For several days, fans have been discussing Eminem’s recently announced appearance on Rakim’s new collaboration album. Meanwhile, Em’s own management is as surprised by the claim as everybody else.
High hopes
The story took off after Matthew “M80” Markoff, an A&R and businessman who executive produces Rakim’s records, shared a tracklist draft for an upcoming collaborative album of Rakim, Kurupt, and Masta Killa. The feature list was impressive, though largely consistent with the names that regularly appear on the projects Markoff works on. However, the unnamed track listed sixth, which promised to feature Eminem and Jaÿ-Z, was marked as an “Interlude”.
The news spread quickly. While many netizens placed great value in the very fact that three hip hop veterans came together for a shared project, some were excited about young indi artists having a placement on the album. At the same time, most attention quickly shifted to one thing only – Eminem and Hov together again on the track! But if something is too good to be true, it usually isn’t.
The devil is in the details
Nevertheless, many media outlets picked up the story and ran with it, without looking into the producer’s background or the comments beneath the original post. Even such reputable publications as Complex, NME, Rolling Stone, XXL, The Source, and more, all ran headlines like “Jaÿ-Z and Eminem to reunite on Rakim album with first track together in 25 years”.
XXL, reporting on the story on its Instagram account, mentioned that it was unclear whether Eminem and Jaÿ-Z would rap on the track. Yet commenting on the very post that sparked the headlines, M80 had already clarified: “There is no rapping on the Em x Jay interlude”. Given Markoff’s licensing business, the use of interview excerpts always seemed more plausible. It was far easier to imagine a producer using archived audio than Eminem recording spoken-word material for an interlude.
No confirmation from Eminem’s camp
You would think that if Eminem had indeed recorded something for a new project, his longtime friend and manager, Paul Rosenberg, would know about it. Yet his public reaction certainly suggested otherwise. Reacting to the XXL post claiming “Jaÿ-Z and Eminem will reunite on the new Rakim, Kurupt and Masta Killa collab album”, Paul Rosenberg commented, “News to me…”
In other words, do not expect any exclusive material from Eminem and from Jaÿ-Z, for that matter, on this album. M80 is very careful in his choice of words; he did not say anything that is not technically true. Having a background in law and experience with licensing at a professional level, Markoff remains on legally sound ground, even with with wording that encourages speculation. In all probability, Eminem’s involvement will manifest as a snippet from the archived interview, with permission obtained from a broadcaster who most likely owns the recording.
Let’s just hope that this hype, generated by M80’s teaser campaign, who has been acting as Rakim’s publicist for years, will bring attention to the collaboration of three hip hop veterans.