Royce Da 5’9″ talks on another ‘Bad Meets Evil’ album.
Royce Da 5’9″ recently sat down with Unabashedly Reggie for a new interview where he was asked about the writing process with Eminem and a lot more things, including if there will be another “Bad Meets Evil” Album.
“I don’t know,” Royce on another ‘Bad Meets Evil’ project. “I don’t know, Me and Marshall haven’t even really talked that much. I’ve been running around and just doing things outside of the booth. I haven’t been rapping that much. I don’t know what he’s been working on. Last time I spoke to him, he was collecting some beats or something. So I don’t really know what he’s doing. I mean if he calls me and say ‘Yo come to the lab let’s record some sh*t’, I’m always down but we haven’t had a conversation about getting in the studio and working you know, So I don’t know.”
Recently, the pair came together to create the song “Not Alike” for Eminem’s album Kamikaze (2018). On Royce’s album Book of Ryan, Eminem also contributed to the song “Caterpillar” (2018). Most lately, Royce contributed three songs—”You Gon’ Learn,” “Yah Yah,” and “I Will”—to Eminem’s album Music To Be Murdered By (2020). Eminem raps on the same album’s song “Godzilla,” reiterating that the group is still operational.
Proof, a mutual friend of the two, helped form Bad Meets Evil in 1998. They have one extended play (EP) and four singles in their discography. The duo released “Nuttin’ to Do” and “Scary Movies” as a double non-album single in 1999; the former reached number 36 on the Hot Rap Songs chart, while the latter reached number 63 on the UK Singles Chart and was used on the soundtrack of the 2000 horror comedy parody film Scary Movie.
Royce 5’9” was formerly linked with drunkenness, imprisonment (he served a year in prison for DUI beginning in 2006), and lost potential. Even an Eminem endorsement couldn’t save his big-budget first album, Rock City, from the bargain bin in 2002. He subsequently retaliated, slamming old pals such as the late rapper Proof of D12. The dispute has spilled onto the streets on several occasions. “Man, I’ve been to war,” he admits. “Most of my life, you’d be hard-pressed to catch me without a gun. My motto was, ‘I rather be caught with it than without it.’”
Royce also produced all of the music for The Allegory, which was a first in his career. T.I., CyHi the Prynce, Sy-Ari Da Kid, White Gold, DJ Premier, Westside Gunn, Conway the Machine, Benny the Butcher, G Perico, and Vince Staples make cameos on the 22-track record, which includes previously released singles “Upside Down,” “I Don’t Age,” and “Black Savages.”
They met at a performance in Detroit in 1997 and created Bad Meets Evil shortly after (Royce as Bad and Eminem as Evil). However, they only released a few songs, including “Bad Meets Evil” on Eminem’s big-label debut, The Slim Shady LP, and a critically acclaimed indie Bad Meets Evil 12″ including the now-classic “Scary Movies.”
Bad Meets Evil originally traded bars on Eminem’s major-label debut, The Slim Shady LP, in 1999, and then went on to record an independent single on Game Records later that year (featuring “Nuttin’ to Do,” “Scary Movies,” and “I’m the King”). A later quarrel between Em and Royce put an end to any further collaborations, although the two have subsequently reconciled. Now that the squabble was over, Royce and his Slaughterhouse band signed to Eminem’s Shady Records, and the new Bad Meets Evil EP was a major hit.
The duo went their own ways in their individual careers, only to be torn apart by a bitter dispute, making it the last time they were heard together in years. The sad shooting murder of common buddy Proof in 2006 led to repaired bridges with Eminem’s group D12, and the two artists eventually reconciled. After Royce was included on D12’s mixtape Return Of The Dozen in 2008, Eminem and Royce were finally on speaking terms again.
Slaughterhouse, Royce’s rap group, was joined to Eminem’s Shady Records label in 2011. After 11 years of inactivity, Bad Meets Evil reformed with the release of their first extended play, Hell: The Sequel, on June 14, 2011. It reached number one on the Billboard 200 and received gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).
The first single from the EP, “Fast Lane,” reached number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100, while the second single, “Lighters,” starring Bruno Mars, reached number four. The duo returned in 2014 to record “Vegas” for Shady Records’ 15-year anniversary album, Shady XV, and again in 2015 to record two songs for the boxing film Southpaw, titled “All I Think About” and “Raw.”
The duo lately reconnected for the song “Not Alike,” which appears on Eminem’s album Kamikaze (2018). Eminem also appeared on Royce’s lp Book of Ryan in the song “Caterpillar” (2018). Royce most appeared recently on Eminem’s album Music To Be Murdered By (2020) with three songs: “You Gon’ Learn,” “Yah Yah,” and “I Will.” Eminem affirms the duo’s continued existence by rapping on the song “Godzilla” from the same album (“pack heat, but it’s black ink Evil half of the Bad Meets Evil, that means take a back seat”).
With his 2016 solo album Layers, PRhyme 2 and 2018’s Book of Ryan, he continues to mature as an artist, with the latter including the most intimate raps of his career. Following that, he struggled to stay motivated. “I remember talking to [longtime manager] Kino [Childrey], like I don’t know if I even have anything more to say” he recalls. “It was like, ‘I’m cool,’ and ‘Maybe I’m ready to go on to the next interest,’ because there is always a future passion,'” she says. However, his next obsession drove him back to his first.
While there is no update on a follow-up Bad Meets Evil album, Royce da 5’9″ released “The Heaven Experience EP” in March 2023, an extension of his 2020 project.
Watch it below.
