Guilty by Association: The Life & Bizarre Times of a Hip

[Burny]

Dit is zeker het lezen waard, vooral het eminem stuk.
deeltje hiphop geschiedenis
Excerpts from Damion "Damizza" Young's book "Guilty by Association: The Life & Bizarre Times of a Hip-Hop Godfather ":

Chapter: Dr. Dre ::: 1998 ::: at Dr. Dre's house:
... I walked in through a side door in the garage, inside through another door and into this mindfuck of a studio. I was like, “Holy shit!” There was more gear than I’d ever seen in my life. As I got further into the studio, I heard the beat for what would later become Eminem’s My Name Is. Man, they really had it going when I came in. I saw Dre and looked inside the recording booth. There was this little white guy in there and he was goin’ “Slim Shady you a bass head. Why’re face red man, you’re wasted.” He was saying it like Dre! This was before the bleach-blonde Eminem image. He looked a lot different. I kinda had a “What the fuck?” sort of reaction. Dre saw me and said “Dame, what up! Hey, Marshall, come out here for a second. Hey, this is Eminem.” I was like, “Nice to meet you, man.” Dre said, “Sit down, I want to play you some stuff.” “Cool.” “Anyways, this is Eminem, he’s from Detroit, and I just signed him.” I looked at Dre a little wide-eyed. “You just signed a white boy? From Detroit?” Dre laughed. They played me a few records, like Brain Damage and My Name Is. And I said, “Okay, Dre, so those are the parts he just recorded?” Dre nodded his head. said, “Wow, that’s crazy! That’s gonna work.” “Why?” I said, “Come on. Dr. Dre signing a white kid? That’s the ultimate co-sign, plus he’s talking so much crazy shit that this might just work. Big.”

The following night we were doing a show at The Florentine Gardens. I told Dre, “Wait, here’s what we’ll do with your white boy. Let’s have him perform at the show tomorrow. He’s underground, his lyrics are really edgy. I think it will go over really well. In the morning, send him over to Power and we’ll put him on. We’ll announce that he’s performing at the show, and then after that we’ll start playing My Name Is, and we’ll start branding him.

The show at the Florentine was my first in L.A., my first as the new music director of Power 106 FM. And, as far as I knew at the time, my last day at Power because I was about to launch a show with Gangstarr, Primo, WC, and walk out a white kid from Detroit to kick it all off. They were all lookin’ at me like I was nuts, but they were intrigued. “This is Dr. Dre’s new artist? Gotta hear this one …” The kid gets on stage and just kills it. The first 10 seconds, everybody’s like, “What’s this?” And then all of a sudden the whole crowd goes wild. I watched Primo and Guru lookin’ at this kid, with a total “Wow” look on their faces. But I got my N.W.A. history lesson from Dre. And we broke the white boy. After that, Dre trusted me and we stayed in close contact. Power started playing My Name Is in heavy rotation and Eminem blew up, becoming one of music’s top stars nearly overnight...

...I started the promotion (for the Dr. Dre x Snoop Dogg reunion concert in '99) right away: The 106th caller in after we’d start spinning a Dre track with ukulele on it won two tickets and all expenses to the show in Hawaii. The drops were crazy. Eminem came in and recorded one in which he said, “Hey, what about me? Can I come?” and Dre said, “Yeah, motherfucker, you can come too.

...With everything else going on in my life, I was spending considerable time with Mariah trying to patch up her image, which had taken a pretty bad bruising. Then she and Eminem had a dust up. Dre called me and said, “Look, man, I’ve gotta play you something. Em dissed Mariah.” I was like, “Damn, just what I needed. It’s okay, it’s between them, has nothing to do with me.” But Dre said, “Well, man, out of respect, I wanna play this stuff for you because I know that’s your girl and everything.” We got together and he played the records and said, “What do you think?” I said, “Dogg, it’s not even an issue. It’s between them. It’s her fault for getting involved with him. I’m over it.” I had warned her to keep away from Eminem because I knew at some point there would be a backlash. I mean, that’s part of his shtick and I’ve always accepted that...

