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10 Highlights from Eminem’s New Shade 45 Interview

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Drawing Artwork of The Re-Up album.
I did it in sections and it took me like two months. I drew everybody separate and we had to put them in computer shrink them down to the same size. That s–t was time consuming. I’ll never do it again. We were doing the Re-Up album and what I remember and we needed artwork for it. I didn’t know what the cover would be but since I was going through that phase, I was like, take a lot of drugs and drawing. I learned it [looking at the photo and drawing it] from comic books when I was a kid. I’m not good at drawing s–t out of my imagination, I have to actually look at something and I can draw what I see almost exactly the same as it is.

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Breakin’ movie and soundtrack album.
Uncle Ronnie brought the soundtracks album of Breakin’ movie and that’s what made me want to see the movie. He played Ice-T’s “Reckless” and then Ice-T was in the movie and I was like ‘oh s–t.’ In hindsight, that day changed my life forever. I watched that movie 100,000 times.

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On LL Cool J.
When ‘Radio’ came out, I was 11. That was the first album I had. I got that tape for Christmas. It was the first full rap cassette I had. I used to played it on repeat front to back. So, LL impacted me music-wise and then later in my career, I remember reading his book and he went through a lot of same s–t that I went through as a kid so I could relate to some of that. He was the one who made me want to rap. When I was 13 I wrote my first rap and it was just like LL Cool J. I used to set my little radio on the front lawn and face it up so the speakers are pointing up to the sky and play that s–t and perform it while cars were driving by in the street… LL Cool J might have more classics than any rapper I’ve ever heard.

On Run DMC.
There were a lot of rappers [who inspired me]. Melle Mel, Run DMC… Run DMC, when they came out, the swagger was so crazy and confident that it made you want to be them. First video I’ve seen by them was King Of Rock and I was like, ‘bro, they are so cool, I just want to be like them.’ They were the firs rockstars of rap. Then LL was like the first solo rockstar. Fat Boys… Rappers from that era had this aura that made you look up to them. You just wanna be them as a kid.

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On Rakim and battle rap.
Rakim was the first doing complex multisyllable rhymes. Plus he had that delivery and the voice. The way he said that s–t, it was noticeably more complex but I could not figure out at that time why it was so much more complex than anything that had been out at that point. He would have internal rhyme schemes and he would rhyme inside the line. Kool G Rap was great at that too. They would rhyme inside the line and they would come back with what they originally started rhyming with. ‘Paid In Full’ is so iconic. The way he did that s–t, I was like, why does that sound so dope and how the f–k did he think of that? Nobody had done it yet at that point. You had Rakim and then Big Daddy Kane came out, and then Kool G Rap and then Masta Ace and Redman, Nas, 2Pac, Biggie, and they just pushed the genre forward. Rakim used to rhyme whole sentences. If you wrote every words down on the paper and you put them underneath of each other, every single syllable would rhyme. That’s why I watch battle rappers. They are rhyming whole sentences and f–king multisyllable in the s–t to death. It is a part of skillset that is great to have because the more you are able to rhyme a bunch of f–king syllables together and put it together and to make it make sense, that’s f–king hardest thing to do. Music taste is subjective but skillset is not.

On Masta Ace.
His first two albums are classics but the Slaughterhouse record did change the game for me. Maste Ace was good and still is good at internal rhyme schemes, the same s–t G Rap and Kane do.

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On Redman.
‘Whut? Thee Album‘ was one of the most classic hip-hop albums of all time. When he came out with that first album, it sounded so sonically different. His delivery was so captivating. His voice had so much body on it. Redman was one of those who would drop an album and get better with the next one. By the time Muddy Waters and Doc’s da Name came out, he had pushed the pen to the f–king limit. He just made ATM and staple gun rhyme! He was one of the first people I heard to bend the words. Outsidaz were doing that too when I met them. I was like, there is no rules anymore! you can take two words that naturally don’t rhyme and you can enunciate them to make them rhyme. That opened the whole new world for me. Redman was rhyming s–t shouldn’t have been rhymed. In these two albums, he was bending all those f–king words.

On Pharoahe Monch.
His verse on Bring It On, at that time, I never heard nobody do that s–t. He was doing multi-syllables but flipping. Some of the top rappers in the game right now can not outrap that s–t. Him and Prince Po pushed each other’s pen to the f–king limit.

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On Treach.
It’s several with Treach but if it was going to be the first thing you listen to from him, I would say ‘Yoke the Joker‘. That was the first thing I heard. I head ‘O.P.P.‘ and I love it. I loved the flow. I love the pockets and s–t but when I heard the ‘Yoke the Joker’ because of the seriousness of the song and the intensity and the passion he rapped with was like, oh f–k!. When I heard Treach, I didn’t write for the whole summer. When I played that album front to back first time, every song kept getting more lyrically complex. He was a master of doing so many different styles on one album. And I was like, ‘I will never be that good. I don’t even want to do this anymore.’ The song ‘Uptime Anthem’ is a pinnacle of rapping.

One album that every kid should hear before they graduate.
Illmatic by Nas. All Eyez On Me by 2Pac. I have sealed Illmatic. It’s in my collection. I didn’t even touch that motherf–ker. Actually I have two sealed Illmatic.