“This was before the internet and shit so it was really just a song that we were probably riding around in our neighbourhoods playing for people. “It was just a song that we had,” says Royce. Dre, it ended up being the only track that contained a named guest feature on ‘The Slim Shady LP’. The first track Royce Da 5’9” and Eminem ever recorded together was ‘Bad Meets Evil’, which later also became the name of their rap duo. Outrageous at the best of times – on ‘I’m Shady’ he spits: “ My baby mama’s not dead, she’s still alive and bitchin’/And I don’t have herpes, my dick’s just itchin’/It’s not syphilis, and as for being AIDS-infested/I don’t know yet, I’m too scared to get tested” – you’d be forgiven for thinking you were listening to a Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase collaborative stand-up album. Think ‘Role Model’ and the lyrics: “ I’ll strangle you to death, then I’ll choke you again/And break your fucking legs ’til your bones poke through your skin.”įull of ‘did-he-really-just-say-that?’ moments and harsh reality raps, what helped the album stand out the most was Em’s extreme sense of humour. While great music can prick up your ears and touch the soul, most of ‘The Slim Shady LP’ can hit you in the face like a sledgehammer. “They just put it on there like that, I had nothing to do with my own credit,” he says, holding his head in his hands. The one credit Denaun did get on ‘The Slim Shady LP’ was as pre-producer and drum programmer on ‘Just Don’t Give A Fuck’, but even then his name was spelt incorrectly within the album’s inlay – it read ‘Denine Porter’. And this is something I don’t even think Marshall was aware of but I know he was getting jerked around by them too so it doesn’t matter now.” I kinda got left in the wind when it came down to that because I wasn’t there and Mark and Jeff were in control. I heard a lot of nuances that resembled things I’d sent over, so I was like, ‘Wait a minute!’ So I just stopped sending shit. “So I was sending them the music and I was listening to what they were making and I felt like the things that I heard Jeff playing was influenced by my shit. I was like, ‘You go do your thing and I’ma be there and I’ll make it too’ – this was before we did the group thing. I wasn’t one to run up on him like, ‘Since you made it, I made it.’ Nah. When Em got the deal I was sending music over to Mark and Jeff Bass hoping they were just gonna give it to Em like normal because that was the regular thing. “So this is the first time I’ve ever told this story because I never felt comfortable telling it before. So why did Denaun not work on the album if he was so instrumental in getting Em signed? So while I didn’t directly work on ‘The Slim Shady LP’, because of that moment it felt like I did.” So he turns to me and he says, ‘Well you’re the reason we’re here.’ And I couldn’t believe it. He did ‘Just Don’t Give A Fuck’ and he did ‘Low Down, Dirty’.’ So this person was name checking all the shit that Dre had heard that made him wanna sign Em. “Somebody introduced me to him and was like, ‘Yo, this is Denaun.
![eminem named the slim shady lp a classic lyrics eminem named the slim shady lp a classic lyrics](https://static.hiphopdx.com/2019/03/190312-eminem-getty.jpg)
“When I met Dre for the first time I was nervous,” he admits.
![eminem named the slim shady lp a classic lyrics eminem named the slim shady lp a classic lyrics](https://i.etsystatic.com/24178889/c/1851/1471/71/158/il/4e1be3/2451533930/il_340x270.2451533930_5afm.jpg)
“I just remember he was knocking them down, like he was killing the songs as they were coming to him.”Īnd if it wasn’t for Denaun and his work on the ‘Slim Shady EP’ we might never have heard of Eminem, or so Dr.
![eminem named the slim shady lp a classic lyrics eminem named the slim shady lp a classic lyrics](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2018/09/10/gettyimages-930683002-8f4d5da3c365de5d5891dfa71528a661dc9a3224.jpg)
“I wasn’t there when they were picking the tracks for the album,” Denaun explains to NME.