Bad reviews on the Internet? Eminem knows who scores him low. He just doesn’t care.
Westside Boogie just gave one of the funniest and most sincere interviews to Big Boy. In the LA radio studio, they talked about Boogie’s recent album “More Black Superheroes”, fatherhood, touring, breakups, writing for Rihanna and Kendrick Lamar, and not being able to leave the hood. And, of course, about his relationship with Eminem.
Big Boy asked Boogie if he had expected to be closer to Eminem being signed to his label. And apparently, the Compton rapper admitted that it was indeed his expectations:
Actually, yeah. But then I got around him and realised: we are two people that get in the room and get quiet. We’re both quiet individuals. I’ll be just thinking about getting into the studio doing my own song, and I can see it in his face: all he’s thinking about doing is getting in the studio. I think that’s why I work. Because he never tried to jump into my creative space and tell me, “Go in this direction!” The Eminem fan base sometimes doesn’t really align with the music I drop, and accepting that was hard. Because sometimes they’d be cussing me out, like, I’m not rapping fast enough, or I don’t get enough bars, or they don’t understand the hood stuff I’m talking about. When they first signed me, that was on my bumper. They love me now because they know I get off and I will bar up anybody, but it was tough at first. But I did it. I think just seeing other artists and their label owners, I thought it was going to be that. But we close like mentally. I do not necessarily need to talk to him. Every time I come around him, he tells me what I need to hear and then that’s it.
On an already familiar from this press circuit topic of advice received from Eminem, Boogie suddenly added an interesting tidbit, revealing that Em, apparently, is familiar with some YouTube reviewers and is well aware of the ratings they give him. Boogie started by citing Em’s advice:
Two things. Me not taking blogs personally when they give me bad ratings. It was this dude named Anthony Fontano, “Needle drop” on YouTube. He’s famous for rating people’s albums. So, he gave me like a 7.5 and obviously, in my brain, I think I’m supposed to have 100 out of 10. So Eminem was like, “Yo, he gives me bad grades every time. You can’t take that personally”. Because some people are just not gonna understand it. I gotta have consistent belief in myself, it can’t be based off what other people are saying. So, there’s that. And he also told me to stop stage diving so much because he got sued or almost got sued or had to sign somebody something… He just told me to stop stage diving. But I love stage diving. I love jumping on people’s heads.
With his reputation growing and his name opening closed doors, does Westside Boogie want a big success that takes him to another, VIP level, Big Boy asks? Boogie is weighing on his options, but he has a striking example of the downsides of fame right in front of him:
I want to get to the point where everybody says I’m the best rapper in the world. That’s my rapper ego, but that’s the reality. If it comes with me having to be that famous, I guess so. But Eminem can’t leave his house also. I’ve seen it. He doesn’t probably notice. I’ve seen him trapped in his celebrity. Not in a bad way, but he’s just so popular! He can’t go nowhere without being not recognised. He could sell out 100,000 CDs see anywhere. Anywhere! It’s hard. Eminem is one of the biggest artists ever.
