Big Naz, a man who worked with Eminem when the fame just came to him, has a lot of stories to tell about that time.
He actually wrote a tell-all book in the matter titled “Shady Bizzness” and made a press round with it last year. This particular story, however, Cam Capone News, who did the interview with Big Naz in 2019, released on the 1st of November.
This is the action-filled story about the fight that started when Eminem could not bear with a heckler from the crowd any longer. That happened in San Francisco, in May 1999:
Yeah, there was a guy in the crowd, man, oh my god, complete riot, man. It’s a guy in the crowd that was heckling Em: “Fuck you Em! You are shit! You’re fucking wack!” All that kind of stuff. And Em stops the show. He said, “Hey, motherfucker, what’d you say to me?” Now, he had already been drinking, you know. I won’t say he was inebriated but it was one of those things where he was high, his adrenaline was high, he’s in the highest point of his show and he gets somebody heckling on him and talking shit. The guy like throwing him [middle fingers], “Fuck you motherfucker!” Then Em stops the show. He told DJ, “Stop the fucking record, Imma address this motherfucker right here”. The guy was front and centre. He said, “Man, fuck you man, get the fuck out of here”. The guy was, “Fuck you!” The next thing I know, Em jumps off the stage with a flying right hook. He hit the guy. Hit the wrong fucking dude.
So I jumped in, Proof jumped in, the DJ jumped in, the sound man jumped in, the Interscope street team jumped in. All the opening acts jumped in. It’s like 3,500 people in this place and we’re fighting everybody. It’s about maybe 30 of us, that’s not even one per cent of the crowd.
That was nothing really special about that heckler, admits Naz, Marshall used to receive treatment like that quite often and also he was not shy of getting into the thick of it:
It was like every other night, we get this shit all the time. He was always jumping in the crowd. Every night he jumped in the crowd, every night, crowd surf. Sometimes you get down and get in the mosh pit. But when he jumped in [this time] it shocked me that he jumped in to fight. I had never seen that before. When he jumped in the fight that changed everything, man. Because he’s in the air like a damn superhero that hit the guy, but he hit the wrong dude. So now he jumps in, he hits the wrong guy, now he’s down there fighting. He’s on the bottom of a shit-kicking pile. I jump in, I go to get him, I get a guy hit me in the back of my ear. So now everybody’s rushing to the front. I was like, “Fuck Em, this guy just hit me!” So the guy that hit me, I hit him. I hit him so hard, I knocked him out. The crowd had him wavering back and forth. So the guy when I knocked him out, he didn’t get a chance to fall, so he was wavering back and forth like a dead fish in the water.
Then Proof jumps in. He was, “Hey, we’ve got to get Em!” So we’re pulling these guys off Em. It’s about four guys. We’re pulling them off, we’re pulling them off… The last guy that’s on Em is hitting him. So Proof goes in, he is kicking the guy, some big dude, man. Em’s on the bottom, he’s giving the guy some real shots. Proof is hitting this guy so hard, man, it sounds like somebody banging on bongos. Now I get my shots in too, I’m not gonna lie. We ended up breaking the guy’s ribs. I grab the last guy off Em, throw him… Mind you, while we’re doing this we’re still getting hit, punched, kicked but we got to focus on Em. So people are getting free shots at us because we’re trying to focus on Em. I take Em, I throw him back on stage. I take Proof, I throw him back on stage. And there was a point where me, Young Zee and a couple of the guys from the Outsidaz, we’re back to back knocking motherfuckers out. We’re dropping people, man. You run up – you get dropped.
So at that point, it was just people laid out. The crowd was an absolutely pandemonium, man. So now I hope those guys back on so I’m the last one to get on the stage. I’m taking the most hits out of everybody: ribs, back of the head, the head. I think, like “Fuck, we gotta get out of here!” Because it’s gonna turn to a riot at this point. So we get back on stage. The crowd, man, they’re yelling, they’re going nuts, this is total fucking chaos, man. I get back on stage, I said, “Yo, we gotta fucking go! Get out of here right now!” So we run to the tour manager, Gus. Gus stops us. Gus got the doorway blocked from the side of the stage. He says, “Nope, we gotta finish this show. ‘Cause if we don’t finish this show these motherfuckers are gonna kill us. The show must go on. Get your ass back out here and finish the show”. I said, “Gus, are you serious?! Motherfuckers are gonna kill us!”
So by this time people are moshing the pit. It’s getting worse and worse. Fights breaking out. DJ gets back up on the turntables, he’s mixing the songs, he’s queuing up “Just Don’t Give A Fuck”, so the crowd starts to calm down. Proof goes and gets George Clinton from P-Funk All-Stars who’s also a native Detroiter, brings him on stage. Proof got the mic, he got George Clinton underneath his arm, “Hey, this how motherfuckers from Detroit do it! Y’all like that shit?” People stopped fighting, it’s like, “Hell yeah!!!” He’s like, “This is how we do this shit every night!” I was, like “Uh, no we don’t. We don’t get our ass whipped every night”. Next thing I know, Em does “Just Don’t Give A Fuck” and he does “Still Don’t Give A Fuck” and the crowd went completely fucking nuts.
I gotta say, even though we had to fight and a riot that is the most memorable show. And then we got on a tour bus that night, we’re on our way back east, I get a call from my mom and mom said, “Hey, you know it was all over the news that you and a little white boy starting riots down in San Francisco”. I said, “Mom, that’s not how it happened!” She said, “I’m telling you something, don’t let them get you in no trouble. I love you but I’ll talk to you later. It’s all over the news, it’s all on the front page”.
So that was one of the most memorable times. The next day we all woke up with bumps and bruises, and hickeys and shit, and lumps but I’d do that shit again. I’d do it again, man.
This story indeed made it to the national press. This is how events were described by MTV news:
With funk pioneer and fellow Detroit native George Clinton by his side, Eminem tried to have one heckler kicked out by security. When the war of words continued with a second heckler, Eminem took action with the help of his onstage rapping colleague, Royce the 5’9″.
“You paid for my show, so why are you talking so much sh–?” Eminem screamed at one of the hecklers. Dressed in a white T-shirt and navy jogging pants, the platinum-haired MC had performed roughly one-third of his set in front of a nearly sold-out crowd of more than 1,000 when the incident occurred.
“I could get all these motherf—ers in this place [the rest of the audience] to kick your ass if we wanted,” said Royce in support of Eminem.
When the heckler did not back down, Eminem dove toward him headfirst with his fists leading the way. Eminem’s onstage bodyguard followed the rapper into the crowd, as did members of the venue’s security team.
The auditorium lights were turned on once Eminem left the stage, with half the crowd surging forward to get a better look and the other half fleeing toward the door.
A spokesperson for the Fillmore could not be reached for comment.
The mêlée lasted roughly two minutes and ended with Eminem escorted backstage and the heckler strong-armed out the door. It was unclear at press time whether Eminem made physical contact with the heckler or if the heckler sustained any injury. As of Tuesday (May 11), no charges had been filed in connection with the incident, according to Benita Disilva of the San Francisco Police Department.
Shortly after the scuffle, Eminem, who appeared only slightly ruffled, came back to the stage and said people should not “mess with someone from the street” and that anyone who disrespects him will pay the price.
Watch Big Naz telling his side of the story:
