In anticipation of his Prhyme 2 album, Royce Da 5’9 sat down with B-Dot and Elliot Wilson‘s Rap Radar podcast for an interview. The hour long conversation talks being sober,
“Since I’ve been sober I’ve been so comfortable in my skin now.” Royce told Rap Radar.
The Detroit lyricist also details some of the struggles he had prior to being sober early in his career.
“I remember I went out when I first started drinking… one of the first times I went to a club I got into a fight… that turned into a point where I couldn’t go nowhere without getting into a fight.”
Fellow Slaughterhouse rapper Joe Budden made headlines not too long ago when he publicly trashed Eminem‘s latest album Revival. As a one time Eminem signee, Budden’s comments came off as disloyalty and disrespect to which Royce “Absolutely” agrees that Joe went too far in his criticism.
“I think he’s entitled to his opinion just like anybody else,” Royce says. “There is such thing as going past the realm of what your opinion is and making it sound like you’re trying to sway people’s judgement.”
Hip-Hop fans may also remember that for a while Kanye West had an issue with Royce Da 5’9 back in the day. In the interview, the “You Can’t Touch Me” rapper details what really happened between him and Yeezy and how a meeting at a Miami nightclub lead to them working on music together.
“He sent me the beat, I recorded something to it and right after I recorded that song is when my album got bootlegged,” revealed Royce.
After the album was leaked, Royce’s record label at the time, Sony, halted all production and stopped funds for the album which left Royce with a Kanye track that he couldn’t pay for.
According to Royce, Kanye agreed to accept $15,000 for the already recorded track and before Royce could pay him the track leaked. At the same time, Kanye was close to selling the same beat to former battle rapper Jin, who had agreed to pay Kanye more than what Royce was going to pay — but once the track leaked, Kanye lost out on the deal and Royce was to blame.
Prhyme 2 is fully produced by legendary hip-hop producer DJ Premier, a sequel to a past collab the two have done prior.
The album is scheduled to release on March 16, but a First Listen was posted by NPR for fans to stream the album early.