Chapter: Eminem


Marshall Mathers and I got along from the beginning. We are about the same age and first saw each other ensconced at Dr. Dre’s — basically the two white boys in the camp and both loving rap. No kidding, we hit it off like brothers. One day, he showed up at Power and I met him in the reception area. He said, “Yo, I was just down the street mastering my album.” I said, “Cool, have you had lunch yet?” We ordered in some Chinese food and while we were waiting he asked if he could see me in my office. “I gotta ask you a question.” We went in and I closed the door and asked him what was up. He said, “I was at Interscope today, and someone came in and told me that ‘Yo, you’ve got a Buzz Clip.’ Then everybody got all excited but I just nodded my head. Dame, what the fuck is a Buzz Clip?” I laughed and put my hand on his shoulder. “A Buzz Clip is a power rotation record at MTV. You’re gonna be a really big star. So anything that you want to do right now, go do it; because as soon as they start playing that on MTV, you’ve surrendered all of your anonymity. Marshall the regular guy is about to be gone forever, killed off by a dude named Eminem.” He looked at me with disbelief and said, “Damn. Really? Fuck!” Of course, this happened fast. It always does under these situations. I ran into Em all over the place the next few years. And we maintained that brotherly “fuck you, buddy … how you been?” kinda sarcastic relationship.

I’d be walking down a random hallway somewhere and hear some guy boom out, “Fuck Damion Young!” I’d turn around … and see Eminem. We’d run into each other at the oddest places and have the craziest conversations. He was interested in radio, so he’d quiz me nonstop about details about placement, programming, promotion … I mean, the dude wanted to learn everything he could and actually went on to buy a station on Sirius. I was always impressed because a lot of artists don’t really give a shit and just see radio as an audio 7-Eleven, there to serve them when they get the new-CD munchies. Of course, I literally met this dude when he was in the studio with Dre back before he stopped being this Mathers cat and became Eminem so I was always interested in what he was doing in the studio, on the road or on video or whatever. It was a great relationship, but also, roughly the same age, there was always an underlying tension and hint of a feud. It worsened as fame began to really take hold of him. One of the times we were at his house in Detroit, he said, “Yo, I want to play you some shit.” Cool, I thought. He played me a bunch of his new records, and I started telling him about the songs I was working on myself. He said, “Wait a minute. You rap?” I said, “Not really. kind of, just for fun.” He said, “Let me hear it!” I played him a couple of my records, and then the beat for a song I later recorded with NUNE called I’ll Do Anything. Em said, “Wow, whoever gets that beat … damn! It’s too pop for me, but I’d do that in a heartbeat. Do you have any harder beats?” Hell yeah! I played him another harder beat and he loved it. But the timing was just never right and I ending up giving it to KnocTurn’al.....

We kept running into each other, like at the video shoot for Mariah’s Loverboy single, which she wanted him to appear in. And I remember being shocked to see him at a Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC after-party for Jive Records at the Grammys. It was funny because this was right after he dissed the two groups. I was coming out of the party while he was coming in. “What the fuck are you doing here, Em?” He said, “Well, it’s a party.” I said, “It’s a Backstreet Boys party.” He goes, “Oh, they ain’t gonna do nothing. Yo, but on some real shit, do you know where Encore Studios is?” I said, “Yeah, it’s about a block away from Power.” He said, “I’m gonna call you tomorrow. I’m pretty much done with the album, but I don’t think I have the single yet. I want to play it for you and see what you think.” As I was leaving the party, I turned around and saw that Kid Rock, Eminem and Dr. Dre had commandeered the DJ booth and had started performing for the ecstatic crowd. This was at the peak of 2001 and right before The Real Slim Shady dropped and Kid Rock was coming off 10 million records. One problem, though, the DJ didn’t have a mic, so Dre unplugged the headphones, plugged them into the mic input and Kid Rock and Eminem were rapping their verses into the headphones.

