American radio executive, record producer, artist and author Damizza has recently sat down with Mr. Criminal where he recalled the stories about Mariah Carey, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg and much more.
Damizza was ranked by The Source Magazine as one of the five most powerful people in Hip Hop in 1999, with his ties to radio as the senior director of programming and artist relations at Power 106 in Los Angeles.
During the new interview, Damizza told the untold story of how Eminem’s “My Name Is” first aired on west coast radio stations.
“I almost got fired so many times it was stupid. When Dr. Dre called me and invited me at his house he said ‘I need some advice’ I was like ‘DR. DRE CALLED ME FOR ADVICE? WHAT THE HELL!’. I showed up and he points to Eminem in the booth and says ‘how do I break the white boy?’ And I’m like ‘Dude, you tell me the story of N.W.A. from beginning to end and I’ll break the white boy for you.” Damizza said.
Then he continues: “I sat on his washer and dryer, he sat on his little stairs from like midnight to 6 a.m. he told me whole story of N.W.A. and Eminem comes out about six o’clock in the morning from the studio tired of waiting and he looks over and says ‘I’m going home’ and I said ‘No, you are not, you are going Baker Boy’s show on Power 106. You are going to announce that you are doing Friday Night Flavors 10th year anniversary. Give me that record, Hi My Name Is.”
“My boss said ‘put that white boy on stage and you are fired! Dr. Dre is over! That white boy…have not you heard of Vanilla Ice!?’ and all that kind of stuff. Everybody was looking at me like ‘are you really going to put white boy on stage? You crazy?’ I said ‘It’s Dr. Dre’s new artist.’ They all looked at me so before I knew it everybody’s on side of the stage. I’m there with Coolio, rest in peace, all of these guys are there and watching. Eminem got through the first part of that song ‘F–k You’ and that place went to s–t!”
“I walked in the office next morning. I literally had a box and I was putting my s–t in the box thinking I’m getting fired and then my boss came in and she was like ‘you are lucky that white boy killed it, bring me the record.’ And then we played Hi My Name Is. That’s how Eminem got started.” Damizza added.
You can watch the interview below:
