>partially due to his rawness at a time when rap music was
>'soft', i.e. Puffy and Ma$e reigning supreme...

that's revisionist imo.
there was still dozens and dozens of new songs every month that were raw/grimey/hard/street/hood whatever in 1997.
you had diamond d getting rotation along side puffy.
you had beatnuts, big pun, lord tariq & peter gunz, organized konfusion, etc etc etc all getting spins next to puffy/mase.

the conception that it was all puffy/mase all the time and that dmx was some savior is really overstated.

dmx blew up because lyor was so sold on him and def jam had BET/hot 97 play his record several times an hour.
he just HAPPENED to be on that extra cruddy tip.