“We were popping… Then Paul happened!” Shade 45’s 20th Anniversary broadcast brought humour, nostalgia, and a dose of future possibilities as Eminem and Paul Rosenberg looked back on their G-Unit journey.
During Shade 45’s epic five-hour anniversary special, Eminem, Paul Rosenberg, and WhooKid celebrated 20 years of hip hop radio with stories that had fans hanging on every word. The trio talked about everything from Grammy predictions to new projects. Still, their reflections on working with 50 Cent gave the fans a lot to look forward to.
When asked about the long-awaited collaboration album with 50 Cent, Eminem did not hold back:
That would be great. We just gotta stop bullshitting and do it. I would never say it’s not possible.
Paul Rosenberg quickly added his support:
I would love to hear it, so whenever you guys are ready, we’re putting it out.
The tone turned playful as Eminem joked about their early days with Fifty and Rosenberg’s “influence”:
The funnest time to me in hip hop was when we first signed Fifty. Remember, we were popping. It was a great time. We used to be really cool, man. I don’t know what the fuck happened. Paul is what happened, people!
Evenly, Rosenberg replied, “You know I’m editing all of this out?” “No, you’re not”, Eminem fired back. “WhooKid, don’t let him do it, bro!”
Meanwhile, Rosenberg explained how G-Unit Radio became a vital platform for Fifty’s rise:
Fifty had had his own movement. We wanted to give him an opportunity to have a platform for that as well. We figured out what better place to do it than with us. So, he was initially on the whole weekend, Saturday and Sunday. You [WhooKid] came in to sort of run that and that lasted for 10 years.
WhooKid couldn’t resist poking fun, adding:
Ten years of him brutally dissing every artist out there. You gave him a platform!
Rosenberg laughed and admitted:
That was before Instagram. That’s where he used to do it.
WhooKid, ever the instigator, turned to Eminem with a burning question:
I always wanted to ask — how you were dealing with Fifty? He respects the fact that you accepted all the beef and all the chaos that he had going on. What made you go that route? Some people wouldn’t.
Eminem’s answer was as genuine as it was nostalgic:
I think me and Fif connected from the first time we met. I was a fan before we actually got a chance to sign him. When we met that first time, I was rapping this whole mixtape to him. He was just looking at me, and I was like, “This dude probably thinks I’m fucking crazy”. I didn’t care back then. The way me and him connected, and how fun it was to make songs, and how quick we were making them… I was just ready, let’s go.
Paul, being a manager, did not completely share Marshall’s attitude. Yet, still, he got behind Fifty, supporting his career and his choice:
[Marshall] didn’t give a fuck, but I certainly had other ways of thinking about it. The way I saw it was: Fifty was so talented and it was such an undeniable thing to me that he was going to be a massive artist that you sort of take the little bit of the bad with the good. I knew that the talent would win out and that he was going to be huge. I just decided, hey, man, let’s buckle down and ride.
For fans, this conversation was not just a trip down memory lane but a reminder of the electric chemistry between Eminem, 50 Cent, and the Shady Records team. And who knows? Maybe that collaboration album is closer than we think.
