Before getting his own slice of well-deserved success, Royce da 5’9 was a writer on Dr. Dre’s Billboard No.1 album “2001” together with Eminem. The memories of that time still make him smile.
Royce shared a story not that long ago about getting a call from Dr. Dre at the moment when he was going to sign the deal with Herbie Luv Bug. As a result, instead of going down this road, Royce flew into California and entered the Good Doctor’s writers room.
There are 33 people credited as writers on “2001” and a Report Card Radio host was curious to learn how it was to work with many influential artists on the list. However, that was not Royce’s experience. The team behind Dre’s album was small but deadly efficient, he says. And the creative energy in the room was unparalleled.
It was me and Marshall. My man Mel-Man was in there, and it was kind of tight like that whenever I was out there. I know he worked with some other guys. He worked with Hittman. I didn’t get a chance to work with Hittman that much. It was just us. It was just us, and we were just knocking shit down. Mel-Man would start an idea, a beat idea, Dre would take, do his Dre thing to it. If Marshall don’t think of something to it, I would think of something to it. If any of us had any beat ideas, it was just a free-flowing creative type of thing. It was my first time working that way. I was just taking stabs, song after song after song after song. Every time he had something done when we weren’t there, he’d play it for us. It was just exciting. Imagine listening to “Xxplosive” for the first time before anybody else hears the shit. I was there when Em did “Forgot About Dre”. I was there when they did the beat; I knew that one was gonna be special. Everything just clicked. It wasn’t a whole lot of overthinking or stressing. There was a point in time where we felt like [Dre] was done, but he was just like, “Nah, just need one more”, and I was just like, “I don’t even know what the fuck this man is talking about”. But he’s Dre. So when he’s right, you don’t get righter than that. He was right. He went to Jay-Z for “Still Dre”, and that was it, done deal.
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