By Louis B. Hobson

HOLLYWOOD -- Hip hop superstar DMX is retiring his vocal chords. The rapper born Earl Simmons says he is fed up with the corruption in the music industry.

"The music industry is straight-up robbery. I can\'t be a part of it anymore. You make so much money for them but at the end of the day, they still disrespect you," says DMX.

"Last year I made $144 million US for Def Jam. They gave me nothing but they loaned me $3 million against my next album. They own all my music and they won\'t let me sing for anyone else, not even for myself if I created my own label.

"This is why I don\'t make records any more."

DMX is not about to walk away quietly.

"I want to start a union to protect the rights of the artists. It\'s long overdue, and there are many others who are on my side."

DMX says this is the reason he is shifting his emphasis to a film career.

He made such action flicks as Romeo Must Die and Cradle 2 The Grave with martial arts star Jet Li and Exit Wounds with Steven Seagal.

On April 2 he opens in the gritty low-budget crime drama Never Die Alone, which he executive produced through his fledgling film company Bloodline Films.

"There\'s better money in movies, especially if you can produce them yourself. I think my next few films will all be through Bloodline and then I\'ll go back and do a studio film for someone else," says DMX, admitting he wasn\'t prepared for everything a film producer has to do.

"I had to attend a lot of meetings, and that\'s not something I\'m used to."

He says his aim is "to bring uncompromised, unconditional realism back to movies.

"There are too many of these comic book movies out there now that are really just the same movie with different costumes."

Never Die Alone is based on a novel by cult African American writer Donald Goines, who began writing his novels in prison.

DMX plays crime lord King David who has just been released from prison and is determined to settle old scores and create a new life for himself. He thinks money can buy his safety but is in for a rude awakening.

"I first read Goines\' books when I was locked up. They spoke to me because they were books that didn\'t have happy endings. No one is riding off into the sunset. I knew a lot of his characters."

DMX has a rap sheet that includes trouble with guns, assault, marijuana possession, unsafe driving, driving with a suspended licence, providing false information, contempt of court and publicly using obscene language in a country where it\'s illegal to do so (Trinidad).

DMX insists his violent image is now just that, an image. He says he is a happy family man with a wife, three young children and seven pit bulls.

"My family and my work are two separate worlds."

Both worlds still require DMX to have almost a dozen security guards on staff.

He goes nowhere without his posse.

"I\'m constantly being followed, and that includes being tailed by the FBI. Sometimes it amounts to harassment. That\'s why I have armed security with me at all times."

DMX insists he is settling into a much calmer life.

"I understand good and bad, right and wrong, crime and redemption, heaven and hell. I\'m familiar with both sides of the fence. I have actual events to draw on for my film characters but I am past that life that gave them to me.

"I don\'t want to be a superstar anymore. I\'m into mutual respect. Don\'t disrespect me and I won\'t disrespect you. That\'s how I want to live my life now."