"I would never be anywhere near where I am today if it wasn't for them."
Nyligen släppte Eminem nya samlingsalbumet “Curtain Call 2”, där han kompletterar en lång rad hitlåtar med ett osläppt Dr. Dre x 50 Cent-samarbete och nya låten “From The D To The LBC” med Snoop Dogg. Nyligen kunde vi även höra Eminem berätta öppenhjärtigt om den tidiga karriären, i en podcast-intervju med managern Paul Rosenberg.
Nu följer Eminem upp resonemanget i podcasten, om missbruksproblem tidigt i karriären, med en “in your own words”-intervju för tidningen XXL. Med egna ord skriver han om hur droger sakta men säkert tog över hans liv efter flytten till Los Angeles och genombrottet med musiken.
“One of those changes was that drugs became a part of the way I was living my life once I got signed. When I first came out to L.A., me and some guys I was hanging out with used to go to Tijuana and we would buy drugs. Vicodin and that kinda shit. I don’t know how many times we did it, but it was so easy to go back and forth to do it.”
Eminem reflekterar sedan vidare kring musik och lyfter vikten av sina inspirationskällor tidigt under karriären. Han och rapkollegan Royce Da 5´9 kunde under 90-talet sitta hemma i vardagsrummet och imponeras av Redman och många andra hiphopikoner från den gyllene eran. Det inspirerade honom själv att vässa pennan och skriva rim med både finess och flärd. Att han fått träffa sina hiphop-idoler är något han fortfarande har svårt att förlika sig med och skriver:
“The strangest and probably the greatest thing that’s happened to me over these past 25 years in a professional sense was getting to meet all my heroes. All the MCs who inspired me coming up. It took me a long time to get over meeting Dre. When he walked into the room at Interscope, I was like, What the fuckin’ fuck? This is really happening? And then getting to meet people like Treach, Redman, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Masta Ace, Rakim. I wouldn’t be here without all of them. That’s where I got my whole inspiration from. Just studying them. Kool G Rap would put fuckin’ 10 words in two lines and it would rhyme, and they would fall right into each other. I studied that. He said, “A letter to you suckers, each and every one of you duck muthafuckas/Your girl puckers her lips, so I stuck her.” He just said a sentence, but five things rhymed in there. And to this day, I still get really fuckin’ weird and freaked out inside when I talk to LL Cool J.”
Eminem avslutar resonemanget med att lyfta några ikoniska förebilder i synnerhet:
“I listened to it, studied it, but also loved it, loved the music. Rappers like D.O.C., Tupac Shakur and Biggie. Those were all my influences. I would never be anywhere near where I am today if it wasn’t for them.”
Eminem passar även på att beskriva sin roll på hiphopscenen idag, i synnerhet rappare som Kendrick Lamar och J. Cole:
“My role in today’s hip-hop is to always try to be the best rapper. That’s it. That’s how I want to feel inside. That’s what I want to feel. And I can’t do that until I listen to what the fuck J. Cole just put out. What the fuck did Kendrick just put out? And I’m thinking, Oh, these dudes ain’t playing. I don’t want to get swept away in that shuffle. I still want to let everybody know who the fuck I am. Like I said, “They rap to be the best rappers.” I’ll hear some shit by them, and I’ll be like, Yo, I ain’t the best rapper right now. I need to fuckin’ get up, get back on my shit.”
Foto: Craig McDean / Universal Music Group
