During that incredibly rich interview with Eminem on “Crook’s Corner” KXNG posed a question that was inspired by his conversations with Eminem fans:
– Man, you just said, “Lose yourself”… I went down a wormhole myself, looking at your producer credits. And I talk to hip-hop fans every single day on Twitter. You know, that’s one of the things I do, I engage with them, I ask them questions, rap questions. Do you feel like, cause I don’t, so, do you feel like your name is mentioned enough in the producers’ conversation?
– I don’t know. No, I don’t. No, I’m kidding, I mean, I don’t know, I love to make beats, right, and over the years, I had learned how to produce. And probably made some of my biggest songs. And was just doing what felt right, you know what I’m saying? It’s fun for me to make beats, but it’s not as fun as rap is, you know what I’m saying? But yeah, I don’t know.
– I mean because people are like, “Yo, rappers who make beats, top five”. And I’m like, “Yo, you
gotta put in Eminem”, you know what I’m saying? And then some of them don’t even realize how many songs that you have produced, you know what I mean, and that they know and love the song,
they just didn’t know that you produced it. That’s crazy to me, you know what I’m saying? I don’t even understand how that even happens, you know what I mean, I think you rap so well that it kind of just sucks all the oxygen out of the conversation.– It’s interesting, like the first album, you know, I would sit in there with the Bass Brothers, and Jeff Bass played instruments, right? He played the guitar, he played the bass, he played the keyboards and all that shit. I knew this music better than they did, as far as what it should sound like, you know what I’m saying? So, I would just sit in there on the drum machine and I had to have somebody show me how to work it, you know, keep the metronome going and shit, and what started coming out of those sessions, and sometimes I’ll be like, “Yo, okay, what was that chord? Okay, what if you tried that, now go up with it”, right? And then I’d hum because I don’t know how to play instruments. So I would just hum a lot of shit, you know? And that’s how I started making
the beats, and Dre was like, “Yo, you’re producing, that’s producing”. And I was like, “It is??
Okay, cool”.
Yeah, it’s funny, like,I was thinking the other
day, cleaning out my closet,that beat was actually a beat I was making for Bizarre. Yeah, and then I don’t remember what happened, but I ended up taking the beat, cause sometimes, if someone’s there as I’m making the beat, and they start wanting to write to it, I usually give it to them, and I don’t remember what
happened with that, but…– And it just became the stadium mover. That’s one of my favourite songs to watch you perform.
– That’s the other thing, too, I’m not a singer, so I remember some of my early, early shit was really rough, like, was really rough. But it was like, a lot of times, from coming up in Detroit, Proof had the connects, right? So Proof used to know J Dilla, Proof used to know everybody who was anybody, right? So, and I don’t know if you remember when rap was going through a phase, well, I mean, it still does it, but there was kind of a phase in the mid, late nineties where if you could get a chick to sing on your song, you know what I’m saying? An actual singer chick and Proof would come over with new music and man, Dilla’s making the beats, and he’s got chicks all over his hooks and shit, and I’m like, “What the fuck, man?” So, I would start thinking of hooks like that, you know what I’m saying, and being like, “Well, someone else could sing this, and I’ll just lay it for right now”. And then it ended up becoming a thing where I was just like, “Fuck it, I’ll just leave it”, you know.
Watch this conversation below:
