Akon reminds that during his “Smack That” session with Eminem more music was created but never finalised.
The “Konvicted” star told the story of his collaboration with Marshall on Paul Logan’s podcast. Akon still gets excited replaying his visit to detroit to get a feature from Em for his then upcoming album:
That was amazing. I got to Em through Obie Trice actually. Real name, no gimmicks. I reached out to Rosenberg first, his manager. And Rosenberg was like, “No problem, we make it happen”. Everybody knows Rosenberg. He’s like a bulletproof vest, you gotta go through him to get to Em, without a doubt. I said, “Yo, I need this shit fast”. And I know, Rose gonna go through the whole process, due diligence… I need to get to him before he does. So I called Obie, I said, “Obie where are you at?” He said, “I’m in Detroit”. I said, “Where’s Em?” He said, “He’s probably in the studio”. I said, “I need you to make an introduction for me”. He said, “Yeah, yeah, when you’re coming down?’ I said, “I’m gonna book my flight right now. Are you gonna be there tomorrow?” I booked my flight, I get there. Obie picks me up at the airport and takes me to this strip club (I got there at night). We go to the strip club, we have an amazing time. In the morning he takes me to the studio. I said, “What time do we need to get there?” He said, “Be ready at 08:30”. I’m like, “That’s early as fuck” This was before I had discipline. He said, “Bro, trust me, if you ain’t there at 08:30…Just be there”. So we get into the studio around 09:00. Em is in the studio. I’m ready to walk in and Obie is like, “Wait, he’s working on something”. So I wait. I’m being very polite and shit. Em comes out, “Yo, yo, what’s up, what’s up”. Obie connects as, says, “I get to go. Peace, I’m out” and he gets out of here, he’s gone.
Em wants to know what I’m working on, so I played Em some records. Then I said to play me some stuff. He said, “I produce”. Get the fuck outta here?! He said, “I got beats. I’m serious”. So he played me beats and I’m sitting here listening to his beats and I’m like, “All this shit sound like Eminem beats”. If he rapped any one of these beats, the shit would be a hit without a doubt. Then he played “Smack That” beat. Oh shit! I think this is it! At this point knows I produce as well. In my mind I’m like, this would be even doper if he produced the record . And there is more motivation for him to follow through. I’m like, no, this gotta be Eminem record, I just want to be a feature on this motherfucker. He goes to lunch. By the time he comes back, the song was done. He heard it and he’s like, “Oh fuck, this is a hit”. I said, “Yo, it would be bigger if you jumped on it”. He said, “You know what, you are right. This shit is dope. Alright, cool, I see you tomorrow”.He leaves. He comes back next day. He has a verse on that motherfucker. And I’m thinking, whose record this gonna be? Is it gonna be mine or his? So he plays me the verse and I was like, “This is the best shit I heard you ever do. We should put it on your album”. He said, “Nah, I thought it was for your album. This is your shit”. I said, cool, and in my mind I’m celebrating.
We did three records that day. That was the record that he ended up jumping on. The other two, I held them. To this day, I still got them. I still got those two records I have not released them yet. Eminem is not on them yet. It’s Eminem-produced beats. And in my mind I’m saying, okay, I’ma wait to further down the line, maybe album number four or five, and then I come back to him and replay this records for him so he not gonna forget about it. I gotta get back to Detroit and remind him of those records. Out of all the records, those three records were like out of here!
Interestingly, a year ago, Akon was talking about five records made during that session. He might have narrowed the number of potential joints down to three to be more realistic. On the other hand, he promised Paul Logan that Eminem would be happy to hop on his podcast, so maybe he is still not realistic enough.
Watch the interview with Akon below:
