In a new interview on PANDA CHOP! News, RJ Payne reflects on rapping alongside top-tier lyricists and occasionally being outshined. He then shares a story about meeting Eminem for the first time in the early 2000s, describing the starstruck moment. Payne reveals the full-circle connection: Eminem remembered him as Reign Man, which is how he recognized RJ Payne years later. Payne also reveals what happened to the Royce Da 5’9” collaboration album.
“Em got a lot of respect for me and I got a lot of respect for Em. We met one time, long time ago but no records. I’m always down for the collab. One of my dream collabs that would push me the most is me, Eminem and Tech N9ne. That would push my pen. That would me make me rap better than I ever rapped in my life.” said RJ Payne.
Then he continued: “Shout out to Bizarre. He has always been a supporter of Philly hip-hop. He found out about Reign Man, he found about Reed Dollaz and Eddie Morris, these are the people I was in a group when I was young cat. D12 had a show in Atlantic City. This was early 2000s and this is when D12 is the biggest s–t on the planet and Bizarre invited us to the show. We had no clue Eminem was going to be there, we just went to meet Bizarre.”
“When we were there, somebody tapped on my should. I look and it’s f–king Eminem. I couldn’t move. Bizarre asked him ‘you know who they are?’ and Em was like ‘yeah, I know who they are.’ He walked up and gave us love and walked away. No security. Blew my mind. This is the coolest dude. He gave everybody love. Let everybody know ‘I know who you are. I’m a fan’ and just walked off. Super cool dude.” RJ Payne added.
Then he talked about why planned collab album with Royce 5’9″ didn’t happen. “Shout out to Royce. I say this is my fault. Years ago I made a tweet about me and Ransom at that time rapping better than everybody. That got Royce to jump in. That led to him and Lupe and Mickey Factz fallout. From the time of that whole debacle, everything changed. A lot of us fell out of contact. I think its still love but I think s–t just got awkward with him and Lupe and then diss record from Mickey Factz. I think it made everybody’s relationship a bit awkward and we just have not talked since then. I’m pretty sure there is no beef but for me, I don’t even know what to say at this point because s–t been so weird. Imagine knowing that you put out a tweet, talking about how you feel about your talent and that s–t ends up having two legends fall out. No more podcasts, no more friendship. All because you tweeted something.”
You can watch the whole thing below:
