On that album alone, his alter ego, Slim Shady, tied me up in his basement, had sex with his mother, and killed his daughter’s mother, again, while proceeding to offend just about every special interest group we have. Well, then The Marshall Mathers LP dropped. My rebuttal to those naysayers went something like this: ‘He’s going to be the biggest-selling artist on our label.’ Little did I know he was going to be one of the best-selling music artists of all time.įrom the moment he introduced himself to the world with The Slim Shady LP, he skyrocketed to the top of the charts and stayed there for 100 weeks while earning a Grammy for Best Rap Album and Best Rap Solo Performance.Ĭan you believe after promoting violence to little children and killing his daughter’s mother, this guy still had more sh*t to get off his chest? Each of us was exactly what the other needed and I was willing to bet my entire career on it. We were two artists in do-or-die situations: he was desperate to find a way to feed his family and I was searching for something to sink my teeth into creatively. ![]() His raw, dark, and humorous lyrics coupled with an impeccable cadence stood out from anything I had ever heard before, and he was hungry. While everyone else around me had their doubts, I knew that his gift was undeniable. ‘Look at him, Dre! He has blue eyes! You can’t sign him!’ There was a massive amount of resistance from my own team and from a lot of people around me: people who had never even heard the music, but didn’t want me to sign him or work with him simply because he was white. The first time I put on a beat, he gets on the mic and says, ‘Hi, my name is.’ Boom! And that was the beginning of what became an amazing creative collaboration. We hit it off and the next thing you know, we’re at my house working. Not too long after that, we met for the first time. I guess it was my ignorance at the time, thinking that if you’re a really good rapper, you must be Black. He certainly didn’t sound like a Black rapper, especially because of what he was saying. ![]() Looking back, I don’t know why it didn’t cross my mind. The first thing I said when I heard it was, ‘What the f*ck did he just say?’ I loved it so much that I couldn’t stop listening to it.Ī few days later, Jimmy called me and said, ‘You know he’s a white guy, right?” F*cked me up! The last thing I was thinking about when I was listening was that he was white. Over 20 years ago, Jimmy Iovine, who is also one of tonight’s inductees and one of my best friends, played a demo tape for me from a guy who called himself Eminem. Read a full transcript of Dre’s speech below ( via The Detroit News) and find Eminem’s full speech here. Hailie, plug your ears: because drugs were f*cking delicious, and I thought we had a good thing going, man, but I had to go and f*ck it all up and take too many. Let me tell you something: this guy goes through a lot of sh*t just to get a concept for a song.”Įminem addressed the overdose in his own speech, too, saying, “I almost died from an overdose in 2007, which kind of sucked. Dre gave an entertaining and moving speech, during which he also made time for some humor.Īt one point, Dre joked about Eminem’s history with drugs, saying, “Em would go on to overdose, relapse, and recover not only on his albums, but also in real life. Predictably and appropriately, it was longtime associate Dr. ![]() This weekend, Eminem entered the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
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