The next day, I got a call from him at around 10 in the morning, and I headed over to the studio. When I got there, he started playing the records. He started off with Kill You. I said, “That record’s crazy. We’ll start playing it tomorrow.” He said, “No, that’s not it. I’ve got to go national with this. It’s got to be a Hi, My Name Is.” Then he played me Stan. I said, “Bro, there’s your single. Let’s go.” He said, “No, it’s not the one.” I said, “Are you nuts?” He said, “That’s a great second single, it’s on some crossover, Top40 type of shit. But that’s not the one. I just don’t have that single.” I asked him where he got that idea for the song. He said, “Oh, it’s this singer Dido, and I heard her in a movie.” A couple weeks later, I got a call from Dre. He said, “Yo, you need to come to the studio. Come to Record One right now.” I said, “For what?” He said, “Em’s got it.” So I showed up to Record One and they played me The Real Slim Shady. Em was dancing around the studio screaming, “I’ve got it!” I said, “All right, give me a cassette.”

Dre and Em just stopped for a second and looked at each other. “All right Damion. Here’s your cassette.” On my drive home, I popped it in and the tape was fucked up in the middle. So I turned around and went back to the studio. I said, “Stop playin’ with me. Give me a good copy of this record!” They were like, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Em was playing with the drum machine while you were recording it, and it recorded on the cassette. Give me that shit the right way!” Em said, “Huh?” I looked him right in the eyes and said, “Yeah, you thought you were slick, you little punk.” Bastard! After that, a couple days went by, and Dre said, “We’ll have the single for you in a couple days.” I said, “Look dude. I’m not just gonna play The Real Slim Shady. I’m gonna play all those other records I love too.” He said, “Well, we’re not even done with the album yet. We have one more song to do. Come by the studio tonight. It’s called Remember Me.” So, I got there and Warren G was standing outside. I said, “What’s going on?” He said, “Em and Dre are in there, and they’re going crazy!” I walked in, and I hear Em doing the chorus. “REMEMBER me!” Dre said, “Nah, you’ve gotta do it with a little more intensity. You’ve got to be more angry.” Em said, “Dude, my voice is giving out.” Dre said, “I don’t give a fuck. It’s making your voice sound more intense.” “REMEMBER ME!!!! REMEMBER ME???” At the end of the night, I got a copy of The Marshall Mathers LP. Dre said, “Go ahead and play the other records too, but please don’t play Stan too much because we really want to save that for the second single."

Unfortunately, my relationship with Em ended shortly after this. He decided to do a concert for a local rock station KROQ instead of Power, and considering that we were the station that not only broke him as an artist, but also were his biggest supporter, I would have thought that we could have at least had a conversation about this deal. This also happened right after the whole public romance fiasco between Em and Mariah. I was already done with the Mariah stuff. I told myself, “It was her fault for getting involved, and I told them both I didn’t want to be involved, so I’ll move on.” Em was in town, and he came to Power to do the morning show. When he arrived, I confronted him about crossing the street and snubbing Power. I said, “Yo, I need to talk to you before you leave.” He went upstairs and did the interview. He said a couple things on the air that were a little disconcerting. In fact, they were little jabs at me. Ironically, in the same interview, he also said, “Yo, I need to find 50 Cent.” That ended up being the catalyst for 50 being signed later down the road. Hey, cool. Glad something good came out of that day. Before he left, I told him I needed to talk to him. I wanted to clear the air. It was all about that KROQ show, but I think he thought it was about the Mariah stuff. When I walked in the room, I said, “Look bro, everything’s cool, but you’re getting dangerously close to becoming an asshole.” He said, “Hey man, leave me alone. I just want to go home.” I said, “Dude, what are you talking about? Let’s have a conversation here.”

Next thing I know, Eminem’s manager, Paul Rosenberg, came in the room and pulled him out by the hand like a little kid. They took off, and bodyguards showed up in my face. It really disappointed me because it was like, “Yo dude, I don’t know these other people. I didn’t even meet Paul until years later when he became your manager after you blew up. I met you the day you did My Name Is and I put a lot of work into making you a star.” The guy is one of the most creative people in the world, but I think that at the end of the day, he’s ended up being a corporate puppet. After that run-in, I never saw Eminem again, and I never talked to him again. No big resentment on my part, I am just disappointed about the lack of loyalty — or at least him calling me ahead of time and talkin’ over and explaining why his team of people thought it was necessary to fuck Power over. I know it wasn’t personal. But I took it that way at the time, from then on in I couldn’t trust him, because of the suits around him. And I don’t want to be around elements I can’t trust. All the best to him personally and creatively. However, one-on-one, I still consider the dude a friend. It’s just the suits around him I hope get rabies.



