Recently, Jelly Roll talked on the Flagrant podcast about collaborating with Eminem and MGK, navigating their feud, and his dream of bringing the two artists together. He is convinced that honesty is key.
Jelly Roll is living the dream: he has collaborated with both Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly, two artists with a long-running feud, yet they each value working with him. During a chat on the Flagrant podcast, Jelly Roll shared how honesty and mutual respect keep him connected to both sides — and even hinted at his hope to bring the two rappers together someday.
Jelly Roll did not hold back on his admiration for Eminem, calling him “the wizard” and the biggest-selling artist of this generation. He shared a funny moment from their time on set together, recalling how Eminem burst into the green room singing a playful take on Jelly Roll’s hit:
A cool story about Eminem is he’s had the same four people around him for his entire career. He’s the wizard. He’s the biggest-selling artist of our generation. He’s sold more records than Elvis. It’s insane when you think about how big he is. You don’t really get to see the wizard a lot, but I’ve seen the wizard now and hung out with him, and he’s a great guy. He’s down to earth. He’s super honest and he’s very intentional with his words. We hung out on a video set for 12 hours. To show you his personality, he walks into my green room singing, “Somebody shave me, I need some Jelly!” He said, “We can get you a deal there”. Just fucking funny.
Eminem’s longtime manager, Paul Rosenberg, also played a key role in making their “Somebody Save Me” collaboration happen. According to Jelly Roll, Paul championed him for years, telling him that Eminem would eventually “get” him:
Paul has always been trying to get me and Em together. Every time I’ve seen Paul, he’s like, “If Marshall doesn’t understand anybody else, he’s going to get you. When he gets you, he’s going to get you”. He’s been telling me this since I met him when he was working with Yelawolf a decade ago. Paul has been a champion for me the whole way. So, Paul calls and says, “Send me the “Save Me” record. Send the stems”. He calls John Meneilly, my manager. Now, keep in mind that John Meneilly managed Jay-Z for a while, so they’ve already worked. They’ve been friends for real for 30 years, and they’ve been in the business together for 25 years. So, he hits John like, “Yo, send over “Save Me”. I think Marshall wants to fuck with it”. And that’s all he said. You know how rap works. I’m fixing to get an Eminem remix. He’s just going to drop a verse in my lap one day. I don’t know when, and I don’t care. Whenever it comes, just thank you, God.
As for MGK, Jelly Roll describes him as a real friend who celebrated his collaboration with Eminem despite their history:
I had already told Kels [MGK] that story back then. Kels is a real friend. Kels says, “Yo, that’s huge. Keep me posted”. He’s cheering for me at heart.
The time was going by and Jelly Roll almost lost hope for an Eminem joint when the cogs started moving. And he had to play his cards right:
This was 18 months ago. I got to the point I didn’t think it was coming. I’m kind of just like, ah, it didn’t happen, it’s whatever. And then I got the call: “Yo, it’s going on the record. It’s closing the record”. A second single, they want to shoot a video. Now, keep in mind, me and Kels, we hung out at the Grammys. We both lost, and we ended up on what we call the Loser Tour that night. We went to all these weird, crazy Illuminati parties. It was so weird. We went to like three or four, and he had played me the idea for “Lonely Road” that night.
Three-four months after, me and Kels have already worked on two or three records together. We’re hanging out every day. I’m in LA a bunch; I don’t have a friend out there; I only know him. And I’m like, yo, this Eminem thing’s real. It’s fixing to come out, and they want to do all this. We’re already in there. On the other side, John has to do straight business with Paul, like, “Hey, Paul, you know Kels and Jelly have known each other for 15 years on and off. They were beefing, Jelly dissed him (I was a hater back then, it’s a whole other fun story). But they’re buddies”. And here’s where Paul’s a good dude, too. Paul’s like, “Yo, man, we love Jelly. Appreciate you telling us”. Never got brought up.
Yet it is Jelly Roll who would like to breach the topic of reconciliation with Eminem at some point. He remains hopeful:
My heart is always to bring them together one day. Because I see so much more of them in each other than they know. I hadn’t really brought it up to Marshall yet ’cause I’m just glad that I’m still in that circumference to be able to have conversations. But I do see that there’s so much more in them than not. But I also gave Kel some perspective, too. We all grew up watching Eminem take over the game early. If you got mentioned in an Eminem song it was like getting mentioned in a comedy special. You were on fire! You couldn’t be hotter if you got mentioned in an Eminem song or an HBO special. It’s what you wanted, your name to be brought up.
Do you think it is possible to bring MGK and Eminem together, or was the line crossed that will not allow any healing? For all we know, it is MGK who keeps bringing this beef up and capitalising on his notorious proximity to Rap God, even if it has destroyed his rap career.
