Eminem talks about re-learning how to rap after the drug overdose in Relapse.
Eminem recently broke down all the tracks off his latest Side B of “Music To Be Murdered By” on Shade 45 with Gray Rizzy. On the show, he discusses one of the fan-favorite ‘Zeus‘ where he apologized to Rihanna for siding with Chris Brown in a decade-old leaked verse.
Eminem has admitted that he had to relearn how to rap after losing his talents due to his drug addiction. Around 2007, the Lose Yourself rapper was at the height of his drug addiction, but he overcame it and released Relapse, his comeback album, in 2009.
During his interview at MTV he said “I had to learn to write and rap again, and I had to do it sober and 100 percent clean,” Em said, explaining the more mature, focused nature of his rhymes on Recovery. “That didn’t feel good at first … I mean it in the literal sense. I actually had to learn how to say my lyrics again #8212; how to phrase them, make them flow, how to use force so they sounded like I meant them. Rapping wasn’t like riding a bike. It was [as much] physical as mental. I was relearning basic motor skills. I couldn’t control my hand shakes. I’d get in the [recording] booth and tried to rap, and none of it was clever, none was witty and I wasn’t saying it right.”
He recorded the song during that time, which included the contentious line about Chris Brown assaulting Rihanna. The deleted song was leaked last year, but listeners were unaware that Eminem had a major setback while recording it, losing his famed rapping abilities.
“I have zero recollection of even remembering doing that verse,” says Eminem. “Like the rhyme schemes didn’t even sound familiar to me. So I was caught off-guard too. I was like, ‘What the f**k, I said that?’ That was during the early stages of the Relapse record that I was working on.”
Eminem owns up to rapping about Chris Brown’s horrific attack on Rihanna, saying: “That’s not an excuse, but I’m just saying that there was a phase I was going through with that Relapse record. It was one of those things, I think I just said it ‘cause it rhymed. ‘Looking back now, I should have thought better of it.”
He continues and reveals that he had to relearn how to rap after the 2007 near-fatal drug overdose. “It’s 10-plus years old, but not making excuses for it. I said it and I was wrong for saying that. It was fu**ing stupid. You know, a lot of times, especially with the Relapse record, when I first started learning how to rap again, because of the drug situation that I went through and having to relearn a lot of things, that was one of those things that it was like, ‘Well if it rhymes, say it.’”
Last month, on the track Zeus, which appears on his surprise new album Music To Be Murdered By: Side B, the Grammy-winning rapper apologized for the line. He raps: ‘And wholeheartedly, apologies, Rihanna/For that song that leaked, I’m sorry, Ri/It wasn’t meant to cause you grief/Regardless, it was wrong of me.’ It was especially contentious because Eminem has a close association with Rihanna, with whom he has had chart-topping success with the songs Love The Way You Lie and Monster. In 2014, they even started on a combined tour.
Check it out below.
