Eminem served as the first guest on LL Cool J’s new show “The Influence Of Hip-Hop” on his Sirius XM channel Rock The Bells Radio. During his time on the show, Em looked back at his first ever meeting with hip hop mogul Dr. Dre.
“The Slim Shady EP that we pressed up staring moving some decent amount of units,” he says. “We had a guy in Vegas who wanted to buy 5,000 of ’em. We were like, ‘Oh shit!’ So, we go to Vegas. We started running around, putting the shit on consignment at different stores and stuff. I come back to the hotel just from doing that and Marky Bass was like, ‘Man, we gotta a call from some doctor. He wants to meet with you.’ I’m like, ‘Don’t fuck with me. Don’t fuck with me. Do not fuck with me.’”
“Because I remember I was in the car with these two chicks right before I went out to Vegas to sell the tapes […] and these two chicks in the car were playing ‘Phone Tap,'” he continued. “I was like, ‘Yo, if I could just get with Dre, oh my god.’ Literally a week later, we got a meeting with Dre when we go out there. And that was it.”
Later on in the interview, the Shady Records founder speaks about his thought process when writing “Stan,” his 2000 classic about fan obsession from the Marshall Mathers LP.
“When I first got in the game, I didn’t understand a lot of shit,” he explains. “If you were walking outside the venue after a show, you saw some fans and took some pictures and shit, there’s always going to be somebody that you don’t get a chance to get to. That was one of the things that I started seeing.”
“It was my first experience with it … I think it was combination of what I was going through at that time and experiencing fame for the first time and all that stuff.”
“I basically put myself in the fan’s shoes.”
The 45-year old Detroit legend also discusses the power of hip hop and developing the courage to air his thoughts through music. Checkout the highlights in the YouTube video below.
Em’s interview with Cool J is part of a monthly hip hop segment The Influence Of Hip-Hop co-hosted by DJ Z-Trip. The program will feature reflective interviews with hip hop artists about their careers and most cherished moments.
The full interview premiers September 1st at 3 p.m. ET on Rock The Bells Radio on SiriusXM, channel 43.
