Big Sean and Eminem are two Detroit name brands. However, in a recent interview, Big Sean (real name Sean Anderson) revealed that while the pair were working, Eminem rejected a beat from one of hip-hop’s most respected producers.
Big Sean and Eminem have previously worked together, and both have enormous ties to the Michigan city of Detroit. That said, in 2020, while Anderson was working on his fifth album, Detroit 2, Eminem refused to rap over a beat from one of the city’s most renowned beatmakers.
Big Sean appeared on Eminem’s 2014 track ‘Detroit vs Everybody’ and in 2020, the pair collaborated on the exclusively Detroit posse cut ‘Friday Night Cypher’ featuring Tee Grizzley, Kash Doll, Cash Kidd, Payroll, 42 Dugg, Boldy James, Drego, Sada Baby and Royce Da 5’9″.
Although the song turned out well, Anderson had initially planned to get Eminem on a beat from Detroit’s very own J Dilla. A legend in hip-hop who Slim Shady had never worked with before his death in 2006.
Big Sean obtained an unreleased J Dilla beat in 2020 and, in an interview with Essence magazine, revealed that he had presented it to Eminem, who ultimately decided it wasn’t for him despite liking the instrumental.
Speaking about the beat, Anderson unveiled, “It reminded me of an old Eminem, and when I sent it to Em, he was like, ‘Man, I like the Dilla beat, for sure. I get it.'” However, the song never came to fruition.
As a Detroit native who had known Eminem before fame, D12’s also told the publication it wasn’t the first time the ‘Stan’ musician had declined a Dilla beat. Denaun Porter once revealed on Paul Pod, the podcast of Eminem’s manager Paul Rosenberg, that the instrumental of A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Get a Hold’ from their 1996 album Beats, Rhymes & Life originally belonged to Eminem.
Recalling the rejection, Porter told Rosenberg, “Proof gave it to him. It was like, ‘Yo, I gotta get some Dilla beats,’. I don’t know if he recorded it, but he wrote it because I remember him writing it, and I remember the song being ill as hell. The concept he had to it was crazy.”
However, A Tribe Called Quest released their song before Eminem could do anything. It is a great shame for hip-hop that despite their shared history in Detroit, the late J Dilla and Eminem never collaborated.