Fans and friends continue to share tributes and remembrances about DMX after the hip hop icon tragically passed away last Friday (April 9). One friend, rap legend Roxanne Shante, shared an emotional story on Instagram about the trauma X endured as a child and how it brought them together.

“This is one of the most serious things that I’ve ever said, maybe even one of the most emotional and personal things that I’ve ever said,” she began her video on Saturday (April 10). “It has to do with DMX and what he had went through. This is not what somebody told me, this is what he said to me.”

Speaking through tears, Roxanne said DMX’s mother abandoned him at a children’s home facility when he was a young child.

“When he was younger, his mom had took him to a children’s home and said that they was just going to visit, and she left him there. She took him there and she left him there,” Roxanne said. “He was too little to be there. Too little to understand how to defend himself, how to take care of himself… but he did it and he survived it.”

Though she and X “weren’t super close,” the Queens rapper said they confided in each other about their traumatic upbringings.

“I know what it’s like to run the streets, sleep on the train, sleep in the hallways, try to sleep at friend’s houses. Have people say you can come stay at they house and they brothers would come try and mess with you or even they fathers and adults and uncles and shit. I know what it is like,” she said.

“As soon as me and DMX came in contact with each other, as soon as me and Earl came in contact with each other, we already knew what was done to that spirit. It makes you overly aggressive. It makes you seem angry to people. It makes you seem mad at people,” she continued. “So, people try to find whatever they can in order to overcome that. Some people turn to drugs; some people turn to drinking.”

With the recent news of X’s passing, Roxanne added, “My heart is hurting right now. But in a way, I know that he has found some fucking peace.”

In the wake of X’s death, several hip hop celebrities have called upon record labels and music industry executives to provide more mental health and substance abuse outreach for artists.

“When you have been a ‘check child’ — that means [foster parents] take you in they house because they only want a fucking check — and then you go into this fucking hip hop field, and they only fucking nice to you because you a commodity and you making them some fucking money; it’s like this cycle never fucking stops,” Roxanne said.

Watch her emotional video below.