Chapter: Mariah Carey
By the July 4 holiday weekend (2000), Mariah was in New York and getting a little rest and I was visiting my family back in Santa Barbara. I was out near the ocean flying kites when my cell phone rang. It was Steve Stoute from Interscope. He said, “Hey Damion, Eminem wants to meet Mariah Carey. Give me her number.” “No,” I said. Immediately, I thought, “This is not good.” “What’s going on?” I asked. “Eminem wants Mariah to read for a part in his new movie (which would later be 8 Mile),” he said. Shit. I knew that if I called Mariah and told her Eminem wanted her to read for a part in a movie it was going to be a nightmare. “Steve, I’ll call you right back.” I called Mariah and told her that Eminem wanted to meet her. She, too, was cautious. “For what? I don’t want to end up as one of that guy’s diss songs, so if I talk to him, you’re on the phone with me.” I had to tell her the truth, knowing full well where it would go. I said, “Listen: Up front, I don’t think this is a good idea. I know him and he’s a cool guy. But I can’t control this situation. This is not gonna end up in a good place. I’m telling you right now this is bad. And if you get into a relationship with him and it blows up it will be ugly and there won’t be anything I can do for you. I don’t want that responsibility.” She told me to relax, and that it would be all right so long as I was on the phone with them. I called Steve back and told him how it was going to come down — that I’d call Em and hook him up with Mariah and that I wasn’t letting him in on the call. I called Eminem and told him that I was going to get Mariah on the phone. “She’s one of my best friends,” I warned him.

“She’s been through hell and back and I don’t want to see this end up fucked up and I won’t be in the middle of it if it does.” Em said, “No, dude, it’s nothing like that. It’s nothing personal here, I just want her to read for a part in the film.” I got Mariah on the phone and introduced them. Eminem said he wanted her to go to Detroit. She said, “Well Damion, when we do the album release party in New York, let’s just stop in Detroit.” I said, “No, you can stop in Detroit. You guys should do a song together if you’re gonna work together.” I noticed the conversation was going OK, so I put the phone down about 20 or 25 minutes later, they were off the line. Mariah called me back and said, “You’re going with me to Detroit. You’re not leaving me alone with this dude.” I said, “What?” She said, “Well first things first, he said he wants me to play his mom in this movie.” That immediately kicked into her insecurity. She was like, “I want to play the love interest!” The truth was that, once we saw the script, she wasn’t young enough to play the love interest and wasn’t old enough to play the mom either. It didn’t take much imagination to know that he didn’t actually want her for the film, but I couldn’t convince her of that.

We met up at the New York album release party and I told her that I was exhausted and really didn’t want to go to Detroit with her. “I’ll meet you in L.A. I’ve got to get back to Power.” Next thing I knew I was on the plane. To Detroit .... It was about 2 in the morning when we landed. Eminem picked us up at the airport himself and we headed toward his place. Everything seemed to be going great at first, at least between them. They were talking and laughing and had all sorts of ideas about collaborating on music and, of course, the film. I told him to drop me at the hotel. When I woke up the next day I called the security head and asked him what time Mariah got to the hotel from Em’s. He said they were still at his house. I showered and tried to get my act together and Mariah called. “Yo, I’m still here. Everybody was tired so we all just crashed here. Why don’t you come over?” Eminem then got on the line and said, “Hey dude, I’ll send the limo for you. I’ve got a studio here and I’d like you to see the house.” “OK,” I said. The car came and picked me up.

When I got to Eminem’s there were so many people around. In a way, it reminded me of our place sometimes — all kinds of family and friends hangin’ out. I met his aunt and his uncle who live there, his nephew, and some other people. They were all terrific. Proof of Em’s group D12 then came up the stairs from the basement with two girls. “Hey, Proof!” “Hey Mizz, how’s it goin’?” This did not look good to me. I thought to myself, “Mariah’s here. Eminem’s here. And Proof just came out of the basement with two girls. What does this look like? Bad.” I’m certain that Mariah figured she could get some good publicity mileage out of being associated with Eminem. We hung out in Detroit for a day or two and then headed for L.A. On the plane, I asked Mariah again, “Are you sure about this one? I’ve got a bad feeling. You’re gonna end up on the ugly end of this however it turns out. If I were you, I’d get out of this situation now. Listen, look at it this way — Em already tried to pull one on you by saying you could play his mother in the film. There’s not much respect there.” She said, “Oh, no, we had a really good talk. We went for a long walk and I can identify with him and what he’s been through.” There wasn’t much else I could say. I warned her about Glitter and I’d now warned her about getting in with Eminem.

