APPLEBUM Brings DMX’s Growl to the Streets of Tokyo

APPLEBUM’s six-piece capsule pairs a 1998 Billboard record with vintage Tokyo dye work, landing August 25 as the first Japan-brand collaboration built around DMX.

Tuesday morning at 10:00, APPLEBUM opened online orders on a six piece capsule built entirely around DMX. Three graphic T-shirts, a Neon Photo T-shirt, a Ride T-shirt, and a Photo T-shirt, each priced at 11,000 yen, sit alongside a long sleeve Vintage T-shirt at 16,500 yen, a heavyweight Vintage Photo Hoodie at 25,300 yen, and a hand distressed Damage Cotton Cap at 12,100 yen. The lineup went live through APPLEBUM’s own site, ZOZOTOWN’s APPLEBUM shop, and a rolling release across the brand’s authorized dealers around Japan. On its own product pages, APPLEBUM states the claim plainly: this is the first collaboration any Japanese brand has released under DMX’s name.

That statement sits inside a longer pattern for the Tokyo label, which has spent two decades treating hip hop’s late 1990s peak as material to build from rather than simply reference. What sets this release apart is the subject himself. DMX, born Earl Simmons, died in 2021, so the capsule draws on his catalog, his voice, and licensed photography of him rather than any new involvement from the artist. APPLEBUM’s copy for the rel does not specify whether the line runs through a formal arrangement with his estate, which has handled prior official DMX apparel through the merchandise company Bravado, and no such credit appears anywhere on the six product pages. Given that one piece uses a specific portrait by a named photographer, some form of clearance is almost certainly in place, though APPLEBUM has not detailed the arrangement publicly.

The price range also places the capsule a step above APPLEBUM’s typical collide tier. A 2024 capsule built around Technics turntables, another collide root in DJ and club culture, priced its T-shirts closer to 9,350 to 9,680 yen. The DMX Collection’s tees sit at 11,000 yen each, with the long sleeve, hoodie, and cap all priced higher still, positioning this closer to the label’s standard collection pricing than to a quick capsule tie-in.

 

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Two of the graphic tees lean on movement and light rather than a single lifted photograph. The Ride T-shirt takes motorcycle culture, a world APPLEBUM describes as closely tied to DMX, and puts a smoke-trailing stunt rider across the chest in blue lighting, meant to capture the tension of a late night street. The back carries a short geography lesson instead of a slogan: Yonkers and New York, DMX’s home turf, stacked against Tokyo and the APPLEBUM name, a direct line drawn between where the artist came from and where the tribute was made.

The Neon Photo T-shirt works the same dark, keyed up atmosphere from a different angle. A dramatically lit photograph gets layered under a neon sign style outline, the kind of effect that turns a still image into something closer to a storefront sign glowing over a late night block. The back keeps things quieter, a handwritten style message paired with a small APPLEBUM logo rather than another loud graphic. Both shirts use the same 12oz cotton body APPLEBUM builds most of its standard tees on, cut with a wider chest and armhole and a slightly cropped length, running true across sizes S through XXL.

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The Photo Tee is built around a single image: a black and white portrait of DMX that APPLEBUM’s product copy credits to Albert Watson, the Scottish photographer whose decades of hip hop portraiture include Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, and Jay-Z, largely shot during a long run as VIBE magazine’s official photographer. Watson built his wider reputation on the same graphic instinct across genres, from a nude portrait of an eighteen year old Kate Moss to Steve Jobs in his signature turtleneck, and has described his approach as chasing “graphic strength” even in a simple frame. The print is set to nearly disappear into the shirt’s black body, a choice that pushes forward the photo’s shadow work, skin texture, and the glint of a chain rather than flattening it into a poster graphic. The back returns to a faded, gradient treated version of the DMX logo, deliberately rougher than the quiet portrait up front. Driftzine could not independently verify this specific sitting against Watson’s own archive, which is not fully catalogued online, though the attribution lines up with his documented history photographing DMX’s peers for VIBE during the same era.

The same portrait carries over to the Vintage Photo Hoodie, APPLEBUM’s heaviest piece in the drop. Here the image and a logo sit boldly across the chest, printed into the black body so the figure holds its presence against a blue smoke effect drifting behind it. APPLEBUM typography runs down one sleeve as a smaller accent. The hoodie is cut from a 17oz brushed cotton fleece, heavier than the tees, with room built into the chest and armhole and a length the brand calls a long term staple silhouette rather than a seasonal piece.

 

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Two pieces in the capsule lean on outside specialists rather than APPLEBUM’s standard production. The Vintage L/S T-shirt takes a worn, grainy version of the DMX logo across the chest and adds a checkered flag pattern with “RIDE OR DIE” and “APPLEBUM” lettering down both sleeves, closer to a racing jersey than a standard long sleeve tee. The body itself is dyed and faded at Uchida Senkoba, a Tokyo dye house founded in 1909 in the city’s Bunkyo ward that started out dyeing yarn for kimono textiles before relocating during the war and returning to dyeing after 1955. Under its current, third generation president, the factory specializes in product dyeing, meaning a finished garment is dyed and distressed as a whole piece, and counts Paris Collection labels among its regular clients. On this shirt, that process leaves a deliberately uneven, faded black that APPLEBUM says gives a brand new shirt the look of one worn for years.

