When Skylar Grey first walked into a studio with Eminem and Dr. Dre, she could barely speak.
By then, she had already helped create one of the biggest rap songs of the era, “Love the Way You Lie”. But success did not make the pressure easier. Recently, on the Dumb Blonde podcast, Skylar spoke about the anxiety behind those sessions, the expectations that followed, and how the demand for another hit nearly shut her creativity down completely.
At the same time, she reflected on the long road that led there, from hearing Stan as a teenager to becoming one of Eminem’s closest collaborators.
“Ever since I heard ‘Stan’”
Skylar first made a (different) name for herself in music as a folk singer. But surprisingly, she was imagining herself in hip hop long before “Love the Way You Lie”. The turning point came when Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park invited her to sing on “Where’d You Go” for his Fort Minor project.
“I had been manifesting working in hip hop for so long, ever since I heard ‘Stan’ by Eminem when I was like 13”, Skylar revealed. “That’s something I always wanted to do. I loved the juxtaposition of the soft female vocal with the rap. And so when he asked me to do that song, I was so excited”.
Years later, that fascination with melodic hooks and rap storytelling would bring her into Eminem’s orbit.
Solitude of creativity
Skylar told the story of how “Love the Way You Lie” was created many times. In this particular interview, she shed more light on how impersonal the process was: it happened almost entirely at a distance.
“After I sent him the hook that I wrote over his beat for ‘Love the Way You Lie’ and the song blew up and everything, I didn’t have any part in that. The producer is the one who got the song to Em”.
At the time, nobody involved was even in the same city. “Em was in Detroit, Rihanna was in Dublin, Alex, the producer, was in New York, and I was in a cabin in the woods in Oregon. The song came out. It was huge. We’d never been all in the same room together. It’s crazy”.
However, the personal meeting was inevitable. Finally, the invitation to work with Eminem and Dr. Dre in person came.
Under pressure
After the success of “Love the Way You Lie”, Eminem invited Skylar and producer Alex da Kid to help work on Dr. Dre’s new material.
The thought alone terrified her. “It was so nerve-wracking walking into the room and there’s Eminem and Dr. Dre”, she recalls. Skylar said she became so nervous that she barely spoke at all.
“I was so quiet. Eminem actually later told me, ‘I thought you were a bitch’. Because I was just so quiet. I didn’t say anything because I was so nervous”.
Knowing how intimidating the sessions would be, she prepared beforehand because she struggles to create when people are watching. “Alex and I had gotten together before the trip and came up with some ideas to present. I didn’t want to walk in empty-handed, and I also have a really hard time creating in front of people”.
Those early sessions eventually produced “I Need a Doctor”.
“Alex and I took over a couple of rooms in the UMPG offices. He was making beats in one room, and I was writing hooks in the other room. We came up with the ‘I Need a Doctor’ hook there”.
Since then, Skylar estimates she has worked on more than 15 songs connected to Eminem.
“We’ve done songs on his albums, he’s featured on songs for my albums, and then we worked on things together for Slaughterhouse. It’s probably 15-plus”.
Their working relationship eventually became a friendship, too, Skylar admits. “He’s the best. I adore him”.
Success vs Creativity
After “Love the Way You Lie” became a global hit, Skylar suddenly found herself surrounded by expectations.
“I had tons of people reaching out wanting songs for themselves, wanting hits like, ‘We want our Love the Way You Lie’. And I’m like, ‘Well, not every song I write is a hit’”.
Still, she felt she had to prove herself every time she entered a studio. “I put the pressure on myself that I had to be. And so I started doing these writing sessions, and that pressure got to me to the point where it shut down my creativity”.
Eventually, the pressure became paralysing. “I would be in the rooms and not delivering. I couldn’t come up with anything. My mind was blank”.
And yet, she found a new source of inspiration in recalling the joy music used to bring her. Skylar’s new album, Wasted Potential, arrives on May 22 and explores childhood, growth, and emotional survival in ways she says she has never fully shared before.
Two album singles, “Nirvana” and “Motivation”, are already out.