How Eminem proved Kendrick Lamar didn’t need a ghostwriter
When discussing the greatest rappers of all time, there are a few names that will exist ubiquitously within people’s minds. The recent controversy surrounding ‘The Big 3’ and the subsequent fallout between Kendrick Lamar and Drake has shed a light on the conversation over the summer just gone. If you weren’t bopping along to ‘Not Like Us’, well… you may just be now.
This spat has skewed the larger conversation to favour those still prominent in the game. The big hitters of decades gone are mentioned only by the old heads willing to fight for the music that made hip hop what it is today. Tupac, Biggie and Eminem were seminal in the formation of the modern iteration of the genre. But in the era of minimal attention spans, their legacies may have fallen by the wayside.
At this point in time, it is hard to argue Kendricks’ ascension to the throne following his public spat with J. Cole and Drake. He may have instigated the beef between the three on Future and Metro Boomin’s ‘Like That’, but he certainly finished it with his dissection of the 6 God with deft precision on what many believe to be the song of the summer. As such, any questions surrounding his dedication to his craft and the quality of his production have since been quashed. But that hasn’t always been the case.
The aforementioned Detroit legend, well established on the scene following the success of The Marshall Mathers LP, The Eminem Show and Encore in the late 1990s and Early 2000s, had the chance to work with Lamar after he burst onto the scene in the early 2010s. But Slim needed confirmation that he was the real deal before they could collaborate. On an episode of the Zach Sang show in 2017, British singer Ed Sheeran retold an anecdote which was passed on to him by legendary producer Rick Rubin, who had worked with Marshall on two of his projects, The Marshall Mathers LP 2 and Revival.
“Eminem heard that Kendrick Lamar was the best rapper, and he invited him to the studio to get him on a song,” said Sheeran. “He arrived and Kendrick came with all his mates and Eminem said, ‘I just want you in the studio, just you on your own and then my engineer is gonna come in and then record you doing it, but your mates aren’t allowed in.’”.
K Dot accepted the terms and produced what Sheeran would go on to describe as a “sick verse”. According to Sheeran, Eminem later revealed his motive: “Everyone came in to listen to it, and Eminem said that he did it to test Kendrick, because he thought he had a ghostwriter.”
The piece, with Lamar being the exceptional musician that he is, needless to say, was unanimously deemed as impressive. Following the pseudo-audition, Eminem labelled the Compton native as “the best”. The two would go on to collaborate in 2013 for the track ‘Love Game’ on The Marshall Mathers LP 2.