Your relationship with Eminem runs deep. He mentioned recently in a press release that he got his start with you. Can you share your history with Eminem?
I’ve been very fortunate to watch the beginning of his career to now. Certain individuals that I think epitomize what it means to be a successful artist in Hip Hop and even beyond, Eminem, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, certain guys who have accomplished and reached that height, Em, when we used 1st met, had a cassette tape that he was peddling back then and me and my partner King Tech took it to the radio station that we were on at that time in Los Angeles, we were syndicated worldwide, like in France, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South America, Japan, and we started playing him and he was known at that time as this little white kid who could bust, who could freestyle, and that was a big element of our show. We invited him up and we put him around a circle of wolves from Rass Kass, to Chino XL, Supernatural, the Barber Shop MCs, Chocolate Thai, Chrondon, Phil The Agony, Xzibit, each week, Em came back and dude just got more and more phenomenal at his metaphors and at his patterns. When he first came in he was quiet and respectful but when he jumped on the mic, he was like a storm and at the time, he didn’t get treated more special than any other dope mc, but you knew he had something special and we just kept letting him back on the Wake Up Show and would feature him on Wake Up Show volumes (records) and he became very popular. I remember when he first signed to Dr. Dre, I don’t even think he remembers this, he came to our house in The Valley in LA, because we eventually got a production deal at Interscope Records based on how many artists we were trying to help and get discovered, from Jurassic 5 to Planet Asia to Will.i.am before there were the Black Eyed Peas, so we had a studio and we wanted him to record on a song called ‘Get You Mad’. So he came to the house, we shot some ball, and he basically told us that “hey man, Dre offered me a deal, he’s interested in working with me and this is it” because we were going to do some things independently with him, but that was Dre! So we were like “congratulations!” I felt proud, like a family member watching another family member graduate into their life doing what they always wanted to do. I’m glad we were able to be a part of that. When I came to MTV maybe 2 or 3 years later, I already had a relationship with him so when it came time to doing an interview him, it was like interviewing the homie, even though the homie was millions of dollars richer and a hundred times more famous, but to me, he was stil Em. Since then, we’ve had some monumental interviews. I feel like today, he’s just as hungry as that artist back then who was looking for a deal. He ain’t looking for money now, he just as hungry with his artistry. A lot of guys, when they reach a certain zone, just leave them alone, when you watch them go out the ball park, just watch them and watch the next steps to see where they’ll take us. Eminem is like that, Jay-Z is like that. Those are the people I like to call “the untouchables”. Leave them alone. Fifty is like that. What he’s doing as a business man, what Diddy has done as a business man, you almost have to leave them alone and see what they’ll come up with.
Doing Shade 45 is not something I have to do, it’s something I wanted to do. I went up there to host it one morning, and I had such a great time, it reminded me of what it was like doing the Wake Up Show with King Tech, what we were able to accomplish for artists like Eminem and it just clicked to me, I always considered it, but never thought about it seriously, doing satellite, but I realized with this platform, that I’m able to do things I’m not able to do on any other platform. And why not do it with Eminem? We’re cut from a similar cloth and what they want to do with Shade 45 the brand goes along the lines with what I want to do for the culture and so we have nothing to prove, the rating system is different, so I can play a Kendrick Lamar, he may not have a hit record yet, but I can still give him a platform.
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