In the Shady Records history, few unfinished stories feel as frustrating as Slaughterhouse. Now, Royce 5’9 has spoken at length about the group’s collapse, making it very clear that they are not coming back together.
A quiet stream
Some time ago, Royce went live on Instagram with his wife to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Mostly, the tone was calm. He spoke about his recovery, the pause on his plans to write a book, and the calm of cooking at home. However, fans were quick to ask Royce a question that cast a shadow on a celebratory event. “Will Slaughterhouse get back together or is the bridge burnt?”, inquired a listener, prompting a shift of the mood.
No hopes for reunion
Royce addressed the situation directly, starting with a point he wanted to make clear: “Slaughterhouse is definitely not getting back together now. Even though it wasn’t beef… it never was beef. It never was feelings of beef”.
Instead, he framed the fallout as something more complicated. “I was just hurt. I was hurt and confused. Because like, why would you? Why would you mess up something so special?”
For Royce, the issue was not rivalry but the lack of communication. “I thought me and Crook were tight enough”, Royce says, adding that the relationship they had was almost familial. “If he was thinking about, ‘Yo, I’m out,’ he would just come to me and tell me”.
Instead, in 2022, two out of four Slaughterhouse MCs, KXNG Crooked & Joell Ortiz, came out with an album in which they discussed the tension within the group and blamed their bandmates for refusing to revive it. Royce and Joe Budden were livid. “We had numerous conversations, and he had plenty of opportunities to tell me. I knew that he purposely withheld telling me. So he can blindside us with the album, get a response, and then keep engagement. I knew that he purposely withheld telling me. So he can blindside us with the album”, Royce reflects on the situation.
The album in question, Rise and Fall of Slaughterhouse, debuted on the Billboard 200 and seems to have made a reconciliation between the group members impossible.
Looking back, Royce doesn’t sound angry, but the disappointment is still there.
“It never was beef. It felt to me more like betrayal… I ain’t know if I should be mad, I ain’t know if I should be sad”.
Lost opportunity
Royce also revealed how much work had gone into trying to revive the group before everything collapsed. “I had a whole lot of plans and ideas for the Slaughterhouse. We had all these meetings, and then just out of nowhere, boom, they pull that”.
For him, the timing was especially difficult. “Creatively I was in a weird space, where I just didn’t really know what I even wanted to rap about. So to get in there with them would have been easier for me to do”.
That opportunity never came.
Bitter aftertaste
Despite everything, Royce turned the focus inward. “I don’t like the way that I handled it, Royce says in a measured voice. “I should have kept a lot of my feelings to myself”. At the same time, he did not soften his view of how the others handled things. “The way Crook and Joelle handled it, it’s inexcusable”. Even so, he is trying to move forward. “I’m gonna give grace, and I’m gonna try to think of the good memories”.
And yet, on the idea of making music together again, he was firm: “In terms of coming back together and trying to rekindle some sort of creative spark, that’s not going to happen”.
The legend of Glasshouse
Still, fans wanted to know if there was any hope of hearing Glasshouse, and it seems like nobody hopes for an official release any longer. This unreleased album, recorded under Shady Records, has taken on near-mythical status. However, Royce shut down one possibility straight away. “If Glasshouse ever leaks, it’s not going to be from me. One thing I’m always doing is being a professional. I honour my relationships and my commitments. I have a relationship with Marshall, Paul, and Shady Records. I’m not about to go behind their backs”.
At the same time, he did not hide what the album means to him. “I want y’all to hear it, though. It’s definitely our best work”. Royce described a group that had moved beyond competition, taking a lesson from their previous release and applying it to their best project to date.
“Everybody was in a zone, and everybody was super personal and transparent. It was indicative of where everybody was at the time. Coming off of Welcome to our house and feeling like we didn’t really hit our mark, but we learned so much from just missing the target that we had so much input. We had so much to say, so much that we wanted to talk about. So it became something much better than just us seeing who can rap the best”.
That is why, for him, the loss feels especially heavy. “Creatively, it’s heartbreaking”.
Closing the book
The story of Slaughterhouse might be over, but Royce tries to focus on the best pages of the history he shared with some of the most remarkable artists of his generation. He still speaks with pride about what they achieved. He also accepts that the group was always composed of strong voices and that their strength could predict the group’s demise.
“We were never group members”, Royce’s reflection is unflinching. “We were always solo artists anyway. It had to end at some point. I just don’t like the way it ended”.
And for fans, Glasshouse remains out of reach. What could have been at least a memory cannot even be a dream now.