October 17, 2025
DMX’s uncle, Uncle Ray said, ‘Everybody put out statements, hashtags, and tributes. But when it came time to actually do something… silence.’
Details have recently emerged revealing that the rapper’s associates did not cover the funeral costs for Yonkers recording artist DMX but were instead paid through the efforts of DMX’s longtime manager and uncle, Ray Copeland, known in the industry as Uncle Ray.
In an exclusive interview with AllHipHop, Uncle Ray stated that when it came time to pay funeral costs, none of the bigger artists who claimed to be friends, nor the labels (Def Jam, Ruff Ryders), reached into their pockets to contribute. He said he had to get it from friends who were able to put up $150,000 to organize the rapper’s service in 2021.
“When it was time to bury X, I was on the phone with everybody, Ruff Ryders, Swizz Beatz, Steve Rifkind, Def Jam,” Uncle Ray told the media outlet. “I told them what it was going to cost. Everybody said, ‘I ain’t got it.’ So I hung up the phone and said, ‘Forget it. I’ll put this together myself.’”
The service was held at the Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn. He credited business associate Germaine Miller and attorney Ron Sweeney for the money to pay for the beloved rapper’s homegoing celebration.
“If it were not for Germaine Miller, I would have never buried my nephew financially. She put all the money up for the funeral –- all $150,000,” Copeland stated in a text message.
He did admit that Def Jam later came through and gave him $35,000, but they informed the media that they paid for the funeral. He then stated that Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) “took care of everything at the Barclays Center.”
Uncle Ray said he initially was going to have a private funeral in Bronxville, New York, before family members convinced him that the public needed to say goodbye to the It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot lyricist.
“I almost did it right there in Bronxville,” Uncle Ray said. “I had all the family together. But they told me, ‘Ray, you can’t do that. The public needs to say goodbye.’ So I finished it out.”
He expressed disappointment in so-called friends and business associates for not coming through when the family needed them.
“Everybody put out statements, hashtags, and tributes,” he said. “But when it came time to actually do something… silence.”
The 50-year-old DMX died April 9, 2021, at White Plains Hospital in New York, a week after suffering a heart attack.
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