DJ Khalil describes the process of producing records for Eminem during an interview with HardKnock TV published to YouTube today (March 2).
“I had to work my way up even being signed to Aftermath, I had to work my way up,” DJ Khalil says in the interview. “Dre called me. This was after they won the Grammy for ‘Crack a Bottle.’ He took me to go meet meet Em. That’s how it all started. He played me records and was like, ‘Yo I did some songs to your records’ and it was the craziest night ever. He was like, ‘Did you bring beats?’ I came back the next day and he started writing records. He liked the sound. That’s how it all started.”
He says Shady played him tracks that would end up on his Recovery album.
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“The first track he played me was ‘Won’t Back Down,'” DJ Khalil says in the interview. “I just didn’t know how to take it. I was just in shock. I didn’t react, but I loved it. He had the beats, but I didn’t know how far along they were.”
DJ Khalil says that Eminem has a lock on the song-writing process.
“Em is a producer as well,” DJ Khalil says. “Once you sent it to him, he has the track and the chorus, he can finish it. We do talk about the music because sometimes he will want to add things and something doesn’t sound right, and we will have to fix it. When we talk, it’s pretty much on the mix end. The song part, he pretty much has down. He knows what he wants to say and how he wants it to sound.”
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He says he made the track using Reason and Pro Tools.
“Em is definitely into these big stadium anthems,” DJ Khalil says in the interview. “They gave me these guitars and I started to layer them with bass, stacked the guitars together to get this huge stadium feel. It’s just one of those records, if you are working out, it’s going to pump you up. It has that aggression, something Eminem can go crazy over. In terms of the rhyming and the energy, he could start a show off with this song.”
DJ Khalil is a Grammy-winning producer based in Los Angeles. Other than Eminem, he has also produced for Jay Z, Aloe Blacc, Drake, Nas and Kendrick Lamar.
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For additional Eminem coverage, watch the following DX Daily:
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