This is for my family, the kid who had a cameo on my last jam, plus the man who never had a plan B
Be all you can be, cause once you make an instant hit,
I’m tensed a bit and tempted when I see the sins my friends commit… I’m Infinite!
— Eminem (1996)
On Sound Session with DJ Hyphen, October 15 ’09:
Royce:
Well, I heard him before I met him. I heard him before I met him and I couldn’t believe it, I was blown away. I thought not only was he too big to be rhyming locally in my city, but I thought he could be the biggest thing in rap when I first heard him.Cause the ‘Slim Shady EP’ was not too far different from the ‘Slim Shady LP’. I mean, the whole thing was done, packaged and being sold already before I met him.
DJ Hyphen: So you didn’t hear—what was the one before that—it was ‘Infinite’ right?
Royce:
‘Infinite’, yeah. I heard ‘Infinite’ too. I heard the ‘Slim Shady EP’ first and then I did research and went and listened to ‘Infinite’. Which was also incredible to me.
DJ Hyphen: Yeah, that’s a crazy record. People kinda forget about it.
Royce:
He really went crazy with the syllables on that ‘Infinite’ record.
DJ Hyphen: Yup.
Royce:
You know so, just me being an MC, man, that’s the type of thing I was paying attention to when I was listening to him back then. So when I finally got a chance to meet him it was more so like, ‘I want to see what this dude look like, what he act like’, cause when you listen to him you feel like you know him already. You expect him to act a certain way, carry himself a certain way.So, I was actually opening up for Usher. Usher was in Detroit, and I was opening up for him.
DJ Hyphen: What year was this?
Royce:
This was ’97. December 29th to be exact, and I’m-a tell you why I know the exact day. That same day my grandmother died and my son was born that same day.
DJ Hyphen: Wow, circle of life.
Royce:
But they was in the same hospital. My wife went to the hospital to go into labor. I went to see her and accidentally got off on the wrong floor and my uncle was standing there. So my grandmother had got into a accident and they just happened to take her to that hospital but she don’t live in that area.
DJ Hyphen: That’s crazy.
Royce:
It’s a crazy story.
DJ Hyphen: Yeah. And that night you had to perform?
Royce:
That night I was contractually obligated to perform, so i went ahead and did it. My manager Kino introduced us, you know we both heard each other, he was “Yo, man!”Cause I was on stage and I did a acapella, and I said—don’t laugh—but I said, “I’m iller than standing in front of a gorilla holding a banana”. That was ill for back then. I said, “I’m iller than standing in front of a gorilla holding a banana.”
And Em, when I met him, he was like, “Yo! Did you just say, ‘I’m iller than standing in front…’”
I was like, “Yeah, man!”
He was like, “Yo, we need to do something.”
So, we start talking on the phone, like MC conversations. And then we end up doing Bad Meets Evil. And then I don’t know how many years later or months later, he got his deal. He called me, and was like “Yo, I want to put that song on my album, can come out to Cali so we can redo it? I just signed a deal with Dr. Dre.”
I was like, “Alright.”
DJ Hyphen: Yeah, so how many songs did you guys do together as Bad Meets Evil. You got the EP that came out, I think it was even really just kinda like a CD-Maxi kinda thing.
Royce:
Yeah, no it was just two songs. It was Scary Movies and Nuttin’ to Do.
DJ Hyphen: Ooh. Classics.
Royce:
One, two three four.. we did about probably six. We did a few that didn’t come out too. Cause when I signed a deal with Tommy Boy, me and Em did a couple songs that we didn’t actually end up using.
DJ Hyphen: For the Tommy Boy abum? Nice. Since only a couple of those songs have come out, I think it’s kinda safe to say that at least for hip-hop fans and nerds like myself, like Bad Meets Evil is gonna go down as one of those all-time like unrealized potential groups, at the moment. So what, has there been talk about future stuff, like maybe moreso than like guest appearances here and there, and collabs here and there, but perhaps actually revisiting this thing?
Royce:
It’s hard to tell. It’s hard to tell. I know I’m excited at the possibility of being able to get in there with Em with the Slaughterhouse project. That even being a possibility excites me. You know, so like, I really try and just think one thing at a time. I think if we can get in there and work on the Slaughterhouse thing I think it can open doors for a lot more work with just me and him.You know, cause then we we get back around each other, back from how each other work now. Cause I think I can give him a little more run for his money now than I could back then. Cause he used to just wipe the floors with me back then.
DJ Hyphen: Really? I was gonna say, I had another question about this, because we literally used to have arguments in high school and in college about like who came better on certain songs. And you would have given it to Em on pretty much every one of those?
Royce:
No, I don’t think I won, ever. I think he was, that was like a, man it was like a rap lesson, like I learned like, half of the stuff that I know, like the technical part of my style? Comes from him.Just little stuff I picked up from him, and I was such a student back then—even though I still am now—but, now I’m more seasoned and I can take what I’ve learned and put it more into my stuff now so I’m just, I just wanna see how it’s gonna work now, us being around each other and working. Maybe I can possibly show him something. So I could say something, or brag about something, but I don’t know man, I think I can give him a little more run for his money now even though now he’ll probably still wipe the floors with me.
DJ Hyphen: It’s not like too many people are giving him that much competition. I remember when you guys [Slaughterhouse] were all out here we asked you like who would you put in your own supergroup? And to a man everyone said first and foremost like ‘Em.’ Obviously in it. How does it feel to have like a friend and a colleague be hands-down one of the greatest MCs of all time?
Royce:
Yeah, it’s crazy man, it feels great. I’ve been getting asked this question for 11 years.
DJ Hyphen: Yeah, I was gonna say, and you’re going to be asked it probably for 30, 40 more years.
Royce:
Like I said man, listen. I’m excited, maybe it’s a possibility that I can perform, now that I’m performing close to my peak of my potential, like I wanna get around him and show him what I could do now because I know that he’s near the peak of his potential, you know what I’m saying, so I think, I’m scared to see what we might come up with.
DJ Hyphen: Yeah, do you remember like one thing specifically that you took from like a bar of his, or a line of his, or something that you saw him do?
Royce:
Well, he taught me how to pronounce words like, pronounce ‘em and make ‘em rhyme.
DJ Hyphen: Yeah. The one I always look at is “four inch screws” and “orange juice”, like on ‘Brain Damage’ or whatever.
Royce:
Yeah yeah. Four inch screws, orange…
DJ Hyphen: Like I never would have put those words together.
Royce:
Do you know how long I was in the booth, when like, “When we hit the trees till we look like Vietnamese people” cause I was saying, “when – we – hit – the – trees”, like I was pronouncing every word.But he taught me how to slur it out, “when we hit the trees till we look like Vietnamese people”. But he was saying it like that, telling me say it just like this. Once it clicked in my head, it was like, “oh!”
That’s one secret he taught me with flow. I factor that into my stuff now, and I think that’s one of the reasons why everybody be like, “Yo man, your flow!” That’s the first thing they say. It’s not like I can come up with the best lines in the world but I come with that flow that match that beat, make a perfect marriage.
DJ Hyphen: The flow kind of takes over the lines, takes precedence over the lines , I feel like. Cause there are a lot of MCs that spit great lines, but they work so hard to set them up, and it’s so obvious when they’re like forcing in words to fit.
Royce:
I hate that.
DJ Hyphen: That’s the worst. The one I always think is like when they’re writing things you can tell they’re writing and then they have to write down the side of the page they’re going and they keep writing to fill in all the lines.
Royce:
*laughs* Yeah I try and make it like another instrument. Like my voice is another instrument on the beat. People appreciate that.
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