Back in April, Eminem celebrated twelve years of sobriety. The rapper had been addicted to prescription pills for some time and he was finally overcame it during a stint in rehab in 2008. Afterwards there was a period of time where Em had to relearn how to live without giving into his addiction. And as he recently mentioned in an interview, that also meant he had to relearn how to rap sober.
Em touched on the time period in a recent interview with SiriusXM’s Gray Rizzy. He’d recently had a lyric leak from his Relapse era which referenced Chris Brown’s assault of Rihanna and Em formally apologized to the singer in his recent track “Zeus.” He told Rizzy that he has no recollection of recording that line because it was during the time that he was relearning how to rhyme.
“The rhyme schemes didn’t even sound familiar to me. So I was caught off guard, too. I was like, ‘What the f*ck, I said that?’ And that was during early stages of the ‘Relapse’ record that I was working on. So, you know, it’s ten-plus years old, but not making excuses for it. I said it and I was wrong for saying that, it was f*cking stupid. 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. I think that being able to look back — I mean, that’s not even an excuse — but I’m just saying there was a phase I was going through with that Relapse record.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Em address his subtle Snoop Dogg diss on the same track. He said the source of his contention was a Breakfast Club interview where Snoop said he could live without his music. “I think it was more about the tone he was using that caught me off-guard ‘cause I’m like, where is this coming from?” he said. “I just saw you, what the f*ck? It threw me for a loop. I probably could’ve gotten past the whole tone and everything, but it was the last statement where he said, ‘Far as music I can live without, I can live without that sh*t.’ Now you’re being disrespectful. It just caught me off-guard.”
Listen to Eminem’s full interview with SiriusXM above.