Xzibit’s interview brought up even more memories from a veteran rapper who spent the summer of 2000 on tour with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Eminem.
There is famous archive footage from the tour where Xzibit says backstage:
We have a censorship issue with Eminem, somebody’s worried about him doing “I’ll kill you”. I told him “Fuck that! Do it twice tonight!”
This is how he commented on that incident:
They were fucking with Marshall back in the day. A lot of activists groups were protesting outside the concerts, they were really trying to make it hard for my guy and they made him a poster child of everything wrong with America. And it was like, “Really?” There’s like a lot of other shit before Eminem that you guys can fuck with. That was in Toronto. And they really fucked with us in Detroit, they didn’t want us to show the film before the beginning of Dre’s set, they really gave us a hard time about it. But this is the First Amendment right. These people are coming to the concert because you think they haven’t heard the records? They know what they are coming to see. They know well what we’re gonna be talking about! You think you’re helping because they’re not gonna get the 50-second clip before we come out and say the same shit as on the screen? I mean, these people are coming because they know what the fuck we’re talking about!
The momentum that hip-hop gained that summer left a mark on the culture, thinks Xzibit:
Everybody was moving in the same direction, we were around each other a lot. Paul Rosenberg – shout out to Paul, shout out to everybody at Goliath artist management – they put it together. It’s like we all were pushing toward the same goal and that’s how all that music, all that movement and that solidarity that happened at that time was pushing towards supporting Dr. Dre and Dr.Dre’s “2001”. And everybody knew how big that shit was gonna feel when it came out. So everybody was trying to work together to make sure that after we get off that tour we can keep it going. That’s what wrestlers came from and all them other songs and records, and D12. Phenomenal!
Watch the video below:
