Songfacts®:

• "Get At Me Dog" was DMX' first solo hit, but he was well known in the East Coast rap scene thanks to features on LL Cool J's "4-3-2-1" and The Lox' "Money, Power & Respect." The song is a chronicle of his life, fighting for survival and "just robbin' to eat." It set the tone for what was to come from DMX: unapologetic, aggressive lyrics based on his real-life experiences.
• DMX used a lot of dog imagery in his songs. His "dogs" are his friends and fans, but more literally, his actual dogs. He claimed to own about 20 pooches.
• DMX, signed to Ruff Ryders Entertainment, released a single in 1992 called "Born Loser" that was distributed by Columbia Records and flopped. His debut album, It's Dark And Hell Is Hot, was distributed by Def Jam, which was a much better fit. With "Get At Me Dog" leading the way as the first single, the album debuted at #1 in America, as did his next four albums. It was a remarkable run that helped revive the fortunes of Def Jam, which had fallen on hard times.
• Sheek Louch of The Lox features on this track. Like DMX, The Lox is from Yonkers, New York and part of the Ruff Ryders collective. They released their first album in 1998 on the Bad Boy label with production by a team that included Dame Grease, Swizz Beatz and PK. DMX issued his debut album a few months later, with Grease and Beatz at the controls. "Get At Me Dog" was produced by Grease and PK, who are also credited as writers on the track.
• The beat is built on a slowed-down sample of "Everything Good to You (Ain't Always Good for You)," a 1974 track by B.T. Express. Because of the sample, that song's writer, Sam Taylor, gets a writing credit on "Get At Me Dog."
• The video was shot live at a New York City club called The Tunnel. Directed by Hype Williams, with was DMX' first video. Williams was the first to cast DMX in a movie, putting him in his 1998 film Belly opposite Nas.
• Apparently, a certain canine-monikered rapper inspired the song title. Snoop Dogg revealed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that it was he who came up with the phrase, "Get at me dog."
  
  Snoop first met DMX at a show in the mid-1990s after he performed in New York City. "When he first met me, I was like away from him, and he was saying, 'What's happening, what's up?' And I was like, 'Get at me dog,'" Snoop recalled to Fallon. "And he was like, 'I took that and I made that into my song 'Get at Me Dog,' 'cause the way you got at me and said that, I was like, 'That's slick.' So that night inspired him to create that song, 'Get at Me Dog,'"