Chris D’Elia talks about working with Eminem.
Chris D’Elia, a comedian known for his spot-on Eminem impersonations, has opened up about meeting the rap legend for the first time. The Comedian and Actor Chris D’Elia recently sat down with Joe Rodan for a new interview where they talked about how he started working with Eminem. “I almost sh*t myself when I was going to meet Eminem,” said Chris D’Elia.
Then he revealed the whole story about how his impression came to existence and got viral. “I was in the driveway waiting for something,” said Chris, “And it had been right around the time when Eminem’s album came out or something so he was on my mind and I was like this is how he raps and then I just started doing it to radio and I was like it was funny I’m gonna record it and I recorded it one time and I was like that’s funny I’ll put it online.”
Chris continued, “A month later black twitter took it and they said this guy says this is how Eminem raps and then it got millions of hits on Twitter and then it got so big my buddies were like you think Eminem has probably seen it right, and then a week later Eminem posted it and I was like what, then Eminem was like I’ll rap battle Chris D’Elia one day and I’m like I am in the Hip-hop game now.”
Then he revealed that Logic reached out to his manager and asked if they can use my impression of Eminem in their collaboration ‘Homicide‘ and he was like don’t ask for any money just let them have it. Then logic talked to Chris and asked for him to play Eminem in the music video.
D’Elia was featured on the track after filming a video in his driveway in September 2018 in which he attempts a breathless impersonation of Marshall’s distinctive complicated rhyming style, employing a line of meaningless couplets about cabanas, stamina, napkins, and papkins. The video was one of many wacky clips that the You star has shared with his admirers on the internet. However, because it was published just days after Em’s Kamikaze album, it became a viral sensation, receiving widespread accolades from the hip-hop press as well as comedy and rap nerds.
Their meeting was “mind-blowing…in the greatest sense, [Eminem] was just the most normal, cool man,” said D’Elia, a comedian, actor, and podcast host best known for his appearances in NBC’s Whitney and Undateable comedies.
According to D’Elia, the most astonishing moment occurred when Eminem simply began rapping in the middle of a conversation. “There was one part where he was talking about somebody who was talking s**t about him … ‘you don’t even know what I’m doing when I’m rapping, I’m using syllables …’ and he started rapping while he was in the middle of talking to us. It was unbelievable. It was insane. Imagine being on the same couch as Eminem and he starts doing that.”
Eminem reportedly cited Tupac, Biggie Smalls, and Jay-Z as his favourite rappers of all time at one point during their encounter, according to D’Elia. D’Elia continued, saying that Eminem spoke to him while freestyling in rap, which the comic called “f**king insane.”
Despite their shared love of music and humour, D’Elia revealed towards the conclusion of the video that he had a tale with the rapper that he chose not to tell at the time “He didn’t even know that – on the way from the sprinter van from f**king Pennsylvania to Detroit [to meet Eminem] – that I drank so much coffee that we had to pull over to the side of the road and sh*t in someone’s yard.”
Watch the full interview below.
