On May 7 this year, Kid Cudi tweeted this:
@Eminem rap God. Help!
— The Chosen One (@KidCudi) May 7, 2020
A couple months later, he and Eminem linked up on the single “The Adventures Of Moon Man And Slim Shady.” While it seemed obvious that initial tweet was a promotional ploy to drum up interest for the collaboration, it turns out that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, the tweet was pretty literal, as it was genuinely Cudi’s attempt at making first contact with Eminem.
Cudi spoke about it was Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in a new interview, revealed that he really wasn’t in touch with Eminem before that tweet. He said:
“That was me. Like, ‘Yo, I want to be respected as an emcee. Yo, who do I f*cking get? Who do I f*cking get to spar with? Who do I go bar for bar with? Eminem.’ Man, I tweeted at him. No, it wasn’t even in the DMs. Just my timeline. It was public. I was like, ‘Yo Rap God, help!’ And we’re really close with Paul Rosenberg and he was able to connect us and we were able to get it done. He was in Detroit, I was in LA. It’s a nail biter. Because I’m like waiting, I’m waiting. And I’m like, ‘Oh sh*t. They’re asking me questions. They don’t say he’s going to do it just yet. They’re just asking me questions. And I’m like, so this means he’s going to do it. Right? Because they’re asking me questions. And literally it was like every day I was like, ‘Is today going to be the day? Is today going to be the day?’ And like, I got it. And I was like, ‘Holy sh*t.’ I was like, it was something for me to get the validation from Eminem by doing that record. Him doing that record let me know, like he was telling me like, ‘Yo, I f*ck with you as an artist fully, even your bars are dope.’”
Cudi previously revealed that in addition to Rosenberg, Lil Wayne was apparently also part of how he got through to Em.
Check out Cudi’s full interview with Lowe above.