DMX talks with VIBE magazine about filming a sequel to Hype Williams 1998 classic Belly.

Belly is still a hip-hop classic. I don’t care what barbershop, what radio station, people still talk about this movie man.
Yeah, they play it on BET a lot. You know how many times I’ve seen it since I been here?

I’m saying! It’s on regular rotation now.
And they fucked up with the Belly 2. All they had was the title. Someone bought the title. Got people thinking it’s a part 2 to our movie when it’s really not. It’s just the name Belly 2. But, I been working with a couple of writers man where we can bring it back. A part 2 with a crazy story.

Oh really? With all the original characters maybe, hopefully?
No. it would really just be me, Nas and Meth. Some new hot chicks in there. But the story—the thing that most important to me with a movie is not so much the cast. It’s the story. See, this cast is important. You gotta have a good story. And it makes sense. It’ll show that I did some time for murder or whatever, and it’s really 10 years later. So it works out perfect.

I know a lot of the people that worked on the movie said that the way that Bellycame out wasn’t how it was originally cut. Is that true?
The cut the budget, maybe 3 quarters of the movie. They just cut the budget right there.

Damn. Do you think it affected the storyline and how you were able to put the message out there?
Well, you know what it became a different message. Part of the original message was in there, but it also became a different message. There’s like a lot of loose ends, you know. And like the chemistry was so good, that people didn’t really focus on that. You still walked away from it thinking that you saw the entire movie. Feeling like you didn’t get cheated.