In Never Die Alone, DMX plays a gangster whose murder is witnessed by an aspiring journalist played by David Arquette. The gangster's rise and fall is charted in flashback through the gangster's journal, which enables the journalist to understand why he was killed and tell the story.

Author Donald Goines wrote his first two books while incarcerated, and followed those with an astonishing 16 novels written from the time he was released from prison in 1970 until he was shot to death in 1974. Though largely ignored by critics, Goines' work sold more than 5 million books in his short career and were rediscovered in the 90s by legions of hip hop fans and European readers.