Tony Yayo recalls Benzino’s beef with Eminem.
Tony Yayo was the recent guest on Vlad TV for an interview with DJ Vlad. On the show, he congratulated Eminem for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction and recalls the support he had from the Detroit rapper back in the day.
“[Eminem just got inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame] shout out to Eminem,” he said. “One of the greatest. Shout out to Eminem. Always loved Eminem. Big accomplishment, one of the best emcees in the world. Shout out to Eminem. Give him his flowers while he’s [still] here.”
“He has always helped me in my career. He’s on my first album. He wore a Free Yayo shirt at the Grammys. So, I’m always gonna show him that respect and love and salute him as well as Dr. Dre and everybody who else built this legacy. As well as Jimmy Iovine too. Cause I mean Jimmy Iovine was a genius. Eminem was a genius. Dr. Dre was a genius. And we all fell in line. I feel like that was the best deal ever.”
“I feel like Eminem always got hated on. From, you know, Benzino and Source Magazine was big at that time, they were calling us ‘house ni**as’ and all kind of sh*t back then when we were signed to Eminem. Color never really meant nothing to me. I’m from New York. It’s a Melting Pot of a color. I went to grade school and my first two friends was Ralphie and Frank Harveen. I say it again he was an Italian. I never seen color. It was white, it was black, it was Indian, Jewish, Spanish, Haitian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, Guyanese… It was always a melting pot of people So, I never felt that way.”
“Nobody every did anything in my career besides Eminem and 50 Cent. And I always say, Em doing Free Yayo while I was in jail, I only had to do about two years and they kept my name alive. They started putting my name in the videos and stuff like that and Free Yayo shirt was selling. I’m always gonna salute him… Being attached to Eminem was the best deal, without Eminem and Dr. Dre we would not have that much of a success. Jimmy Iovine, Interscope, Shady, Aftermath – it was a f**king movement that was just f**king unstoppable. And you’ve seen how Eminem singlehandedly took down The Source magazine cause Benzino was always just f**king mad. I don’t know why but he was just always mad.”
He continued and recalled an interaction with Benzino. “I remember me and my hommies, we ran down on Benzino in Miami. I think that was the year when Suge got shot. I was on my ignorant sh*t. We ran down on Benzino and I’m like ‘yo, why you always put me on magazine talking like that’ and he was like ‘yo we will give you a pass, you want it?’ I was like ‘yeah, I want the pass!’ but at the end of the day that’s an old sh*t. I don’t wanna go back and forth with the ni**as online. I don’t do that. But the beef between Benzino and Eminem, I don’t know what it was, he was always mad at Em. And I looked at Eminem as a dude that looking out for us. F**k what color he is. He can f**king spit bars, he got f**king platinum records, he’s humble as f**k, he don’t bother nobody. But once you say something about him or his daughter, it’s a rap, he gonna rip your f**king head off lyrically and that’s what he did with the Nails In The Coffin. Rip motherf**kers head off. That’s what he’s gonna do. Trust me, Eminem is a type of dude that got diss records for everybody, he probably got diss records for me. He’s one of them motherf**kers. Even though I would never disrespect him. But he’s one of the motherf**kers who eat, sleep, sh*t hip-hop. One of the top emcees in the world bro. I don’t give a f**k what color he is. He did me a favor that he didn’t have to.”
Check out the full interview below.
