Thursday afternoon, somewhere in Switzerland. Just a normal Thursday. Normal? Hell no! R’n’B superlover ladykiller Usher was going to perform in Winterthur, and Royce Da 5’9’’, who is due to release his debut album “Rock City”, was going to support him. Well, and we were there too and had a good time with him…

Royce, the bio of your label tells us that in 1990, when you met Eminem…

interruptingThat’s wrong, I started rappin’ in ‘94/’95. And I met Eminem in ’97…

… Go on, go on…

…yeah, we were performing as support act for Usher too, at the Palladium Centre in Detroit. And we got introduced to each other by a neutral friend, we were both makin’ noise in different parts of the city. So we got introduced to each other, he had an independent underground record then and was there selling his tapes, and we were like, we should do something together. We got together and did “Bad Meets Evil” which appeared on his first album. We’ve been workin’ together ever since.

So how was hip hop in Detroit back in the days? We never really heard of anyone from there till Eminem came up and out…

The scene was always right alert. It was always very, very diverse. A lot of different people rhymin’ in very different kinda ways. Back when I met Eminem, he was like the man for local hip hop, guys in Detroit knew him. We was like the young cats comin’ up, me and my crew, so I was very glad to be introduced to the local greatest… The hip hop scene is st rong in Detroit, even though people don’t know yet, and Eminem did a lot for us, if I hadn’t met him, I wouldn’t have made a lot accomplishments I made in order to get where I am now. I owe him a lot of success

I think the interesting thing about you is that you did not appear from one day to another, but that people were able to hear you on Major Records such as Slim’s first one or DJ Clue’s “The Professional Part 2” when there was nothing about you and a major or something. Even though you were underground, a lot of people already know your name…

I think that’s all about how much attention you pay, you know? People who went to underground Detroit record stores heard of me way before you did, of course, they were close to the source. It depends on what you see, if you intensively listen to underground MCs you might hear stuff done by people who become stars two years later, and you already heard them, other people just happened to grab the name with the sellout track or sellout record that made someone a star. Slim Shady put out a lot of underground records even though big radio stations never heard of him before he signed with Aftermath Records. I think everybody comes through the underground in some way, there are different ways, of course. People who just show up are the people that afterwards fall off the hardest.

How do you feel about being called Eminem’s sidekick? I mean, people often mention you as the guy on Em’s side…

On one hand, it’s cool, ‘cause I’m down with Slim and everything, we’re cool and we do tough records together. On the other hand, it feels like sh*t ‘cause sooner or later an artist comes to the point where he likes to be taken seriously as an only person, as himself. You wanna be defined by yourself, your music and everything, not by collabos together with someone else.

Your crew…

It’s called D.Elite, got different members among myself, and we’re going to put out records all together, different solo albums etc. It’s a crew of young Detroit cats, time is going to show everyone what type of sound that’s gonna be. By the way, D.Elite can be heard on my first record “Rock City” which is due to come out in a couple of days.

So are you trying to bring the sound back to Detroit?

This is a huge project. The thing is: Detroit was once called motown, because of the music, because everyone and everybody knew that Detroit was off the hook when it came up to music. Now, it’s not, Detroit is just Detroit, you know? Eminem and D-12 did a lot, and myself and my crew D.Elite, we’re tryin’ to make another step forward in order to get Detroit reestablished on the musical map. When people wanted to make good music, they went to Cali or to New York. We want people from our area to stay, stay where it’s at, you know?

Enough said, thanks for the interview!

Three hours later, Royce came on stage together with his homies from D.Elite – people did not really feel him, in fact, they were just there to see Usher performing with and without his t-shirt. Royce was kinda unknown and unresponsed. “Rock City” is definitely gonna change things, it’s a dope record. Detroit lives!


Peep Music Video "Rock City" feat. Eminem