Royce da 5’9″ talks about his friendship with Eminem and Joe Budden.
Royce Da 5’9″ recently sat down with Talib Kweli on his “People’s Party with Talib Kweli” show with the co-host Jasmin Leigh for a new interview where he revealed why stepped into Eminem’s beef with Lord Jamar.
And, while the year may have taken a turn for the worst in March, Royce was off to a tremendous start with work on Eminem’s Music To Be Murdered By and his own self-produced record The Allegory. Since then, Nickle has used his position to address a wide range of urgent cultural topics, from racism to politics to the music industry itself. Yesterday, Royce shared a tape from a prior interview he did with Talib Kweli’s People’s Party, in which he discussed Eminem and Lord Jamar.
It’s no secret that Jamar’s tumultuous relationship with Em ended with Royce getting dragged into the mix, causing him to make a strong comment on the subject. Following that, others speculated that Royce was simply shilling for Eminem, making some dubious claims against the Detroit rapper. “They kept talking about it on Vlad,” Royce adds, “And somewhere along the lines I got called a house n**ga. Now we’re discussing something completely different. It was after that that we began to have words.”
After that, he also talks about his loyalty to Eminem and Joe Budden and why he will always defend them.
“It’s very difficult to be close to somebody like Marshall, who doesn’t his platform to do a whole lot of talking,” continues Royce. “It just is what it is on that level. It’s very easy to assume he’s a certain why. It’s difficult for me as his friend — I know he’s a student of the game, I know there’s admiration for Brand Nubian. I know he’s not one of those guys [Jamar] is trying to peg him to be…This dude has been a student of the game the whole time, nothing but contributions. Shit like that always rubbed me the wrong way.”
“Listen, I’m going to stand up for Marshall cause that’s my friend,” he says. “I’m always going to stand up for him. I didn’t want to create a situation where I’m disrespecting Lord Jamar, but I’m not always the best with my words. What people don’t understand is that Marshall is my friend.”
“They used to say the same thing about Joe,” explains Royce. “He always sticking up for Joe. People had a problem with me understanding Joe, Me and Joe didn’t like each other in the beginning. But when we got in a group together and I got to know him, now I love Joe. So now, you can’t say anything bad about Joe, I’m gonna have a problem with that.”
Watch it below.
