It is always sad to see your friend become your enemy, particularly in Eminem’s case, because real friendship and loyalty really matter to Marshall.
Marshall and Royce have been friends since the beginning.They knew each other since 1997. They have been collaborating since the Slim Shady LP :
‘I started rhyming about ’95. I always did it as a hobby, just freestyling with my friends, but I actually started writing rhymes in ’95. I met Eminem in ’97. And he was like, “We should get together and do something.” So we got together and recorded Bad Meets Evil [in 2001]. Then he got the deal he wanted to put the joint on his album. So I went out to Cali to re-cut the vocals.’
(Royce Da 5.9)
Royce is featured on the track ‘ Bad Meets Evil ‘ where you will certainly enjoy both men’s talent.
At this time, Royce had a lot of respect for Eminem :
‘ Em is a genius and a perfectionnist. Anybody that goes in the studio with him, he’ll bring the best out of him . ‘
You have probably enjoyed the video of the song ‘ Rock City ‘ where both men show their talent.
No doubt : the first shadow in Royce and Marshall’s relationship is due to a huge misunderstanding. Royce wrote some lines in 2003 about the Anger Management Tour :
‘Fuck Anger Management, I need to hire somebody to manage my anger.”
Marshall and his D12 fellows felt it like a diss.
Eminem didn’t use the lines written by Royce and got mad at him.
Marshall’s biggest mistake was certainly not to talk about it when Royce himself and to stay angry. Although the content of Royce’s lines may create some confusion in the way they can be interpreted, the lack of dialogue in this situation is obvious.
Royce always pointed out that he never intented to diss Eminem :
‘ For some strange reason, Eminem and D-12 took that as a diss. Why? Why would I diss Eminem the illest lyricist on the fucking planet? I heard that Em was upset, so I started putting in phone calls to his camp to set the record straight and too let them know I would never do something like that. Paul (Em’s manager) told me that “Em is not talking to you period.” Its crazy how we are supposed to be cool, but they accuse me of something and do not even attempt to get to the bottom of it. But I turned my back on him right?’
According to Royce, Proof has attempted to squash the beef, but it just didn’t work out :
‘I wrote that record because I thought Bizarre dissed me on some local Mixtape around the time they were really mad at me. They had diss raps for Em because of me! I did the Bizarre diss and called Proof to the studio, because he was my nigga and I’m a real nigga. I told Proof, I know he’s in your camp, but he dissed me and I gotta spank him! Proof came up to the studio, heard the record (the whole record, including the line about Bugz), laughed and said it was crazy and told me he loved me for being real and calling him! Proof told me he wanted me and Em to talk, so he got us on the phone and we squashed everything! Ya’ll niggas are the first ones to say ya’ll got families and you just want to rap and get money and now your starting this shit like I’m not supposed to defend myself, fuck ya’ll! I’m a man of my word, so when I agreed everything was squashed nobody heard that diss until now—three-years later. In regard to the Bugz line that everyone was supposed to be all upset about, it was just meant for Bizarre, it was not written to play on the radio and we was rushing to the station that day to play it and we edited the shit real fast and that line got missed. But to show how real I am, I felt bad that it got played and I called Proof to apologize and was even willing to go on the air to apologize.
After all of this, I got a voice mail from Proof and he’s on there cocking his gun talking about what he is going to do to me.’
But what if Royce’s lines were inspired by a little bit of jealousy ? Didn’t he get a little bitter when Obie Trice and 50 Cent were signed to Shady Records ?
This is Proof’s comment about Royce which seems to confirm the involvement of some jealousy in the conflict that opposes him to Eminem and D12 :
“First and foremost, I knew Royce, before Em knew Royce…He went on a quest to find Em, and that’s the flat out truth. He knew Eminem was gonna have a deal and he did what he had to do to try to get somewhere and that’s the bottom line. Me and Em is fifteen years deep, and I can’t tell Em not to sign 50 Cent, I can’t tell Em not to sign Obie Trice, I can’t tell Em not to befriend Royce. That ain’t my call.”
Proof also points out that his crew never started the beef:
“He’s saying we started it but it’s all in his statement and he’s covering it up with lies. How can we start the beef when he made the first diss three years ago? Come on now… That don’t even make sense, then he said that I called his house clicking guns on the phone. Dude is lyin’, I don’t even know his phone number! The truth of the matter is that he knows that he called my voicemail and my voicemail got me on there clicking hammers and sh!t, so he tried to reverse it on some bullshit. That nigga need to grow the fuck up!”
In an interview, Royce declared that D12 ‘ was ruining rap and that they were the worst rap group ever. ‘
At 50 Cent’s release party in Detroit, D12 released a free mixtape that was aimed at hardcore fans (that is- by the way- worth listening to). The first track of the D12 mixtape is called ‘ Smackdown ‘ and used 50 Cent’s tracks from ‘ Backdown ‘. It is a full diss against Royce. Eminem didn’t appear on the tape, though. Only the 5 other members are dissing him.
Having a long term friendship with Eminem, didn’t he wish, even secretly, to be part of the Shady Rexords team ?
It seems like Royce has much more a problem with the D12 crew than with Eminem himself.
He started dissing Bizarre in response to a diss track written by Bizarre towards him on the DJ Butter mixtape’s track called ‘ Don’t Try This at Home ‘.
Royce retaliated with a diss mainly aimed at Bizarre called ‘ Shit On You ‘. This diss was never released, obviously because Royce’s first intentions were not to beef publicly with D12.
Royce retaliated with 3 disstracks aimed at d12. They are called ‘ Malcolm X ‘, ‘ What We Do ‘, ‘ We Riding ‘, ‘ We Riding ‘ being directly aimed at Marshall. At this moment, Royce turned his back to eminem and his crew and was even thinking about further collaboration with the enemy camp from Murder Inc.
According to Emineminfo.com, the beef between Eminem, D12 and Royce has been squashed recently :
http://www.emineminfo.com/royce.shtml
Hopefully they might be right about it.