Hip-Hop Lives Here
Hip-Hop Lives Here
Meek Mill, Rick Ross, and Jim Jones recently caught some strays from underground New Orleans rapper Dee-1, who called them out on Sway's Universe recently. Moreover, the specific reason has to do with these artists' content matter, which the Christian MC sees as harmful and thinks they "could do better." Of course, this is notable because of Rozay and Meek's upcoming collaborative album, Too Good To Be True. In addition, the Dipset boss has also been quite vocal in their support of them throughout this project's rollout. Furthermore, the Philly MC was the first to directly respond to this diss, and we'll see if more fallout comes from it. "Nah we do everything lol," Meek Mill began his response to Dee-1 on his Instagram Story. Sure, it's not a full-on response track or diss record, but addressing the contention at hand is an important first step.
Nevertheless, he continued: "I was rapping this way when I became the face of reform. That's how I got there y'all forgot that fast." Meanwhile, this is what Dee-1 had to say about Rick Ross, Jim Jones, and Meek Mill. "Jim Jones, you could do better, brother," he began on radio waves. "I love you too much to not be honest with you. Rick Ross, you could do better, brother. Meek Mill, you could do better, brother! I love you too much not to be honest with you. Oh, you the face of prison reform? Or are you sitting here on your new song with Ross talking about getting somebody murked, and shot at the red light? Which one is it, bro? 'Cause I did a shoe giveaway in my city and gave out 1,300 pairs of your shoes because they said 'Reform' underneath them.
"I love that you partnered with a major shoe company and you out here pushing prison reform," he continued. "But this man glorifying getting people killed as of a week ago!' Like, what are you doing, bro? Lil' Snoop really got killed, that broke your heart. You wear him around your neck. Why are you glorifying the same thing? The rap game, the hip-hop industry is great at cooking up some delicious poison. I don't call you out because I got a problem with you, man. Like, I wish we could go get lunch right now, me and any of them. I love you too much to not be honest with you. That's what it is, bro. So yeah, if anybody feel bad about being called out, it's like, let's talk. Let's talk about it and let's just figure out what we can do better.
"But at the end of the day, guess what's not changing?," Dee-1 continued. "The word of God ain't changing. There's death and life in the power of the tongue, Proverbs 18 and 21. That's not changing. Trying with this foolish argument that, 'It's just entertainment, this ain't real!' How many more people gotta die in the hood, man? How many people, at the end of the day, lives gotta get ruined and poisoned and how many rappers gotta get killed for us to be like, 'Come on, man'? When it's hip-hop, it's a whole culture. It's implied that this is autobiographical and this is non-fiction tales that people are telling. How much does that have to happen? Don't hit me with that. People just don't want to confront the reality of this stuff." For more on Dee-1, Meek Mill, Rick Ross, and Jim Jones, stick around on HNHH.
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Eminem has long cited 2Pac as one of his favorite artists, but it turns out he shared a remarkable connection to the late rap legend long before he blew up — according to the Interscope A&R who discovered him.
Evan “Kidd” Bogart recently sat down with the Behind the Wall podcast and detailed his decorated career in the music industry, which began in Interscope’s mailroom in the 1990s.
Talking about his road to discovering the self-proclaimed Rap God, Bogart — a Grammy-winning songwriter who has worked with the likes of Beyoncé, Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez — explained that he was working as an A&R “float” on a posthumous 2Pac album that Interscope were putting together.
While working on the project, he got a call from a DJ friend to come check out an impressive young artist at the Rap Olympics.
“I was like, ‘Oh man, I’m gonna get fired. I’m supposed to not take my eyes off the reels [for the 2Pac album],'” Bogart recalled, explaining that there was a looming threat of Death Row Records trying to steal the music.
“But I played hooky because [my friend] Cassidy was dead serious. I went down to this freestyle contest in Inglewood, walked in and I proceeded to watch Eminem in this freestyle battle. It was 8 Mile-esque.”
Bogart was blown away by what he saw: “I called my friend who I was in a rap group with, this kid Aristotle, to come down there. I was like, ‘Yo, you gotta come down here and see this shit.’
“Then I called my other best friend, who I had just hired to replace me in the mailroom when I got promoted to A&R floater, this kid Dean Geislinger.”
He added: “They showed up a couple of hours later. It was the semifinals and Em was saying crazy things like, ‘Don’t make my facial tissue a racial issue,’ all this crazy shit that was mindblowing […] He ended up losing in the finals.”
Despite Eminem failing to win the contest, Bogart still introduced himself to the soon-to-be legendary rapper: “Em was pacing backstage, muttering under his breath, angry, teared up a little bit. I went up to him and I was like, ‘Hey, I work at Interscope, I do A&R.’
“He introduced me to his manager at the time, a guy named Marc Kempf. Paul [Rosenberg] was there, too, but Paul was Em’s lawyer; he wasn’t his manager.
“Marc Kempf gave me the Slim Shady EP sampler cassette. I drove home with Aristotle and Dean and popped the cassette into my car. We literally drove home with our fucking jaws on the ground. I had never heard anything like it in my whole life.”
Bogart went on to explain that he spent the next several months attempting to convince his seniors at Interscope to sign this unknown kid from Detroit, but was “largely ignored or ridiculed.”
It wasn’t until he slipped Eminem’s demo tape into Jimmy Iovine‘s possession, with the help of his friend Dean who was temping as the Interscope chief’s second assistant, that the powerhouse label finally took notice.
“Saturday morning, I get a page on my pager [from] Dean’s number. I call Dean and I’m like, ‘What’s up?’ He’s like, ‘[Dr.] Dre and Jimmy heard the tape. Is Eminem in town? […] They want to set up a meeting.’
“I was like, ‘Cool, I’ll make it happen.’ So I connected them with Em’s people, set up a meeting for Monday. Em came in and they struck a deal.”
The fact that Eminem was discovered by an A&R who was working on a 2Pac album at the time is made all the more special by his vocal admiration of the All Eyez On Me MC.
Slim Shady has previously said that ‘Pac “might be the greatest songwriter of all time” and even even went on to produce his own posthumous album for the late rapper, 2004’s Loyal to the Game.
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