Royce Da 5'9": Man On Fire Interview

Royce Da 5’9” is officially on fiya! A decade after making his debut to the world via 313 comrade Eminem’s The Slim Shady LP, Detroit’s second best emcee (or does he now occupy the top slot in Motown?) is on a career win streak no one could have foreseen five years ago, when the seemingly down-and-out lyricist was lamenting personal and professional woes (amidst beef between “Malcolm X” and Em’s crew D-12) and declaring that Death Is Certain. But in the two plus years since Ryan Montgomery returned home after serving some time in the Oakland County Jail (a saga documented recently by Royce on his DJ Premier-produced masterpiece “Shake This”), the rejuvenated rhymer has not only put his music career back on track (thanks in part to his critically acclaimed Bar Exam mixtapes) but has put the name Royce Da 5’9” amongst the most revered emcees of this era, if not the entire history of Hip Hop.

His standing as one of the culture’s elite spitters became undeniable to all not-surprisingly after the pistol-brandishing star of Beef II stopped squabbling with his industry adversaries and made peace with D-12 (thanks to a jailhouse heart-to-heart between Royce and the late Proof), and eventually resolved any friction that existed between he and Eminem because of that beef. Renewed relationships with his hometown peers have proven to be nothing though compared to the career bounty that has befallen Royce since mending fences with Joe Buddenfollowing the two wordsmith’s “Thou Shall Not Fall”/“I’m Nice” exchange in ‘07/’08. Their newfound alliance made its debut last October on the posse track “Slaughterhouse” from Budden’s Halfway House, which subsequently gave birth to what has become one of the most exciting unions of emcees possibly ever.

The recent critical and commercial success of Slaughterhouse’s self-titled debut LP has proven to be the perfect set-up for Royce’s long-delayed fourth full-length, Street Hop. In anticipation of the album’s October 20th release, Nickel Nine spoke with HipHopDX late Tuesday (September 29th) about his DJ Premier executive-produced platter. The lyrical murderer also cleared up some miscommunication he’s had recently with other outlets over “Evil” reportedly signing with “Bad” (and possibly tag teaming over a Premo track). One of Hip Hop’s hottest commodities also revealed where he stands today regarding Raekwon following The Chef’s recent rumble with Royce’s new Slaughterhouse brethren Budden.

HipHopDX: I just wanna start off by personally apologizing for the eight million Eminem-related questions you’ve had to answer since I blindsided you early last year after being tipped off by a colleague that you and Em had started chopping it up again and reached out to you to confirm that [click to read].
Royce Da 5’9”: [Laughs] Oh nah, it’s all good, man.

DX: I remember you really didn’t wanna reveal yet that you guys were back on speaking terms, and now I see why, as soon as you and Em are even seen in the same vicinity as each other, like in the “Forever” video, it becomes a media circus.
Royce Da 5’9”: Yeah. You know how it goes. It really wasn’t even what was said with our interview, it was Preme. It was what [DJ Premier] said [to media about the reunion]. He went crazy with it. Ours was real general and vague, so it wasn’t really nothing. That conversation that me and Em had back then [in early ‘08] had nothing to do with music…it wasn’t really a big deal.

DX: I had it written down here to point out to you that you know that was all Premo’s fault that my colleague found out about the reunion and tipped me off. [Laughs]
Royce Da 5’9”: Oh yeah, you already know that, man. Preme, he’s a gun jumper. He jumps the gun.

Read the whole interview here..................
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/features/id.1421