracks in the Hot 100, and was the first-ever artist to have their first five albums debut atop the Billboard 200 .

Superior says he was there for much of DMX’s rise in the late 1980s and early 1990s, recording “street tapes” with the future star in his Yonkers apartment that they would then sell from the trunks of cars. He says he helped write songs that later became hits, rapped verses on the tapes, and produced many of the tracks on equipment he owned.

The pair seemingly had little to no professional relationship during the peak of the rapper’s career, but Superior claims he was in the hospital room in April 2021 on the night DMX died following a heart attack: “I was there in the beginning and at the end,” he said in a 2021 interview . “I loved him.”

In the years since his death, DMX’s estate has been run by his ex-fiancée Desiree Lindstrom and his daughter Sasha Simmons (Tashera Simmons, his wife of 16 years before a 2016 divorce, claimed she owned half his IP rights, but a judge rejected that argument last year.) The estate’s affairs are managed by Artist Legacy Group , Austin’s company that oversees rights licensing for late stars like Sam Cooke , Dean Martin and Iggy Pop .

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Three years after DMX’s death, Superior produced a July 2024 live show in Los Angeles called “The Rise of Dark Man X,” where fans could experience “unreleased material recounting the humble beginnings of DMX.” At the bottom of the webpage, a warning read: “Unauthorized show not endorsed by DMX estate. Content is solely that of its creators.”

Weeks before that event, Superior had gotten a message from Jessica Wood, a lawyer at the law firm Manatt Phelps & Phillips, on behalf of DMX’s estate executors. The note was cordial by the standards of such letters, but insisted that the DJ disclose what materials he had in his possession and agree not to violate the estate’s intellectual property rights.

“We can assure you that our client, the estate, welcomes your enthusiasm for DMX and the DMX franchise,” Wood wrote. “Further, as a friend of DMX, we are certain that you can understand that the estate must protect the integrity of [DMX’s copyrights and trademarks] so that future generations of fans can enjoy them as well.”

Things got much less friendly in 2025, when Superior tried to auction off DMX-linked items, including lyrics sheets and tapes of unreleased tracks. In a May 2025 letter to the auctioneer, the estate warned that the DJ had “never owned the physical materials” and that DMX had instead only “entrusted” them to him for safekeeping.

In another letter days later, the estate sharply criticized the auction house after it apparently defended the planned sale by suggesting that the estate simply buy back the items. Robert A. Jacobs, another attorney at Manatt and a veteran music litigator, called that suggestion “offensive.”

“That [the auctioneer] and [Superior] seek to auction off important pieces of DMX’s legacy that do not belong to them just to make a buck is problematic enough,” Jacobs wrote. “That [the auctioneer] and [Superior] would do so while asking the Estate to fund their profiteering is shameful.”

The DJ quickly backed down. In a response a day later, the auctioneer said Superior had pulled the items from auction and wanted ...