A few weeks passed and I got a panic call from Eminem’s manager, Paul Rosenberg. “Damion, what the fuck!” “Uh, what’s up, Paul?” “Eminem’s in New York,” he said. “He’s there with Mariah — he’s on probation. He can’t be in New York! I need to get him back to Detroit or there’s gonna be huge shit.” I called one of Mariah’s people and asked what was going on. At first her assistant played dumb but then said “OK, I know, I’m trying to fix it. I’ll figure it out and call you back.” Paul called me again. “For fuck’s sake! (It must have) leaked it to the press that he’s there with her! We’re gonna release a statement and we’re gonna fuckin’ demolish this bitch!” I said, “Paul, do me a favor, please. I’ve done a lot of favors for you guys. Don’t let him diss her … please don’t release anything.” He calmed down a little and told me, “OK, man, but tell her to shut up. As long as I don’t see anything else, we’re good.” I called Mariah. “I’m on my way to New York. We have a problem.” When I got to her apartment, she was walking around with a smug smile. “Oh,” she said, “Eminem left his CD case here. He’s on probation and had to go home fast.” I said, “Mariah, what are you doin?” She said, “Oh he’s a great guy.” I knew this was going to happen. I really wanted to help Mariah but she was lighting fuses all around her and I couldn’t put them all out. I tried again to explain where this Eminem thing was going, that it had nothing to do with his movie, that she wouldn’t be in it, and that the whole thing was going to be a train wreck. She acted like I wasn’t even there.

Shade and I were in a BBC studio doing a live interview and I was pretty pumped; things were lookin’ good for us and the reception was very positive for the album. “Hello, everyone,” the host said. “Before we start, we’ve just got news that Mariah Carey is acting erratically. Let’s see that clip ….” I watched, with horror, a video of Mariah freaking out and swinging a pink Hello Kitty boombox at one of Howard Stern’s people. I later found out that she’d been with Eminem in Detroit, they’d had some sort of fight. I landed in New York and went to her apartment, but was told she had flown to L.A. looking for me, not knowing that I was in England.

After a few days, we headed back to L.A. I tried to get myself back on track with Power. Eminem came out and dissed Mariah... |

On a nice note, however, I’ve got an amazing story to tell you about my experiences with Em. One time, his management called me saying that they were looking for singer Dina Rea. They said, “Can you put an announcement out on Power 106 that we’re looking for Dina Rea?” This was a little funny to me, given how I’d met her in the first place. She was scheduled to come in to Power to work her solo single. One afternoon, I got into the elevator at the station and there was a hot girl in there. I said, “Hey, how are you doing?” She said, “Hi! What floor is Power on?” I said, “Eighth floor.” She said, “I’m a singer. Do you work at Power?

I said, “Yeah.” She said, “What do you do?” I said, “Oh, just a little bit of everything.” She said, “Well, you know I wanted to ask somebody this question. My name is Dina Rea, I sing on Eminem’s songs. I was having some problems in my life, and I wanted to know who made the decision to play the records with me on it.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “Well, I was living on the street, and I was sitting on the curb one night, contemplating ending my life. Then, a car drove by and it was playing Em’s song I’m on, Cum On Everybody. It was then that I realized I had something to live for.” In tears now, she said, “Whoever decided to play that song, I want to know who it was so I can say ‘Thank you.’” I was speechless. The elevator stopped at the eighth floor. I said, “Well, the door to Power’s around the corner to the left.” She said, “Do you know how I can find this person?” I turned to her and said, “You just did.” I'll never forget how she looked at me as I left. I marveled at another wonderfully weird moment in my life.

[Burny]

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