Royce’s father thought something was wrong with his son when he received a call from a doctor. He didn’t know that a call from Dr. Dre could only bring good news. Especially after his friend Eminem laid down the groundwork.
This call indeed opened new doors for Royce and took his career to a new level. The call circumstances were quite mundane, as father and son recalled in an interview with HipHopDX. Royce’s father, Greg, started the story:
I remember when I told him, “You’ve got a phone call”. I asked him what was wrong with him. He’s like, “What do you mean?” I said, “You’ve got a phone call from your doctor”. He said, “The doctor?” I said, “Yeah, somebody named Dr. Dre”. By that time he got out of the shower, I heard all the slipping and sliding and falling into the toilet and on the floor trying to get to the phone. I didn’t know who Dr. Dre was, and once I’d found out who Dr. Dre was, I was like, okay, well, my son is onto something. Somebody recognises him for what he is because, at that point, I wasn’t quite sure. I knew he had affiliations and ties with real big people, Eminem being a good friend of his. Marshall’s been to the house along with Paul Rosenberg. But the call from Dr. Dre – that’s a deal.
But what was the reason for the urgency, why Dr. Dre needed to make a long-distance call to Detroit? Royce explains:
I just sent my demo up there to Marshall. I told Marshall that I had been to New York, and I had been taking leaps in New York. And I was entertaining the deal with Herbie Luv Bug. Marshal was like, “Let me tell you something, Royce. You are not signing that deal with Herbie Luv Bug”. He told me to send a CD with my music out there. He played it for Dre, but he didn’t tell me that he played it for Dre. He just called me and like, “Royce, I played Dre your stuff, he loved it, I’mma link you up so you can talk”. He just let Dre call me.
I was sitting in the room when my dad came in, and he was like, “Ryan, Dr. Dre on the phone for you”. I was like, “Hello?” and he was [Royce drops his voice deeper], “’Sup, it’s Dre”. He sounded exactly like that. “’Sup, it’s Dre. Marshall played me your stuff. I like what you’re doing. Wanna know if you’re interested in coming up here and messing with us, we are working on a new album. Called “Chronic”. As if I didn’t know what “Chronic” was. So he asked me if I was interested in coming up and I told him “Hell, yeah”. He put me on a plane, I flew out there. It was my first time seeing the Mansion. Or a big celebrity like this. Even being around anybody actually going through the album process. I took a lot from that whole experience.
Watch the video below:
