It is a known fact that the new generation of rappers grew up listening to Eminem. But nobody went down this path earlier than Baby Smoove.
The young Detroit talent sat dawn with Our Generation Music to talk about his music, work ethics and career as an independent hip hop artist. Then the question of music influences came up, and Baby Smoove shared a shocking story:
I know it’s gonna sound crazy ‘cause you ain’t never really heard nobody from Detroit say this. Eminem. But not like that, though… My mommy used to have these CD cases, you know, the ones you zip, and they hold all that. So I had moved to Memphis with my grandma when I was like four or five. On the way down there, I had a little Sony CD player, you know, the one with the batteries you click open. My grandma and grandpa, they’re driving to Tennessee, they’re doing 55 the whole way there. They’re not playing no music except gospel tapes. So I played that Marshall Mathers LP for probably a week. It fucked my head up because that’s how I thought life was. You know, Eminem had got a lot of issues. To be four and to play this music… My sister had just died, I was seeing my mama cry a lot, so it was like, “Damn, that’s what this shit is really like”. It was so much, I couldn’t even take it all in. I don’t know, I let it grow with me. “Stan”, “Mockingbird”, “Kill You”, and “Kim”. “The Way I Am”, that’s my favourite one.
Well, Marshall has never been writing for 4-year-olds, and it indeed might be a traumatic experience. But it is also evident that Baby Smoove listened to Eminem’s music longer than a week in his earlier childhood. At least judging by how confidently he recited a big chunk of the MMLP tracklist from the top of his head.
Watch the video below:
