Joyner Lucas reveals he asked Eminem to redo his verse: “It was tough to say that to my idol”

Couple of days ago, Joyner Lucas released his much anticipated album titled Not Now I’m Busy with features from Jelly Roll, Twista, NBA YoungBoy, Logic, Conway The Machine, the late legend DMX and more. To promote the album, the Worcester, Massachusetts-born rapper sat down with DJ Pup Dawg for Dunkin’ Music Lounge interview on JAM’N 94.5 where he revealed that he once asked Eminem to recut his verse.

“I’ve gotten into that situation, with Eminem. That was difficult. That was a record that never came out, between me and Marshall. He had this last verse but he did not wanna hear the concept that I was thinking or the vision for the video. He didn’t wanna hear it. He kept telling me ‘don’t tell me, don’t tell me.’ I said ‘bro you have to know it because that’s the way you gonna have to write it.’ He was like ‘nah!’ and I was like ‘alright!'” said Joyner Lucas.

Then he continued: “So he wrote it and it was not, like, he went whole another direction than what I’ve seen in the video. And when he did that, he asked me what I thought about it. I told him that was fire but I just felt like he went in another direction and I was like ‘can we change the ending?’ and it was tough for me to say that. Cause this is like The Man, somebody that I grew up and idolized. He’s my hero bro. So, having to tell him that was difficult but I told him that and he was like ‘WOW! Nobody has ever told me to recut my verse.’ And I was like ‘Nah, I’m not telling you to recut it but just the ending of it, can we change little bit of ending?’ But I had to do that for sure. He respected that. He recut it for sure.”

Maybe this is the reason why we got two versions of “What If I Was Gay?”? A song with Eminem that was leaked in 2018. Alternatively titled as “If I Told You” focuses on a suppressed homosexual coming out to his friend—Joyner takes the perspective of the gay man coming out while Eminem takes the perspective of his unsupportive Christian friend. The encounter leads the homosexual man to commit suicide, ultimately giving Em’s character feelings of regret. It also ends in a twist, as Eminem’s character reveals that he’s also gay. A snippet of the track was leaked on October 28, 2019, and the full version was leaked two days later on October 31, 2019, under the name “What If I Was Gay?” Few days later, the alternative version of the song was also leaked with different verse from Eminem. The track marks the second official collaboration between the two rappers following August 2018’s “Lucky You,” from Kamikaze album.

Eminem Joyner Lucas