Icewear Vezzo praises Eminen on No Jumper Podcast
Detroit rapper Icewear Vezzo sat down with Adam22 for an interview on the No Jumper podcast where he talks about being from the same block as Eminem and more. While in Los Angeles, Icewear Vezzo stopped by the No Jumper show to talk about how he used to make money on the streets, how he learned from his errors, and how he is now focused on his burgeoning music career and his family. He also lauds Eminem and the new Detroit scene, as well as the ones he created.
Adam22 asks, “I heard in an older interview where you were saying that you’re the first rapper from Detroit, from the actual trenches like where you came from to have really made it which is interesting because you know obviously there’s a lot of rappers who’s come out of Detroit over the years but you’re making it pretty clear that you feel like your circumstance was a little bit more extreme.”
“It was f**ked up,” says Icewear. “But now you got other rappers like Doug, It’s a lot of people that are coming up now, who really from that way who really from the slums, people that I can vouch for and they can vouch for me because we saw each other and we watched each other come up ni**as was f**ked up together. I was like the first rapper out of everybody to kind of get popular because before that you had Eminem, Sean, Royce you know what I mean not to take away from what they did or what they upbringing was like, I’m just saying from what I can relate to where we were at what we see what we did.”
No Jumper began as a Tumblr blog created by George Potter in 2011 and funded by Grandmaison. The site covered early underground artists like SpaceGhostPurrp and Clams Casino, as well as obscure Gucci Mane mixtapes, paying “critical attention” to the underground. Grandmaison’s No Jumper podcast, which is available on YouTube and was revived in 2015, focuses on conversations with underground rap artists and tastemakers. The interviews had acquired between 500,000 and 1 million views as of March 2017.
Icewear continues, “Eminem is from the same block as me, from Sanford and Bradford. Bradford started off as a side street then it turned into an actual street, Eminem from Bradford, right between six and seven miles. The house he used it on an album cover before, that’s the same block I’m from, that sh*t was like walking distance from my crib.”
“So you were a kid like hearing about Eminem and this was like a specter like it was crazy to think that this dude from the same place,” asks Adam22.
“It blew our mind,” says Vezzo. “We used to walk past that crib all the time, it was vacant. It blew our mind to see motherf**ker like Eminem be so far up. He’s really from Detroit like he really from this b**ch. He ain’t from the suburbs that he really from Detroit. I don’t know how the 8 miles came about because where he, the block, the house he stayed in, that’s sh*t ain’t no 8 miles, 8 mile was like suburbs.”
“You remember watching that movie as a kid?” asks Adam22.
“F**k yeah, I love Eminem man, we’re proud of Eminem, we’re proud to claim,” replies Icewear Vezzo.
“We were never in touch with Eminem,” he explains. “In the hood, in our ghettos and s**t, back when he first came out yeah, [Eminem] was like a hero for us,” he explains. “So we expected to see him, to be able to touch him, and we’re like ‘yeah we got somebody that got out from Detroit. This about to go down, he opened the gates up.’ But it didn’t go that way.”
Vezzo is quite explicit in clarifying that he is not suggesting that Eminem does nothing for the neighborhood or the ghetto. He acknowledges Slim Shady as an example of someone who fulfils their obligations and commends Em for his charitable work with the Marshall Mathers Foundation. He only claims that the hood desired more accessibility from Eminem. “We always wanted Em to play the position that Royce Da 5’9″ played but he doesn’t, so he’s not a hero for us no more,” Vezzo admits. “Royce Da 5’9″ is like the president of the Marshall Mathers Foundation, and he’s from the hood. You’re able to see him, he going to come out. He f**ked with ni**as and he reached out, he checked on us, he’d pull up to the studio, he’d pull up to the club. We can call and he pulling right up. Royce the real OG man.”
Watch the full thing below.