The Damage Cotton Cap gets a similar treatment from a different source. TiEDYE FREAK, a dye studio APPLEBUM describes as started in 2021 by two graduates of Tokyo’s Bunka Fashion College, hand applies fading, unevenness, and damage effects to each cap individually rather than running a uniform batch process. A black embroidered DMX logo sits on the front of the finished six panel cap. As of this writing the cap is already listed as sold out on APPLEBUM’s own site, days after the collection’s release.

Uchida Senkoba’s own history stretches back further than most workshops APPLEBUM has drawn on. According to WWD Japan’s reporting on the factory, it opened in 1909 in Tokyo’s Bunkyo ward as a yarn dyeing operation tied to kimono textile production, relocated to Gunma Prefecture during the war to make socks instead, and returned to Tokyo dyeing work in 1955. Mitsuharu Uchida, the factory’s third gen president, took over in 2005, the same year APPLEBUM itself launched. The factory’s client list has reportedly grown to include Paris Collection fashion houses and idol group costuming alongside streetwear labels, and Uchida has spoken publicly about shifting toward smaller batch orders and upcycling work as apparel brands move away from large scale production runs.

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Born in 1970 and raised largely in Yonkers, New York, the same city the Ride T-shirt prints on its back panel, DMX spent his teenage years in and out of group homes before turning to music. APPLEBUM’s own product copy leans on a specific statistic to frame the career that followed: four consecutive albums debuting at number one on the US charts, starting with 1998’s It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot. That framing matches how several outlets summarized his catalog at the time of his death in 2021, and it undersells the run if anything. A closer look at his chart history shows five consecutive number one debuts on the Billboard 200 between 1998 and 2003, adding 2003’s Grand Champ to the four albums APPLEBUM names, a streak commonly cited as unmatched by any other artist during that stretch.

 

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DMX built that run on a catalog defined by contrast, raw and gravel voiced on one track, confessional and unguarded on the next. “Party Up (Up in Here)” and “X Gon’ Give It to Ya” remain his most recognized singles, alongside earlier hits like “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” and “Get at Me Dog,” but his catalog runs deeper than any single song, through the Yonkers and Mount Vernon streets that shaped him and into lyrics that dealt openly with his own struggles. He fronted the Ruff Ryders collective alongside Swizz Beatz and Eve, released eight studio albums on Def Jam Recordings, earned three Grammy nominations, and built a parallel acting career, appearing in 1998’s Belly and opposite Jet Li in 2000’s Romeo Must Die. He was named favorite rap or hip hop artist at the 2000 American Music Awards. He died in April 2021 at age 50, after suffering a heart attack at his home in Westchester County, New York.

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APPLEBUM’s own history explains why a DMX capsule fits its catalog rather than reading as a licensing exercise. The label launched in Tokyo in 2005, taking its name from A Tribe Called Quest’s 1990 single “Bonita Applebum,” and has built its identity around the 1980s and 90s golden era of hip hop ever since. The brand states its own philosophy in three words: rebellious, inventive, humorous, aiming for what it calls clothing that carries a story rather than product built purely around a logo.

Music connects run through APPLEBUM’s history rather than sitting apart from it. The brand has previously worked with Wu-Tang Clan, applying kung fu film imagery the group has long ref onto a Japanese sukajan jacket, a project APPLEBUM describe as unique to the label among the group’s convincers It has also released capsules tied to Technics turntables, Death Row Records, Bob Marley, and Major League Baseball, alongside standing convincer lines with photographer Eric Coleman and stylist Tsuyoshi Yamanaka. That range mirrors the label’s own stated design know, built on message driven graphic and quality materials rather than a single house silhouette repeated season to season. APPLEBUM now sells beyond Japan into other parts of Asia, the United States, and Europe, a reach the label credits to the same golden era hip hop reference points showing up in its catalog since 2005.

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The DMX Collection began rolling out August 25 at 10:00 through APPLEBUM’s own online store and its ZOZOTOWN shop, with authorized retailers across Japan following in sequence rather than all at once. That staggered rollout mirrors how APPLEBUM typically handles its bigger seasonal drops, giving its own storefronts first access before wider distribution catches up over the following days. APPLEBUM’s standard release terms apply across the collection: orders that look like bulk resale buying can be cancelled, stock is only reserved once an order is completed at checkout rather than when an item is added to a cart, and returns are not accepted for buyer’s remorse after an order is confirmed. High order volume around the release may push shipping roughly two business days past APPLEBUM’s usual next day dispatch, a note the brand attached directly to the collection’s own listing rather than its general shipping policy.